“abide”

It’s a curious way Jesus has about him – how he sets about calling Simon Peter, James and John, in these words from Luke.

Especially curious, when we contrast and compare this story of faith with the examples that are before us every day … examples of how the rich, the famous, people of standing and influence in business, media, politics … how they recruit, develop, cultivate a following.

We don’t have to look very far to see how it works.  We probably know the routine by heart … how “the game” is played.

If you want a following, if you want to be successful, a leader in your chosen field, what do you need?

Money.

Power.

Prestige.

And popularity.

Look successful.  Tell people what they want to hear … about themselves, and about you.

And you’ll have them in the palm of your hand.

It’s so clear, so easy, so straightforward to understand.

And so totally the opposite of the way God does things.

In all three of today’s Scripture readings, what’s perfectly clear is that the way of abiding in God … walking wet, with Jesus, awash in our baptism … comes not in the way that business, media, and politics frequently, usually work … no … but instead, abiding in God begins in a posture of … repentance.  In humility, and authenticity.

Repentance.  Being authentic, truthful about who we are, before God, and with each other.

Isaiah knows this.  As God comes to him, choosing him to send him … to call his people back to God … Isaiah approaches his new calling from a posture of … humility and repentance.

“I am a man of unclean lips,” Isaiah says.  Isaiah knows himself.  He knows his people, his friends, and family, and countrymen … “I live among a people of unclean lips.”  Yes.  It was true.  Israel, Isaiah’s people, they had wandered away from the way of God.

God’s way … God says, give preference to the poor, the powerless, the widow and orphan, those unable to take care of themselves.  But the Israelites chose instead to wallow in their wealth … to abuse and take advantage of the poor, to say that their poverty was just, plain their fault; God obviously wasn’t smiling on them.

The Israelites, plain and simple, weren’t following God.

But God wasn’t satisfied with leaving the relationship there.  God wanted to call his people back to him.

So who did he choose?

A man who said he had unclean lips.  Honest, authentic, humble, coming from a posture of repentance.

Isaiah, 745 BC.

And Paul, 65 AD.

Our New Testament reading comes at the end of this letter in which Paul was dealing with a contentious, conflicted, infighting Corinthian congregation.  Paul needed to remind this congregation – which he helped found – remind them of their roots, their heritage, from whom and whence they came – to get them back, back from following, caving to the culture; the wealth, the prestige and popularity culture of the day … back on track, back to the faith of Jesus.

And how did he choose to do this?  From a posture of repentance. Authenticity.  Being truthful and honest about who he was, setting an example for the Corinthians to follow so they could honestly, authentically, be who they were called to be.

“For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God … but by the grace of God I am what I am.”  Paul was being honest … authentic … repentant about who he was and what he had done.

To set an example for those who would hear this letter read to them.  An example which would remind them of the place from which their faith, and ours, is called from … acknowledging their shortcomings, their failures, their sins … made right with God only through the forgiveness and new life which came through the message Paul proclaimed to them … and proclaims to us … to which those Corinthians were called to return, to hold firmly.

To hold firmly … from an attitude of repentance.  On their knees.  Those Corinthians, acknowledging that they had it wrong, they couldn’t have been further from God.  And us, too, on our knees, when we start to think we have it all right, on our own.

Of course, that’s not a popular word.  Or one which goes with attracting followers in the usual way of things … with money, prestige, or power.

But it does go with the rabbi, the Son of God, standing beside the lake of Gennesaret.

A friend of mine, a pastor in Minneapolis, said that she was thinking about the Gospel for today … and of titling her sermon on this reading, this Sunday “How Jesus Wrecks Our Lives.”  I’m not sure if she used that title or not, but certainly, it works.

Let’s start with Peter.  Certainly for him … where he was, what he was doing … his life was wrecked.  No more could he stay a simple fisherman on the lake of Gennesaret … otherwise known to us as the “Sea of Galilee.”

Jesus’ instructions to him, to “put out into the deep water,” ended that forever.

It wouldn’t be the huge success in fishing … though that would certainly raise the eyebrows and suspicions of the fish brokers back on shore, the rich and powerful who controlled the fishing trade on water, much like the property owners kept the poor tenant farmers in check on the dry land.

No, when he pulled up those nets full to bursting, Peter knew that Jesus knew him … really knew him, for who he was … and he was afraid.

“Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man,” Peter said, on his knees.

Nobody likes being called out for who they really are.  Being shown forth, in the full light and truth of God.

It wrecks your life.

Wrecks your life built on success as the world sees it.  Drawing followers … and following others … based on wealth, power, prestige, politics … all the worldly markers of success.

For Jesus … abiding in Jesus … catching people, inviting them to abide in him … means something different.  Much different.

And it begins … in a posture of repentance.

Watch out Peter.  Watch out Paul.  Watch out Isaiah.

Jesus will “wreck your life.”

And he’ll wreck yours and mine, too.

Indeed, he already has.

I had the opportunity a couple of weeks ago to share with Pastor Nesse – our bishop’s assistant in our NW Washington Synod – a little bit of our “success story” here at Nativity, if you will.  Namely, how our giving and worship attendance has been on a steady climb over the past seven years.  In 2003 the average week meant 54 people in worship.  Today it’s close to 100.

Pastor Nesse – being the analytically minded, scientifically trained chemist from Washington State University that she is …her first career, before being a pastor … she asked me:  “What’s the congregation’s vision?  What’s your vision?  What’s the vision application?  What is behind this?  What are the steps which have caused this to happen for you, there, at Nativity?”

I had to think about her question for a while.

But the answer came.  I’m not sure it meets all those analytical parameters, but here’s what I wrote her:

If I had to categorize Nativity’s “vision,” I think it would include these:

Personal humility and a posture of repentance.

Authenticity – being who we are, and not what others want us to be … individually, and corporately, as a parish.

Gifts-related ministry – serving out of love, which is our strength and foundation.

Speaking the truth in love.

Culturally attentive … watching the signs, the data and the trends, and incorporating change when it is consistent and truthful with who we are … and not making changes when they mean, we’d be trying to be something we are not.

That answer … I believe it says who we are, and who we are not.  We do not and will not build this congregation on the earthly success model … what’s politically and socially popular, in the cause or style of the moment.  There are plenty of other churches around who would and will do that … and we’ve decided … quite a while ago, actually, that we’ll leave them to that, and wish them the best.

A theology of glory has its place.

It’s just not Jesus’ place.

No, we are who God has created and called us to be … people of the cross … a people who speak the truth, the truth about ourselves, others, our world, and our God … we speak the truth in love.  We are a people who admit, confess that we are also a people of unclean lips … among a neighborhood, a community, a city and state, nation and world of unclean lips.   The playing field is level … and all of us begin from the same place … on our knees.

That is what we are, and who we are.

And admitting it may sound like the least successful and prestigious thing we could possibly do.

But it is the authentic, humble, repentant thing to do.

Like Jesus, we start our ministry in our baptisms. Walking wet in God’s promise of forgiveness and life. Gathered together to hear his Word, to feast on his Word, to rejoice together in his Word.  And sent out in service, in that Word, into a needy world, not to judge or condemn, not to proclaim ourselves, but to bring Christ to and for what the world calls “least” … but those whom Jesus especially calls “mine.”

It is the right place to start.

Just look how far we’ve come, and just imagine where we might go next.

Leaving our boats on the shore … leaving behind all that stuff that proclaims us … and choosing instead, to proclaim and follow the Lord  … to pursue what is truly the best … catching people, in God’s truth and light and love.

Just imagine.

Amen.