About a year ago I decided to set a “Google-alert” for the word “Episcopal,” thinking that it might be a good way to keep up with church news while I was on a sabbatical. For the uninitiated, a Google alert will e-mail you any news or web postings that include your designated word or words. You are able to indicate whether you wish to receive your alerts all at once, at a specific time of day or as they occur. My alert has generated somewhere in the range of four to twelve postings throughout each day for the past year, all because somewhere in the article or announcement the word “Episcopal” appears.
The word “Episcopal” appears in a variety of headlines and news announcements but I have observed that there are some of the general categories. It appears most commonly in wedding and obituaries indicating the location of the service. It appears in the sports section for game reports of the many schools that bear the name Episcopal. Occasionally it appears in the name of a church that is announcing their annual strawberry festival or rummage sale or pancake supper. Often there is news of the election of a new Bishop or Rector for a diocese or parish. Sometimes there is a story of a new program to feed the hungry or help with affordable housing initiatives. Of late, however, there are an increasing number of reports of disagreements at the local and national levels of the Episcopal Church. Parishes are embroiled in legal battles with their diocese over land and property and orthodoxy and authority. And whole dioceses are venturing into uncharted waters as their leadership looks to align itself with Bishops outside the geographic bounds not only of their Diocese but of the country. It is a messy and complicated time for the people involved in those disputes in ways that the reports can barely begin to cover.
The news that is sent each day from my “Google-alert” is hardly life changing. And then there are those occasions when the news seems so grim that I am tempted to turn off the alert. Truth be told, I scan most of the headlines and delete them without even reading the full text. But I always find myself unable to cancel the alert and here is why. These simple “Google alerts,” just 4-12 each day, are a tangible reminder that there is indeed a difference between the church and the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of which Jesus speaks in today’s Gospel. It is much harder to find that news of the kingdom, of light dawning in the darkness and of the curing of disease and sickness. Much harder. Most of the news is about the maintenance of the church which is not always the same thing as the Good News of God in Christ — yet we have confused them for so long that we would be hard pressed to tell the difference.
The church is wonderful — whether by church you mean the people, the building or the worship and program. The church at its best provides a structure and a framework within which we can learn to proclaim the good news. For young and old alike, those who have been to church every Sunday since they were in the womb to those who are just finding church for the first time, the church is the best place to be shaped for ministry and mission. But church structure at national, diocesan and even parish levels are not always focused on mission. Not because they do not want to be but so much can get in the way. Maintenance takes time and can be distracting. And frankly some maintenance can be urgent. You cannot be shaped for mission in a church where the roof has fallen in or the heat has been turned off. And some maintenance can be holy work too that serves in the mission. And maintenance is just as important for old church buildings as it is for the old bodies that pray in those buildings. But maintenance cannot be our mission — either of a building or of these earthly bodies that we will one day shed. Maintenance as a goal is too narrow, too self-centered, too limiting of God’s ability to change us and the lives of all those around us. If we look for maintenance in the church and in our own lives of faith we will be satisfied with a faith that consists of Google alerts about pancake suppers and weddings. But if we look for the kingdom of God to come near, we will be never be satisfied until every disease and every sickness is cured, until every person knows the love of God.
Our Gospel lesson from Mathew is about that very mission and it provides us with a dramatic scenario of the urgency of the mission of Jesus. Right in the middle of their workday Simon Peter, Andrew, James and John all walk off the job to go with Jesus. Now I am not sure about where you work, but I am pretty sure that even those of us who work at Trinity Church we would be hard pressed to convince the Rector that Jesus was calling us to follow him in the middle of the workday — though I am slightly tempted to try it at our next staff meeting. And of course, the text would need to be changed slightly.
“And Jesus said to them, ‘Follow me and I will make you fish for people.’ Immediately they left their cell phones, computers, offices and security passes and followed him.”
Truth is that scripture offers us a sense of call and mission that is easily romanticized and therefore easily dismissed. Like a Jane Austen novel or an Ivory Merchant film, scripture is so tied to the culture of the time and place that we can dismiss both the sense of call and the sense of urgency as something that happened long ago and is nice to reread on occasion. So much of scripture is shaped by the culture that we can fool ourselves into thinking that important encounters with Jesus can only happen on a mountain top, or in a field of sheep or down by the sea with some fishing boats. Truth is, those are the ones that were recorded for us to learn something from but when was the last time you went fishing? Or herded sheep? Or ate your fill of bread and fish in a field? The truth is also that we each have our own encounter with Jesus in the places where we earn our living, or offer our time, or make our home. Ours will look very different from the encounter that Simon Peter, Andrew, James and John had on that distant shore long ago. But the message of hope, of good news, of light in the darkness and of the kingdom of God drawing near is ours to share this day for if we do not, who will?
In today’s story we are often left wondering about our own willingness to follow Jesus — no matter the cost or inconvenience. Would we be like the four fishermen, and drop our nets and leave our lives to go and follow someone we just met? I have always had a soft spot for Zebedee in this story who did nothing unusual one day yet his world turned upside down as his sons walked away from their nets to follow this man who yelled “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” I wonder what he thought of his sons and of this man Jesus. I wonder how he was able to haul the nets in at the end of the day all by himself. I wonder if he ever forgave his sons for leaving him or if he ever came to repent and believe himself? I wonder.
I wonder as well about Simon Peter’s wife who was left behind while her husband followed Jesus. She is not mentioned in this portion of Matthew and we are never told her name. We know of her existence because of the subsequent healing by Jesus of Simon Peter’s mother-in-law that is recorded in scripture. And last I checked, the only way one gets a mother-in-law is to be married. Zebedee and Simon Peter’s wife never got the chance to sign on for the trip around Galilee.
Maybe our willingness to follow Jesus is measured somewhere between leaving everything we know and staying put. And maybe that is what makes it all the more difficult and rewarding. We are given so many glimpses of the kingdom if we but look around — in word, in sacrament, and in one another. What more could we need?
So this morning my “Google-alerts’ arrived as usual. There were the requisite mentions of the word “Episcopal“ in a New York Times wedding announcement, and in an obituary. There was an article about a new Episcopal school opening in Virginia. There was a lengthy article about the challenges facing the Diocese of San Joaquin and its leadership — present and former. On the surface there seemed to be little about the good news of God in Christ. But maybe, just maybe, that is our work to do today — yours and mine. Ours to share the good news that the kingdom of heaven has come near. It may not make the headlines in the paper but this one thing is true — it will change the world.
Amen.
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