St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church
Third Sunday after The Epiphany
Isaiah 9:1-14
1 Corinthians 1: 10-18
Psalm 27: 1, 5-13
Matthew 4:12-23
The Gifts of God
There was a time in my life when I was called to chair the Childcare Commission for the State of Oregon, serving two terms under three Governors. If you have visited my office, you will see a stuffed teddy bear there, proudly wearing his badge that says, Oregon Childcare. He was presented to me after my six years on the Oregon Childcare Commission, and he’s pretty precious to me and reminds me to stay awake, alert and to keep passionate about what I’m doing. He reminds me that to be passionate about one’s work is a gift from God and one to be fully embraced Neil Goldschmidt was the first Governor to appoint me to the Commission, and he told me a story that I never forgot.
It was a story about surveyors and a farmer. The surveyors had been hired to find the corners of a huge field. They had successfully found three corners of the field but, try as they might, with all their survying equipment, they just couldn’t find the fourth corner. An old local farmer happened to be passing by. So the surveyors, asked the farmer if he could help them out. He said sure, and so they directed him to let them know where the corner was, and to send them a bill for his trouble. So the farmer did. He found the corner and sent the bill to the surveyors. Well, it didn’t take long for him to receive a call from them. “How come the bill is so high and how did you get to $1,100 on your bill,” they asked. “Well,” said the farmer “It’s like this, that’s $100 for finding the corner, and $1,000 for knowing where to look.”
In last week’s scripture, Jesus put a challenge out to us, asking us “What are you looking for?” It’s a fair question and one we will be asking ourselves when we go into our Annual Meeting in a short while. What are we looking for? What is it that we value most in our communal life? Who are we looking to, in order to find it? Jesus brings the question down to the individual level, asking each one of us in turn, “What are you looking for?” What is it you value in life? What is the most important thing to you? And, perhaps even more importantly, “Why?”
What is your motivation for wanting to find something you are looking for? Fame? Importance? Status? To be first? To be best? Or, perhaps, to make a change for the better….do passionately search for the missing corner in your life. When the questions are answered correctly, they reveal truths about us that we sometimes don’t notice or hesitate to face.
Jesus knows, that if you are looking for God in all that you do and all that you seek…. you will find God and you will find what you are looking for. What you find is the truth about yourself, and you have the free will to enhance what you find, discard the answer you have found, run away from it, or face it down and make major changes in your life that God is directing you to change.
“What are you searching for?” asks Jesus. Some form of earthly comfort, some sort of quick fix….. or me?”
In a way, the question Jesus sets before us in today’s scripture from Matthew, is equally compelling and challenging and it brings up another great story told by Barry Bates, a long-time priest in Lake Michigan.
It’s anther story about a farmer from a rural part of the country. And this farmer comes to visit a relative in a major city. They’re walking down the busy and noisy main street, amidst the clamor and confusion and traffic and general hubbub of the city at rush hour. And just then, a fire truck goes by, siren blazing. And the farmer says, “Listen: I hear a cricket over yonder.” The relative — the carefully conditioned city dweller — replies, “How can you hear a cricket in the middle of all this?” The chirp of a cricket in the very core of a buzzing city — we can’t hear that, right? But the farmer, unfazed, says, “I figure you hear what you’re listening for.” And with that, he takes the spare change from his pocket and drops it on the ground. And at the almost imperceptible sound of a few coins hitting the sidewalk, children stop in their tracks, heads turn, notice is taken. (Says the farmer) “I figure you hear what you’re listening for.”
The point being…..Most of us would hear the coins and miss the crickets.
Jesus knows we see what we want to see, we find what we want to find, we hear what we want to hear. It’s easy enough on earth, but these are difficult concepts for us to consider when we view our spiritual priorities. We have to discern and decide not only what we think is important to us, we have to discern and decide what God thinks is important for us. What is it we are to look for, what are we to listen for? They are questions that lead us to consider what it is we value most in our community of St. Aidan’s, especially when we come to the time of our Annual Meeting.
The point is, there have to be considerations outside of ourselves if we are to enter into a communal purpose that God desires. We start by looking at from where we have come, where we are now in our current situation and most importantly, how will these questions inspire us to look to a future that will flourish and thrive?
When it comes to looking at our past, either collectively or individually, Jesus has provided us with a one-word answer, “Repent.” That’s pretty clear. Nothing ambiguous about that directive. Repent, because every one of us here have made mistakes, fallen down, not lived up completely to our true calling. Since we’re human, our propensity to fall into sin is pretty predictable. Our sins could mean a host of erring from our ways, from misplaced ambition, to absolute neglect and lethargy, watching our opportunities slide by.
Some people think to repent is to hit the ground hard, wear the hair shirt and just generally feel depressed about life in general, and especially about ourselves. But that’s not what Jesus want of us when he directs us to repent.
He simply wants us to have the guts to admit our failings and to try, try again to turn those failings into contributory wins.
Remember the story of Robert the Bruce, King of Scotland. It was the winter of 1306, and the king was forced to flee Scotland and was exiled to a cave on Rathlin Island in Northern Ireland. Legend has it that as Robert took shelter in the cave, he saw a spider trying—and failing—to spin a web. The creature kept attempting to swing toward a nearby rock and refused to give up. And Robert the Bruce learned from that spider, if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.
Jesus is telling us to keep on keeping on….”Get up and try again.” Repent. Our failings are always forgiven as long as we keep trying. It is when we make mistakes, that we learn, and most of us know pretty darn well just what it is we have to turn around.
In other words, don’t turn to simply look for the nearest situation or event or thing that you think is important to your happiness. Rather search for God in all that you witness and move through in the world. And rather than turning around to the usual sound of coins falling, try to hear the sound of the cricket…try to hear the sound of God’s voice amid the noise of the world.
And, if at first you don’t succeed, don’t beat yourself up and run for cover…..rather pick yourself up, and try…try…again.
Jesus is essentially saying, let go of all the nonsense, drop the nets filled with petty gripes, that teem with complaining or confrontations or victim-filled righteousness, and get up to follow after what is really important…walking humbly and confidently with your God.
This was true in the past and it’s true in the present. Jesus reminds us that the Kingdom of Heaven is here, in the now and we take that knowledge with us into the future. Jesus even gives us the direction He wants us to take. He gives us our work. We are to follow Him and he will teach us to fish for people. If we drop our nets full of our own hangups, misplaced desires, and selfishness, and follow Jesus, we will find our way to proclaim the Good News to people who are waiting to find out about how faith in God can change lives, even if it is unexpected.
It is the core of Jesus’ teaching today, and it is a timely scripture reading for us to digest as we prepare to enter into conversation about St. Aidan’s. There are certain responsibilities we have as Christian humans, in order to be able to fish for people. We have to keep the buildings in good repair, keep them attractive, and all the rest, in order to build up the body of Christ.
And we have to prepare budgets, and make reports and discuss achievements and failures in order to learn how keep the doors open so that people can find their way in. But we don’t do these things for ourselves.
While all these are important to keeping the house in order, and Jesus understands their necessity……He is reminding us that these things are not our mission…..they are not what Jesus is ultimately calling us to do… today or any day. They are not what Jesus wants us to listen to, not what Jesus wants us to value over everything else. Jesus wants us to be evangelists….fishers of people…to be keeping the home fires burning bright and warm, so that when people come they feel at home, safe and sound, found and comfortable……blessed.
When we allow all our worldly foibles to drop away, we free ourselves up to simply get up and follow Jesus. We recognize how marvelously we are made, and what amazing potential each of us holds within to accomplish the work Jesus is inviting us to accomplish.
With renewed faith and passion, suddenly we seem to know how to find the missing corner…the corner that was there all the time, if only we knew where to look. Suddenly, we seem to have the ability to hear a cricket that has always been sending out its sound under the din of the world, if only we stopped long enough to really listen for it.
Nothing outside of ourselves has changed. It is we who have changed. It is we who have adjusted our attitudes, our perceptions and our choices.
As Matthew said, “ The people who sat in darkness, have seen a great light.”
Or Isaiah, “there will be no gloom for those who were in anguish”
So come, follow Jesus into our Annual Meeting. We can’t pray the bills away if we don’t make the effort to find more money, we can’t pray for successful events, if no-one volunteers. But we can pray to God to help us work toward a unity of purpose, wherein each of us plays our part so that we can become a shining light of hope and salvation…the very gifts of God for the people of God.
Let us pray:
“Give us grace, O Lord, to answer readily the call of our Savior Jesus Christ and proclaim to all people the Good News of his salvation, that we and the whole world may perceive the glory of his marvelous works”
Amen
End
Written to the Glory of God
E.J. R. Culver+
January 26, 2020