Sermon for the Third Sunday in Epiphany

January 23, 2011

Matthew 4:12-23

I just attended my 17th annual diocesan convention, which in VA is called the annual council. Whatever you call it, a convention is a convention.

Lots of friendly conversation in the corridors outside the main assembly hall, and usually at least some grinding and gnashing of teeth on the inside.

Council is a chance to meet and greet friends from the far corners of the diocese, and to network, to speak in this web-lived age face to face with people you may have known for some time but never met. I think I enjoyed the company of my colleagues in ministry this year more than ever as we made our way through annual council. That may have been because I have gained some understanding at long last about that grinding and gnashing of teeth part of council I just mentioned. There was a lot less heated debate about issues this year than most other years, and the debate has shifted a bit so that this year the debates were at least on new topics.

All in all it was a good event, and before it was over, I found myself remembering my very first diocesan council and something that happened there that I had completely forgotten about. It comes back to me now as a sign whose meaning and gift I may at last be ready to comprehend. I think it came to me during bishop Gulick’s sermon at the eucharist on Friday. He said something about having to give up our nostalgic view of the past as we move into the future and it kind of set me to thinking. He sent me off as preachers sometimes will into a whole line of thought that may or may not have had anything to do with what he was preaching about. Before I knew I had gone back 17 years and there I was, watching Marie’s long walk to the microphone that fateful morning.

Now before I explain to you what happened, let me just say that I do have some appreciation for the pitfalls of wearing a skirt. It’s the sort of thing you just kind of discover, even if you are a guy, when you go to seminary. At some point you begin to wear a long flowing robe and to discover what kinds of things can happen if you aren’t careful. Many a seminarian has stepped on his skirt and stumbled headlong up the steps and into the pulpit at VTS. I had a friend whose beautiful, long, billowy English surplice inflated one day while he was leading prayers in front of two hundred students. He was kneeling at the prayer desk at the front of the chapel when the heat cycled on. Somehow his robe had positioned itself right over the vent, and when it filled with air he looked kind of like a large black and white bowling ball with a tiny head reading suffrages A from morning prayer. It was a memorable moment. Kind of surreal. These sorts of robing pitfalls I know, but what happened to poor Marie that day just seemed very unfair.

Marie and Edgar had been fixtures in the diocese as long as anyone could remember. Edgar was a vocational deacon, and Marie was very involved in diocesan business. Marie had gotten to the point where she moved kind of slowly, but slow or fast she was still a moving force in that little diocese and she didn’t mind speaking her mind. So no one was surprised when Marie got up to move to the microphone to weigh in on whatever resolution was being debated that morning. What did surprise pretty much everyone as she made her way to the front of that auditorium was that somehow--maybe she had just returned from a needed break, who knows, but somehow, the bottom back edge of her billowy, flowing skirt had ended up tucked into the waistband and the view from behind as she walked down the aisle drew the attention of everyone in the room. That may have been the quietest moments of the convention.

In those days the women at convention were badly outnumbered by the men, and the men were cowards. Not one of them was about to tackle the problem of Marie’s skirt. She made it all the way to the front before a couple of her friends managed to fall in behind her and deliver the necessary tug. Marie, thank goodness was a class act. She bore the story well, though it did linger for a while.

So there I was yesterday, taking in the proceedings of this latest convention wondering why that image had popped into my head. I was wondering too what I would preach about today. (There is often time for some personal reflection during committee reports.) I thought about the gospel for today and wondered if I still wanted to preach about the Zebedee boys and the others leaving everything behind to follow Jesus. I had been thinking about that all week. I had been thinking about asking you folks what you had left behind to follow Jesus, but I wasn’t real sure what my answer to that question would be, so I didn’t know if I wanted to go there. I thought about the business and the debates at every one of the church conventions I have attended, and about how those debates always involve leaving something behind and taking on something new. I thought about how when we debate which relationships we should bless, we are standing at a crossroads where we are being asked to head off in a new direction we don’t know much about. That seems to be true for other debates too, like how to fund the diocese, or whether to take a stand on some social issue. There always seems to be a tension between what has been and what might be. I used to wish we would come to the end of those debates, but I have come to understand that that will never happen.

Those of us who have chosen to walk with Jesus will always have to struggle with what we are called to leave behind. When Jesus calls us a part of answering that call involves figuring out what we can’t take with us.

I was struck in today’s gospel by the leaving behind. The disciples left nets, boats, even their father. This leaving an old life behind in order to take up a new one is a theme running through all of scripture. Adam and Eve, Abraham, Israel, The prophets, Jesus, Peter, James and John, all of them took to the road with God, leaving behind everything they had known. They all set out to follow the one who would lead them to a place they had never been before. With few exceptions there was no looking back. Israel in the desert complained about the good old days in Egypt, which, if you remember the story, were not good old days at all. The message of all the great stories in our tradition is that we are called to take up the path and move forward with no thought for what is behind us. ……….which of course, brings me back to Marie. Called forth into the debate, she pressed forward with no thought about what was behind her. If only we could all be so single-minded in our discipleship.

I think what changed for me in council this year is that I came to understand that we will never finish the work of learning how to leave some things behind in order to take up the new path. We are, I think, called to live in the tension between the call and our desire to hold on to what we have. It is in that tension that Jesus speaks to us, works with us, helps us learn what really matters.

I think we are probably called daily to leave something behind, and maybe part of being on the road with Jesus is learning to recognize that ongoing call in our lives. Maybe you can name some of the thing you have left behind to follow Jesus. Maybe you have a sense of what you will have to leave behind if you want to travel farther. Anger, resentment, love of comfort, the need for control, security, fear of not having enough, the need for approval, the belief that maybe we aren’t really worthy of Jesus’ companionship, the fear of discovering our true selves, those are just a few of the possibilities that come to mind. We may have to wrestle with some of those all our lives. We may also be able to look back from time to time and realize that some things have been left behind and forgotten. There is a joy and freedom that comes from realizing we have forgotten about some things we didn’t think we could get along without. In those moments we can give thanks to our companion in the way whose call has set us free. In those moments we find hope that on this path we will learn to lay down even more of our burden.

This leaving something behind to take up the new path isn’t only for individuals. Bishop Gulick was talking in his sermon about congregations. He said one of the things congregations often struggle with as they try to move forward is a nostalgic memory of the good old days. The call, even for congregations is to go toward a place we have never been. The workshops I attended this weekend had to do with meeting people where they live, with taking the church into the world, into arenas like facebook and twitter. This cradle Episcopalian is being called to leave behind some perfectly good, but outdated ideas about what church should look like. Maybe that’s my answer to the question I was going to ask you. I am called to leave behind at least some of what I have held sacred about church and worship over the years. And now that I have an answer I don’t feel so bad about asking you. You can take the question home with you. Think of it as homework, or even your life’s work. Put simply, the question is this. What do you have to leave behind in order to follow Jesus?