January 26, 2003 sermon by Carol Mumford

In Out of Africa, Isak Dinesen tells a story about her Kenyan cook, Kamante:
One night, after midnight, [Kamante] suddenly walked into my bedroom with a hurricane-lamp in his hand, silent, as if on duty. He spoke to me very solemnly. "I think that you had better get up. I think that God is coming." When I heard this, I did get up, and asked why he thought so. He gravely led me into the dining-room which looked west, toward the hills. From the door-windows I now saw a strange phenomenon. There was a big grass-fire going on, out in the hills, and the grass was burning all the way from the hill-top to the plain; when seen from the house it was nearly a vertical line. It did indeed look as if some gigantic figure was moving and coming toward us. I stood for some time and looked at it, with Kamante watching by my side, then I began to explain the thing to him. But the explanation did not seem to make much impression on him one way or the other; he clearly took his mission to have been fulfilled when he had called me. "Well yes," he said, "it may be so. But I thought that you had better get up in case it was God coming."

Looking at that experience, I was reminded of Dr. Philip Yancey's
reflections on his aquarium. He explained that he learned about incarnation when he kept a salt-water aquarium. Management of a marine aquarium, he discovered, was no easy task. He had to run a portable chemical laboratory to monitor the nitrate levels and the ammonia content. He pumped in vitamins and antibiotics and sulfa drugs and enough enzymes to make a rock grow. He filtered the water through glass fibers and charcoal, and exposed it to ultraviolet light. "You would think," he reflected, that "in view of all the energy expended on their behalf, that my fish would at least be grateful. Not so. Every time my shadow loomed above the tank they dove for
cover into the nearest shell. They showed me one 'emotion' only: fear.
Although I opened the lid and dropped in food on a regular schedule, three times a day, they responded to each visit as a sure sign of my designs to torture them. I could not convince them of my true concern."

To Kamante of Africa-it was the approaching fire he saw as God-and to Philip Yancey's fish, it was Yancey who was the deity! The situations were simply too incomprehensible-too large--for the beholder's eyes in each case, at least from our own limited perspective.

So we can only imagine what a time our God must have had as he wrestled with how to present himself more clearly to all humankind-- our God who knows us better than we know ourselves and who, in His ultimate love, wanted us to know Him better.

We're in the season of Epiphany now, a time in our churches when we have ever so closely examined the birth of Jesus, ever so closely examined the setting into which He was born. and now find ourselves in the period where the wise men become wiser.

But let's look again at that setting of Jesus' birth that was the whole
beginning of the context for today's scripture. First there was Roman
oppression, so the people were clamoring for freedom. Yet the Greeks exerted a heavy influence on the people's culture and thought. One of the main characteristics of that Greek culture was "hero worship." The Greeks had Pericles, Sophocles, Plato and Aristotle, plus all their gods and goddesses, so, of course, with their influence, the people of Israel were looking for someone to worship, someone to 'save them.' Healing and health concerns were other major interests of that time, so people were looking for better ways to take care of themselves. They also now had ways to better communicate, with improved roads and more hospitality. and they had John the Baptist, who told them to expect a Messiah!

So the question for us then becomes-was Jesus coincidentally born at such a time, and because people's needs were so great He also became great-or-was God's timing so marvelously placed, because God knew that God's people would have the ultimate receptivity at such a time and culture as this, for God's unbelievable miracle of creation of a divine-human person to whom we could all relate-one who would bring freedom and life and health and care and justice and peace, as a result of that impact He would have on such a needy
world? Yes, Jesus who, in fulfillment of time, would come to pass on His leadership to a small band of followers that would be left with the
possibility of changing the world for the whole future, as a result of that
beginning major impact that Jesus himself had created by that time. What a testimony of our God's love for all humankind!

And now-in our scripture for today, it is that leadership, begun by Jesus, that begins to be passed on that it might spread to the whole world. It takes place in Galilee, right after John's arrest, when Jesus himself says, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news." He further says, "Come, follow me," to four men in our scriptures-first Simon Peter, then Andrew, then James and John, the sons of Zebedee. The first two had been actively throwing their nets and the last two were mending their nets-doing just preparations for fishing-but they were all fishermen. Jesus, walking along the shores of the Lake of Galilee, we are told, enlists fishermen to follow him and therefore share in the perpetuation of his ministry!

Clearly, these are just ordinary men! Anyone can fish-it didn't take any
special skills to learn the trade--and many did, of course-so why?
These four men had not received the finest education, they were not wealthy, they did not have extensive influence in their communities. Why would Jesus, the great Messiah, choose such ordinary people as fishermen for his first disciples?

Or-is this simply another brilliant move of our God's in his attempt to show love and bring help to a needy world, a world ready for change and anxious for some "good news"? Do we, simple as we are, need to acknowledge that God knew exactly what God was doing every step of the way?

Folks, if God can use such ordinary and unlikely people as fishermen to become the major leaders of this new way, as we now know happens from the "rest of the story," then there's hope for each of us! And maybe we should look just a little bit closer at fishermen, to see if, in their ordinariness, there isn't something more special that we should notice about this segment of society. Paul Quinnett, author of Pavlov's Trout, believes we can learn something about hope from fishermen. He writes, It is better to fish hopefully than to catch fish. Fishing is hope experienced. To be optimistic in a slow bite is to thrive on hope alone. When asked, "How can you fish all day without a hit?" the true fisherman replies, "Hold it! I think I felt something." If the line goes slack, he says, "He'll be back!" When it comes to the human spirit, hope is all. Without hope, there is no yearning, no desire for a better tomorrow, and no belief that the next cast will bring the big strike."

So I would suggest that leads us to a conclusion that maybe Jesus could not have selected any persons better than those fishermen to be his first disciples, those who would become fishers of men. Perhaps He saw these men as the most open, the most hopeful of their time-as people who would not get discouraged in the midst of defeats that He knew would come. At the same time, they were people who knew and lived a simple life, and that, in their responding to Jesus' call, and choosing to follow, they already knew and trusted Him. Fishermen share their stories of "how they caught the big ones," and this sharing represents their eagerness, as fishermen, to learn better ways to do their occupation. They are willing to learn, another trait that Jesus recognized and wanted in those who would follow him. The fishermen were not fearful. They were used to taking risks, which this surely was. They didn't hesitate; they didn't look back. They went forward boldly with Jesus as their leader into a world of unknowns. Perhaps, more
than we could ever know, our God is a God of possibilities, of potential.

Some who were present way back at the time of our scriptures might say that Jesus took quite a chance with the people He chose. Our scripture today only includes the first four, but there were 8 others of other diverse occupations, and we know their stories were varied, because they even include Judas who became the traitor. But just to take one example, and we could do this with others of the disciples, too, of course, but let's just look at Andrew (Simon Peter gets more publicity, usually, so Andrew's a good and different choice).

The disciples were instructed to carry on Jesus' ministry, and Andrew was a virtually tireless follower, with a long record of healings of disease, sin and death, even to the raising of 39 dead sailors washed ashore from a shipwreck. Mighty things happened with the simplest word of Andrew's. Early tradition says that he went to the land of cannibals, located on the southern coast of the Black Sea, inhabited by pirates. He also figures as a missionary to Russia and as the Patron Saint of Scotland! The Byzantine Orthodox Church claims Andrew as its founder. He was eventually martyred for his faith.

Andrew, like all the saints of the church, became mixed together with
martyrs, misfits and servants. For, as Andrew, Simon Peter, James and John led, so many followed and then many of those in turn led as they followed and influenced others, in turn, to also follow and lead. for it is the followers who become leaders as they become agents of change. and are then, themselves, changed. So that the faith that grew as Jesus chose and sent his disciples comes down through the centuries to us, with the message of "Come, follow me," being presented to each of us each day in all that we are and do. We recognize that each of us are in the same situation as each
disciple was in the early days of Jesus' ministry in Galilee. Daily, indeed hourly, even every minute of our lives, we are given the choice to respond to Christ's calling in our hearts and in all the actions of our lives. The call given to each disciple is the same call we receive, over and over. As ordinary people, we, like those early disciples, are wanted and needed to bring about the kingdom of God on this earth. We, too, are asked to be open to God's working within us, and to be learners of that which He would have us know and do.

We're in a strange world today. People do all kinds of things to adorn and dress up their outer bodies, things even beyond the clothing, jewelry and make-up that is familiar to most of us. Body Art trends, as they're called, now include tattooing most anywhere on the body and various kinds of body piercing, such as in navels, ear lobes, noses, and other more unmentionable places! But all this is only for appearances!

I submit a much better Body Art for each of us to consider is that community we all become a part of when we choose to become disciples and follow Jesus Christ. It's been said that, perhaps the greatest of Christ's miracles may have been the transformation of the l2. Think what a vision of the Body of Christ can be birthed with each of us responding to the call our Lord gives to us, "Come, follow me." Body Art then becomes a new creation in the kingdom, to fulfill the scriptures and all the meaning of Jesus' life while He was here on this earth. Body Art is the ever-more beautiful "good news fulfilled" that responds to a needy world with love, compassion, and justice, because there are those of us who choose to live our lives more
fully as disciples of Christ-and because the needs are there. Body Art is kingdom people living out their lives in all the fullness of Christ as He would have us, causing us to sing out with great joy in unison with that great cloud of witnesses that have gone on before us-the saints, the martyrs, the misfits, the servants-- and with all the Body of Christ
throughout the world. Body Art is all of us working together in this
church, through a process of internal change, to love and care for each other while reaching out ever more completely to those who are hurting and suffering, that the world might then be transformed. Let's together create a work of art and make this body beautiful!

Amen.