Feb. 28, 2010
The Rev. Brian C. Taylor

One of my oldest and dearest friends is a Jewish agnostic – or atheist, she’s not quite sure – who recently told me that she had joined Freedom From Religion, a group that works for the separation of church and state. They fight against things like prayer in the schools and the use of public funds for religious purposes. They even take it further, putting up billboards you may have seen around town, with slogans like “Imagine No Religion.” 

My friend and I also spoke of Martin Luther King, whose holiday we were celebrating at the time, and how much we both appreciated the manner in which he brought his faith into the public arena. After all, he was a clergyman who preached from the scriptures about changing the hearts and the laws of our nation. He didn’t completely separate church and state. 

Our conversation came at a time when I had published an Op-Ed piece in the paper suggesting that Roman Catholic legislators not bow to their church’s pressure to conform, but vote their own conscience. Some who misunderstood me claimed I wanted the church to keep its nose out of politics. 

And about the same time, I watched our nation’s greatest religious festival, the Super Bowl, which now features not only the national anthem, but also the hymn God Bless America, accompanied by flag-draped cheerleaders and flyovers of Air Force fighter jets. 
 
What’s a healthy relationship between church and state? Do patriotism and religious faith belong together? Should religion be entirely limited to private matters and keep out of public debates on issues of the day? What’s the role of the prophet these days?  And why should I bring this up on the 2nd Sunday of Lent? 

Because our readings today reveal much about the relationship between religion and the state – an issue that is as alive today for us as it was thousands of years ago for Jews and early Christians. 

In our first reading from Genesis, we see the beginning of Israel’s fusion of religion and state. In a vision, God promised Abraham that his descendents would be as many in number as the stars above, and that these chosen people would be given a promised land. A God, a people, a religion, and a nation – all in one. 

To fulfill Abraham’s vision, the Israelites would conquer a people who already inhabited this “promised land.” They formed a theocracy, where Moses’ law was the law of the state. Eventually this affiliation became corrupt. Religion served the needs of those in political power, and vice versa. In the name of God, the chosen people were economically oppressed, forced to work and fight for the king, and woe to anyone who resisted God’s anointed leaders. 

By the time Jesus came along, 2,000 years after Abraham’s vision, the religious elite still wanted to hold on to some semblance of the old alliance between religion and state. So they compromised themselves in order to share limited power with the Roman occupiers. As long as they supported Rome’s interests, Rome would support theirs, even helping rid them of troublemakers like Jesus. They were violent men, extorting taxes and land from helpless people. They would do anything to protect their privilege. 

All of this was in the background when Jesus remarked, so poignantly, in today’s gospel Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it. Jerusalem, the city of God, had become the very place where God’s own messengers were rejected. 

This sad history is how it always evolves, wherever religion and state are unified. This is what brought us the Crusades, colonization, and church-sanctioned slavery. It is behind the oppression of women in Taliban-controlled areas of Afghanistan. And it is how Zionists justify themselves when they dehumanize and exterminate their enemies. 

In our own nation, it is what leads to attempts to take over local school boards by “good, Christian believers” so that they can ban books in the library. Or we get the “prosperity gospel,” where Jesus’ message is engulfed within the American dream of individual wealth. We hear it in sentimental, triumphalist country songs about God Bless America and kicking Muslim butt. 

The blurring of religion and state always corrupts both. It is always dangerous. But what is the alternative? Is it really “Freedom From Religion?” Is it to demand that religion slink away from the public arena, and confine itself to private spirituality? 

I believe that the alternative - the traditional, biblical alternative - is the prophetic stance. The prophetic voice is where faith and politics meet together, and are not blurred. 

The need for prophets arose when the nation of Israel became corrupt under the power of King Solomon and others after him. And so God sent Elijah, Isaiah, and Jeremiah. These lonely voices cried in the wilderness, naming the perversion of God’s ways by the state, risking their lives as they did so. 

Jesus was one of these. He was an unauthorized teacher and healer. He condemned religious law that harmed people. He gathered crowds without a permit. He spoke openly about how the religious elites, in bed with the Romans, lined their own purses with the suffering of the poor. 

Well, for all this, they may have killed Jesus, like they did to many of the prophets before him, like we still do. But his message rose from the dead with him, and has continued, so far, for 2,000 years. 

We may still have times and places where religion is blurred with the state, where we imagine that God sanctions our lust for privilege, violence, and domination. But we will also always have prophets. God will continue to send messengers into Jerusalem, no matter what it does to them. 

Now we aren’t all going to be prophets, in the sense of a fiery leader whipping up large crowds. Very few do that with much purpose that has anything to do with God. But each of us can be prophetic, in the sense that our loyalty is to God first, and consider everything else, including politics, fearlessly through that lens. We can be prophetic in the sense of not compromising the values of the gospel for the sake of getting along. It’s a matter of having a place to stand, a place that is grounded in Christ. 

This was Paul’s message to the church in Philippi that we heard in the second reading today. He wrote about some of those in the Christian community: Many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. I tell you this with tears. Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; their minds are set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven. 

We are worldly citizens of a nation that is, in so many ways, noble, prosperous, diverse, beautiful, and free. But it is not the kingdom of God. We are loyal to our nation: we pay our taxes, we vote, we support our laws and defend against our enemies. But this is not our primary loyalty. 

As Paul said, our citizenship is in heaven. Our primary and overriding loyalty is to Christ and his ways. That gives us real freedom. For when we know this, our footing is on an eternal foundation. Then we are free to live prophetically in this temporary world that we are just passing through. And we do so in the hope that in our short lifetime, we might tease God’s kingdom into the open just a little bit more.

St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church   
Albuquerque, New Mexico  
1st Sunday of Lent - Year C February 21, 2010
Text: Luke 4:1-13
Title: Pop-quiz or Wilderness Exam? 
Preacher: Christopher McLaren 

In Mark’s Gospel Jesus’ time in the wilderness sounds more like a pop-quiz. The whole test is contained in a few brief verses. “And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and angels waited on him.”  That’s it just these two pithy little sentences about Jesus’ wilderness exam. 

John doesn’t even include the story in his gospel, but Matthew and Luke both give us the longer version with Jesus going toe to toe with the enemy in a battle of wits and scripture quoting that makes a lot of Episcopalians uneasy. Jesus’ battle of wits with Satan points out some very important things.  Most importantly is that the answer “No” is one of the most significant spiritual practices you can ever cultivate in the face of temptation. 

So when Satan offers Jesus more of the things we are all tempted to run after more food, more stuff, more status, more power, more safety Jesus says no each time.  How is Jesus able to resist temptation? One might say he is a “Bible quoting fool” which I’m sure gives some of you the heebie geebies or at least makes you wonder about your own biblical literacy. More importantly the scriptures Jesus quotes tells us that Jesus knew much more that just what the Bible said. Rather Jesus’ life shaped by the biblical stories taught him who he was in relationship to God. To know who you are and to whom you belong to is the most powerful defense against temptation. He is able to say, “No” to food that will not satisfy his true hunger, “No” to self-worship instead of worship directed toward the living God, “No” to playing games with God instead of being in a relationship. 

Knowing who you are and whose you are is no small matter and in a real way it is the purpose of this Lenten season.  Lent is wilderness time, the Israelites spent 40 years wandering in the wilderness toward the promised land preparing for freedom by unlearning slavery and Jesus was tested in the wilderness directly after hearing that beautiful voice from heaven saying, “You are my beloved, with you I am well pleased.” 

Wilderness is important, no because we live in New Mexico and are surrounded by so much of it, but because in one way or another each of us has already been there. Maybe it was the wilderness of the Emergency Room after the accident or the look of the doctor as he delivered your test results, it may have been the empty feeling as you left the lawyers office in separate cars, the despair as you cleaned our your desk at work, or the sinking feeling when you saw the lights of the police car in your rear-view mirror. Wilderness comes in all shapes and sizes, and it is always personal. We all know what wilderness feels like, you look around for help, for comfort, for power, for food and water, for protection and all you see is the distant horizon broken up by scrub-brush and sand with the faint sound of the devil’s laughter in the air. 

Yes, I know most of us are not looking for a wilderness exam. Wilderness is not generally something you seek out, rather it is something that finds you, just like it found Jesus. But what we can say is that wilderness is the God-breathed opportunity to discover who and whose you are. Wilderness strips away the non-essentials offering the opportunity to see our life with a clarity of purpose that is difficult to experience any other way. 

Remember, Jesus was driven into the wilderness by the Spirit. It was in that wilderness with nothing to eat and no trustworthy friends to turn toward while being offered cheap ways out, that Jesus discovered who he was.  In the end, Jesus knew what it meant to be filled with the Spirit, he knew how to master his appetites, how to take responsibility for his own choices, he knew his purpose and how to make sure that he was not distracted by the myriad of easy and attractive escapes.  “In the end, Jesus discovered that the very Spirit that led him into the wilderness could be trusted to bring him through the wilderness (Barbara B.Taylor).”

So what does all this wilderness talk have to do with us? As one preacher put it, “The wisdom about the value of the wilderness is just about lost, …..lost to popular American culture for sure and lost even to the Christian tradition that is charged with preserving it.  Churches that still observe Lent may get a dose of it every year around this time, even if it is reduced to cutting down on how much you drink or putting a dollar in a box for every dessert you skip.  The kernel of the wisdom is still there: that anyone who wants to follow Jesus all the way to the cross needs the kind of clarity and grit that is found only in the wilderness (Barbara B.Taylor).”

Every year the wisdom of our sacred calendar offers us a period of wilderness from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday. It is a time when many people “give-up” things that they often enjoy, in order to put a little wilderness in their lives. At times that wilderness can seem awfully lush, like giving up red meat on Fridays in New Orleans when a shrimp Po-boy will substitute nicely. At other times the things people “give-up” really do seem to be life-altering, like a member who gave up email last Lent and really did it. Wow! Now that is a wilderness that would really change my life and irritate a lot of people. I’m tempted, yes tempted to walk into that wilderness not to see what it would do to me but what it might do for me. I can almost feel the desert sand between my wanna-be luddite toes. 

Now I realize that giving up email may sound rather extreme, I mean we don’t want to take this wilderness exam too seriously. But really perhaps you’ve spent a lot of time and money trying to acquire a spiritual life that really matters and lately you are not so sure that growth is really happening inside you.  Well that is where this invitation to a wilderness exam comes in. Why not decide to embrace the season of Lent, do a little spring-cleaning of your soul for the next 6 weeks. Do something counter-cultural and dare to do with less, practice simplicity rather than complexity, divest instead of acquire, slow-down instead of speed-up. These are sure pathways into wilderness.

Lent’s invitation to a wilderness exam is not trying to tell you that your life is worthless now or that you are a spiritual imposter. No, it is an invitation to strip away the non-essentials so that you can discover if the life you are living is the one you are really longing to live, the one that God is calling you into in that ridiculously hard to hear still small voice. 

So what will you give up for Lent that might actually lead you into a kind of voluntary wilderness? Only you know what kind of devil lurks in your life and what bag of tricks he uses on you over and over again. 

I’ve heard of people giving up their cars for Lent and using public transportation.  I read of a family last year that decided not to buy any more groceries during Lent and lived on what they already had at their house for 40 days rather nicely. What about giving up your cell phone or texting for Lent? The truth is you used to do without them. Can you imagine what that would do for some people? They might actually have to deal with the present, the now, the person right in front of them. What would it mean to cut up your credit cards for Lent? 

Maybe you think some of these ideas are crazy but the truth is that they are really not all that impressive if you were to think of them from the perspective of someone who is not sure where their next meal is coming from or who lacks adequate shelter and clothing.

The truth is that most of us know that we insulate ourselves from life all the time. We all have our drugs of choice, our anesthesia. And whenever someone decides to give up the, habits, substances, or things that keep us from really feeling the way our lives truly are, it is quite remarkable! 

So, what are you using, what is your life-numbing drug of choice? Is it surfing the web when you are lonely, crime shows on television, Facebooking, a nice sipping tequila to smooth out the evening, a mystery novel, the REI catalogue? Perhaps it is the fact that you stay late at work almost every single night. No, I’m not saying that any of these things are bad or the devil themselves but I wonder if they might not be the distractions you turn to over and over again when the Spirit is trying to lead you into the wilderness? It is just so easy isn’t when you are too tired, or too lonely or too sad to enter one of these temporary oases and miss out on the wilderness of God.   

What I’m proposing of course is not easy. It is what spiritual masters have called the via negativa, the way of negation for many centuries. And the fruit of this labor does not come quickly or easily. It takes time for this kind of spiritual discipline to bear fruit.  That of course is why we have 40 days of Lent, to practice, and practice, and practice.  Without the Internet or texting or television the night could seem rather long. You will be tempted to feel that things are not going well with all this wilderness adventure stuff that pesky meddlesome priest talked about. You may think you liked the forests of distraction quite a lot better as they offered so much more cover and protection from actually feeling your life. You may even wonder, “Where the devil is God in all this quiet?”

First, remember to breath, breath deep and easy and often. Sense the Spirit at work in you. Let your breath form prayers for your journey. In all likelihood you will make it through the first night without Law and Order or that cocktail or your Facebook page you are so comfortable with. It may take a while to settle in, to get quiet enough to hear your own breathing and to recognize the chatter of temptation behind it all. But in the midst of it you will discover that your life is speaking to you and you are alive in a new way to God’s Spirit. 

There will be fearful voices in you mind telling you that all this sacrifice is a waste of time. The devil’s of your life are sure to tell you that all this wilderness is going to kill you but the truth is it rarely does. In fact quite the opposite is true, it is only when we have stripped away the protective habits, lived in the quietness for a while and taken in the clean desert air that we begin to rediscover the scent of new life around and within us.

But of course I cannot tell you what your wilderness exam should look like. Only you know where to start your studies. I can only tell you that the pop-quiz is nothing compared to the real exam. Giving up of chocolate is nothing like listening to your life. I do know that the Lenten invitation to wilderness is worth the trip, for it is the way to discover that only God can satisfy our real appetites. The wilderness is a difficult place but just as it was for Jesus, the Spirit who leads us into the wilderness is also able to lead you out again, toward the hope and joy and trust that come from Worshiping and serving God with all your heart and soul and strength, in your real life.  So please clear off your desks and take out the No.2 pencil of your life for the invitation to your wilderness exam is here.

I am deeply indebted and thankful for the sermon of Barbara Brown Taylor on this passage entitled The Wilderness Exam that served as the inspiration for this sermon.  I’ve worked hard to make it my own and more importantly I hope to make the wilderness exam my own as well in this season of Lent. 

The Transfiguration
February 14, 2010
The Rev. Brian C. Taylor

Today we conclude the season of Epiphany. We began this season with light, as the star of Bethlehem guided the Wise Men to the light of the world, to the holy child in the manger. And today we end Epiphany season with light, as Jesus’ face and garments become dazzling white on the Mount of Transfiguration. 

Like Moses before him, Jesus ascended a mountain and there, he met God. Like Moses, Jesus was filled with divine light. And as with Moses, the vision was too much for others to bear: Moses’ shining face had to be veiled; a cloud overshadowed Peter, James and John, and they were terrified. Glory, dazzling brilliance, and awe. Heaven and earth are filled with your glory; hosanna in the highest!

The transfiguration is perhaps the most central symbol of the Eastern Orthodox churches. In it they see the ultimate transfiguration of all creation in Christ, where every living thing will live in harmony, shining like the sun. In it they also see their own personal transfiguration, the glory of God manifested in each believer. They make no bones about it – the goal of human life is to realize the glory of God. They call this a process of “deification,” becoming God-like.

That’s a pretty bold claim. We westerners tend to put God’s glory off a bit, at a distance: in the sunset, in heaven, in the second coming of Christ. We may catch glimpses of glory here and there, but after all, we’re only human. God is God and we are not. In fact, western theologians have always told us that we are completely sinful, utterly alienated from the divine. I don’t buy it. I think deification is close at hand; transfiguration can happen any time, to anyone. 

In Willa Cather’s Song of the Lark, an ambitious young girl in a small town in Colorado named Thea dreams of moving to the big city and becoming an opera star. She says to her friend, the wise old Dr. Archie “Living's too much trouble unless one can get something big out of it." When Dr. Archie asks her what that something big might be, Thea answers “I only want impossible things. The others don’t interest me.” Thea dreams of transfiguration. 

For several years, I’ve been involved with an Episcopal clergy renewal organization called CREDO. One of CREDO’s suggestions for clergy renewal is for them to pray and dream about what they call a BHAG – a Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal. A BHAG is something that is clear and compelling, difficult, almost impossible, requiring many years to achieve. One person’s BHAG was to compose choral settings for all 150 psalms. Another’s was to climb Mt. Everest. Another’s was to create a rural center for retreats and interfaith dialogue. Mine? I’ll get to that. 

Praying and dreaming up a BHAG can transfigure one’s life. It can come out of the realization that living’s too much trouble unless one can get something big out of it, perhaps even an “impossible thing.” And it can take one into uncharted territory, full of great risk and great potential. 

Maybe you have such a dream about your life. Do you ever think about what you would do, if you could do anything, and money or other practical considerations were swept aside for a moment? What do you imagine? And what makes you think that you couldn’t do this? 

I feel as if we here at St. Michael’s are in the process of living into a BHAG that has been years in the making. The flowering of ministries we recently witnessed at annual meeting, the tearing up of our parking lot to construct a $2m Ministry Complex, an 18-month process called ReImagine St. Michael’s – these are Big, Hairy, Audacious things! We are seeking a transfiguration of sorts, so that we will live into our full potential, shining with the glorious light of God. 

But as we dream, and as you dream about big things in your life, I want to remember something. Transfiguration isn’t just all about externals. Transfiguration isn’t just about climbing the Himalayas, developing a wealth of church programs, and constructing big buildings. After all, we know that it is possible to gain the world and lose our souls. 

Transfiguration can also be internal. Perhaps your Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal is to become filled with the light of God, as Christ was: to walk through your days in simplicity, with purity of heart and clarity of mind; to see God everywhere; to love without reason. Living is too much trouble unless we get something big out of it, but that something big might be an internal spaciousness and the ability to really feel life, in all its beauty and pain, and give yourself to it without reserve.

Mary Oliver, a New England poet, is, for many of us, one of the clearest voices for this kind of transfiguration. She writes: 

When it is over, I don't want to wonder 
if I have made of my life something particular, and real. 
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened, 
or full of argument. 
I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

When it's over, I want to say: all my life 
I was a bride married to amazement. 
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms. 

We can find this amazement, this spaciousness and feeling for life, this vibrant awareness. All it takes is a prayerful life. And as I’m fond of reminding you, Thomas Merton said, “If you want a life of prayer, you must pray.”  

And what is prayer? An ongoing desire for the goodness that surrounds and fills us; a tendency to open our heart to something beyond our little life; a willingness to trust and surrender into the presence that will always remain a mystery. 

For each person, this takes place in very personal, very unique settings. For some, it may be a walk in the bosque with your dog; for others, a conversation over tea with your best friend; or it may happen anytime you close your eyes, still the world, and feel your breath. Connection with God has the result of putting our forward momentum on hold, and opening us up to the beauty of life. 

When we do this, the ordinary is revealed as quite extraordinary. No matter what is going on, no matter where we are, the world lights up in front of us. Food becomes miraculous in our mouth; we see our companion as an incarnation of Spirit; and how did the sky ever get so blue? There is no need to look further for meaning. Everything is revealed. 

When we are reverently present, we get something big out of life. We are transfigured then and there -  not in some ultimate, permanent way -  but for that moment. The more we do it, the more familiar and accessible the route to this place becomes. Over time, we develop more space within us for God’s light. 

On this Mount of Transfiguration today we perch above the valley of Lent, which begins on Wednesday. Down there, we will soon recall our imperfection, our mortality. We will be invited to face into the personal and very specific obstacles that keep us from a prayerful life: shame, addiction, stubbornness, fear. In the valley of Lent, we will slowly clamber through, over, and around these obstacles, pausing along the way to bring awareness to each of them. We then give them to God as a humble offering, and open to the grace that will help us move beyond them. 

We need a vision before we begin this difficult journey, a vision of light and glory, so that we remember why we’re on this pilgrimage in the first place. We need the vision of the transfiguration. And in this vision, as St. Paul said in the second reading today, we see “with unveiled faces…the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror.” 

The glory of the Lord reflected in a mirror? How amazing -  it turns out that you are the one who is transfigured on the mountain top. That is your purpose in this short and precious life, your BHAG - to be a bride of amazement. 

St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church  
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Sunday February 7, 2010 Epiphany 5C
Preacher: Christopher McLaren
Text: Luke 5:1-11
Title: The Deep Waters of Following Jesus

This past week I had the deep privilege of speaking on the Senate floor to the joint committee on Public Affairs in support of the Domestic Partnership bill SB183 that is struggling to make its way into law in the State of New Mexico. If you have been following the news you may know that Fr. Brian wrote an editorial in support of SB183, Fr. Daniel spoke at a rally in Santa Fe, Deacon Jan has been to Santa Fe and many of our members here at St. Michael’s are actively involved in the support of this legislation. It was a moving experience for me as I sat in the chambers listening to heartfelt testimony about the struggles that my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters face in a society that has institutionalized discrimination against them and their families.  As I listened to the stories, the pain and vulnerability of their lives overwhelmed me. I found myself crying in the Senate chambers, overcome by the real human struggle that shapes their lives. Just across from me sat a Catholic priest and a Monk in his habit who were both there to speak in opposition to the bill. It was strange, almost surreal to be sitting so close to people with whom I share a common story, many core beliefs, even a priestly profession, but to be so far away from their way of seeing the world, their understanding of the compassion of Jesus.  I found myself smiling a lot thinking of what a good laugh God must be having. Look at my people, my friends, look how hard they work against each other, look how much energy they are wasting trying to keep the circle of the Kingdom small.  The kingdom is meant to be growing, expanding, gathering more and more people into its loving and reconciling embrace and they keep drawing the circle tight.” 

My mind wandered to the genius of C.S. Lewis’ book the Screwtape Letters in which a senior devil gives instructions to a devil in training about how to distract and ruin well-meaning Christians from really following Jesus. I thought of how perfect the debate on Senate Bill 183 would fit into Screwtape’s advice. Get those Christians fighting and arguing about almost anything, especially sex and they’ll be so busy bashing one another, loading up buses with protesters, splitting theological hairs, and denouncing certain human beings as unworthy of certain rights that they will forget all about the Kingdom of God. 

When it came my turn to approach the microphone I did something that I suppose you might think predictable. I talked about Jesus. I didn’t want the religious right to claim Jesus for their own, for he belongs to us as well. I told the members of the Senate that I was a follower of Jesus and that I believed that if Jesus were there he would be asking them to act out of compassion rather than out of fear. To have compassion means to literally suffer-with.  It means to recognize and pay attention to the pain and suffering of others and to do something to alleviate it if possible. I told them that I believe that the pain and hurt of the LGBT community is close to Jesus’ heart and that Jesus called them to a costly compassion. That he called them to make the beautiful choice of giving same-gender families their rightful legal protections rather than the ugly choice of fear and injustice.

As the day’s debate ended we learned that the SB 183 had in fact passed out of one committee only to be referred to two more committees including finance, evidently the kiss of death in a 30-day legislative session.  One Senator on the committee shared that she had heard bills like this 19 times in her 20 years in the Senate and that she hoped we would finally do the right thing and pass the bill. 

Returning to Albuquerque knowing that we had worked, and prayed and fought hard to respect the dignity of every human being, I couldn’t help but think of the phrase from this story of Jesus today that comes from the mouth of Peter, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing.” It is a phrase I had not really ever focused on as descriptive of the deep struggles of our lives. “We have worked all night long but have caught nothing.” How perfect that phrase is for big challenges that we face, battles that cannot be won quickly, struggles that do no yield easy results.  There are times when we just have to admit the difficulty of our lives, to come clean about Love’s labors lost. There are moments when we have to face the immensity of the struggle in front of us. 

What follows in this passage is worth lingering over. The second part of Peter’s answer is something I have always heard as a reluctant giving in, “Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.” However, from Peter’s reluctant yes comes a miraculous catch, nets alive with so many fish it seems as though the boats may be at risk of sinking. 
 
With the catch secure Jesus and Simon Peter are left alone in the boat full of fish. (This of course is one my seven year old son’s dream experiences). They have shared an experience that has created a special bond between them, the kind of friendship that is discovered in the midst of accomplishing something difficult together. 

In the quiet and exhaustion of the moment, Peter begins to recognize something extraordinary in his new friend. This young rabbi, has just bested him in a fishing contest. Peter’s response is un-nerving, he falls to his knees as a deep sense of humility overcomes him. He feels as though he is unworthy to be with this man, but at the same time he knows he would not want to be anywhere else. “Go away form me, Lord, for I am a sinful man,” he exclaims, sensing the holiness of the moment. 

Jesus’ response is compassionate, “Do not be afraid.”  Yes, something new is happening to you. you are changing, alive in a new way, but don’t fear, welcome it, don’t let yourself be paralyzed. A clear invitation comes, follow me for I have bigger things in store for you. 

This story is a word picture inviting us to follow Jesus. But what does following Jesus really mean? In the story it means doing what Jesus tells you, even reluctantly. It seems to mean that Jesus knows more about your area of expertise than you do. It means that in order to follow Jesus you must actually have the humility to follow. It means that you must trust that Jesus has more for you to learn by following than you have to learn by going your own way. It also means that you must see the attractiveness in following, that the beauty of Christ and the vision of God’s Kingdom are compelling. 

The trouble with this story of course is that it is about following and we have made such a god out of leadership and our own personal agency that following is somewhat suspect. We treasure our self-initiative, our self-confidence, our self-promotion so much, that following seems like an admission of failure.  I’m not sure that I can soften the blow. I can’t tell you that God wants you to be your own free agent. For following Jesus involves the considerable risk of binding yourself to Christ, as the baptismal rite says, “You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever. Does that mean that Christ owns you? Well, yes it does and you can try to say it in softer more acceptable ways but it means that you belong to Christ, not just to yourself. Perhaps it is helpful to put it in more everyday ways. I hear people say things all the time that amount to following a person: “You know I really trust her,” or “She is such a good person I would do almost anything she asked me to do,” “After all they’ve done for me I wouldn’t think of letting them down,” “Working for him isn’t work it is chance to really contribute and that makes it fun,” “I’d follow him into any battle he chooses because I know his heart is in the right place.”  All of these ways of expressing loyalty or a willingness to sacrifice on behalf of another illustrate something of what it means to follow Christ. 

This past week in Santa Fe I stood in the halls of power and told Senators and the public of New Mexico that I was a follower of Jesus. I have never done such a public thing in all my life, to proclaim in the public square that I am a follower of Jesus. You may think that walking around with a plastic dog collar around my neck makes me a follower of Jesus automatically. But I am not talking about implied following or guilt by association. I made the daring claim that Jesus was right there with me in the room, cheering me on, telling me not to be afraid, and urging the Senators to live lives of compassion rather than fear. 

To follow Jesus means that our lives are animated by Christ’s life, teaching, and ways, and perhaps most importantly by the Holy Spirit at work within us. It is a necessarily humbling path. There will be times when we have been fishing all night and caught nothing and Jesus simply tells us to “put out into deep water and put down your nets for a catch.” This is a beautiful image of the Kingdom of God. For the work of the Kingdom is not our idea, it is not our initiative, but it does invite us to do what Jesus asks, even if it is reluctantly. In all honesty our following of Jesus it is not about the results, for those we cannot be responsible, but we can take heart and put out into deep water and prepare for a catch. 

Sometimes following Jesus is really difficult. Sometimes it is hard to see clearly enough to really know you are following Jesus. The whole enterprise requires humility, discernment and a supportive community. That is one of the key reasons we are part of a community of faith. Each Sunday you are surrounded by others who are in their imperfect and wonderful and hilarious ways trying to follow Jesus. Each week we come here and read selections from ancient biblical texts that we believe the living God uses to speak to us, to grab hold of our lives, woo us into friendship, and claim us for God’s work and purposes. Each week we open ourselves up to God’s voice and prompting through prayer and song and Eucharist. Each week we launch ourselves on a journey toward the Kingdom God, hoping to catch a glimpse of the glory and follow it.

And that is what following Jesus really means, getting in over your head with God. Daring to go deep, so deep you will need to depend on God to get you through, because you’re your own resources are simply not enough, only God will suffice. Following Jesus comes in all shapes and sizes, it certainly is not always a large public proclamation, in fact it is more often the simple everyday demonstration of love and care that the saints all around you are up to each day of their lives. But what is certain is that following Jesus will lead you into deep water and in those waters the abundance of the Kingdom of God awaits.