HOMILY FOR JANUARY 26TH Third Sunday after the Epiphany BEYOND THE CUBICLE Isaiah 9:1-4: Psalm 27 (UMH 758): 1 Corinthians 1:10-18 Saint Matthew 4:12-23 “To this day the fact remains that when a man is brought face to face with Jesus Christ, he must either hate him or love him; he must either submit to him, or desire to destroy him. No man who realizes what Jesus Christ demands can possibly be neutral. He must either be his lover or his foe.” -- William Barclay Telecommuting is a twenty-first century workplace phenomenon. It involves using technology to do your job from outside the office, usually at home, where you have access to computers, fax machines, and telephones. Instead of an everyday commute, mind-numbing staff meetings, and an eat-on-the-run lunch, telecommuting means not having to dress up, put on makeup, or shave. The federal government doesn’t track telecommuting, but independent studies estimated 51 percent of U. S. companies allow employees to telecommute at least some of the time. This twenty-first century way of doing business has definite benefits, but there are also dangers the chief of which is living and working in isolation. However, isolation is not just a danger for telecommuters; it is a danger for everyone who lives in our century and uses its technology, particularly a computer. It is a particular danger when you surf the Web for information instead of going to the local library, going online to order clothes instead of at the local department store and dealing with another human being, and a danger to those who fax a document instead of taking it in person. There is no doubt that technology has improved our lives; and there is also no doubt that it has helped to create an environment that minimizes interpersonal contact. Yes, technology has created amazing things and in the process made living easier, certainly more comfortable, and provided a means do to chores more pleasantly, but it has also created a milieu in which we don’t have to deal with other people. I’m a fan of the comic strips, and Dilbert, a parody on contemporary corporate life, is one of my favorites. Dilbert illustrates the hallmark of isolation in the work place, which is the cubicle. Mention the cubicle, and you get a picture of a corporate office subdivided into cubby-holes where people work alone. The isolation originally spawned by the cubicle is growing. Walk into a modern office, almost any modern office, and you see faces turned toward computer monitors, illuminated by a pale light emanating from a monitor. Those softly glowing screens are symbols that we no longer have to worry about messy face-to-face communication. Workers communicate cubicle-to-cubicle by e-mail and avoid face to face confrontations by participating in meetings on line. The cubicle means isolation. The cubicle phenomenon has also invaded the home. You can work at home without the bother of being around other people some of whom don’t practice good hygiene while others don’t know how to keep from gossiping. You don’t have to push a cart down the aisle of the supermarket. You may order your groceries online and have them delivered directly to your kitchen where the delivery person will even put them away. If you do go to market, you don’t have to make small talk with the cashier as he or she “rings up” your purchases because you can scan them yourself. You do your banking at an ATM. You buy books from Amazon and your clothes from L. L. Bean. Assisted by FedEx, UPS, and the U. S. postal service, you need not take a single step outside your house. You even pay your bills via the internet, eliminating the need to go in person to the utility company. Using e-mail and telephone, I keep in touch with my children. I get pictures of my grandchildren as soon as the pictures are taken. I don’t miss out on as much as a half-an-inch of their growth, and I can hear their voices whenever I choose. I use a computer to keep personal records in such an order that I can find whatever I need almost instantly. I use the same computer to check my bank balance, my Visa Card statement, and download information from the Board of Global Ministry or The Upper Room. At a moment’s notice with the flex of a wrist and the twitch of a finger, I fetch information from the Vatican Library in Rome or the theology library at Vanderbilt University. I have the means from the comfort of my home or workplace to find information on any subject that comes to mind. For example, we needed information about UMCOR’s appeal for victims of natural disaster. I boot my computer, pressed a few keys, clicked the mouse, and printed out the information in short order. I do not doubt that technology has lived up to the definition “the totality of the means employed to provide objects necessary for human sustenance and comfort.” It has made life easier and extended both the quality of life and the number of years we live. But we’ve lost something along the way. We’ve lost the ordinary little interactions of daily life, the mundane encounters that have no meaning in and of themselves but which add color to the fabric life—a chance meeting at the supermarket, a chit-chat on the sidewalk, a little visit with the neighbor while waiting in line at the bank. I do not believe God intended us to live without those little interactions. I believe God has in mind getting involved with people. I believe we are destined to look each other in the eye when we talk, to touch and be touched by them as messy as such interpersonal contacts might be. I believe God intends that we live life in community, to live beyond the cubicle. These observations about life in the twenty-first century bring me to the lessons from Holy Scripture which were read earlier in the service. Jesus began his ministry by returning to Galilee and taking up his life’s work which he prefaced by a walk beside the Sea of Galilee. Seeing Simon, Andrew, James, and John he summoned them to become part of his enterprise. The famous line in the passage is “I shall make you fishers of people.” This sentence is easily misunderstood because there is far more to it than “catching people” as a fisherman catches fish. The intent of becoming “fishers of men [i.e. of people]” was--as it still is--the formation of a community and particularly the creation of the church. Living in relationship with other people as we do, for instance, in church is risky busi-ness, so risky, so uncertain, that everyone at one time or the other gets the urge to go into a cubicle and wall up the door! Jesus once said, “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them.” This is true. It is also true that when two or three get together disagreements develop which often make living with other people difficult. The Christian congregation in Corinth wallowed in the mire of problems with each other. Like many modern churches, the Corinthian church was rent by divided loyalties, factions, and an abundance of cliques. In a world that offered options almost too numerous to count, they fought and feuded about those options with an uncommon gusto. The letter of 1 Corinthians is Saint Paul’s effort to help them heal their differences. We live in a world not especially different from Corinth. United Methodists as a denomination are torn by divided loyalties, factions, and cliques. We live in and among a veritable smorgasbord of “–isms,” philosophies, religious differences, and causes that clamor for and demand particular loyalties. One of our ministers says the township in which her church is located has five United Methodist churches, one in each tiny hamlet. A hundred years ago during the boom days of logging and tanning, the local population sustained those congregations. But because nearly a century of economic recession lowered the population by half, each of the churches struggles to survive. The best option, the pastor says, is to work together to become “fishers of people.” But when they make the effort to come together, they have to pick their way through decades-old feuds and fears. Even one of the most successful collaborations in which three conger-gations merged into one stumbled when divisions and concern about rank threatened to overshadow the gospel. The key to what Jesus asked of those four fishermen on the banks of the Sea of Galilee and which he asks of us is that we become engaged with people, that we plunge in and get involved in each other’s lives, no longer standing aloof from each other or the larger com-munity. This is to say Jesus asks us to tear down our cubicles and meet each other in the center of the room. We who are “fishers of people” are to roll up our sleeves and take our place in the mass of humanity; we are to live among and with the poor and the rich, the sick and the possessed, the powerful and the powerless. We are the people, as Isaiah put it, who walked in darkness but have seen a great light. We are the saved, the ransomed, the baptized. Therefore, don’t overshadow the glory of the God’s Good News by retreating into a cubicle. Because we are recipients of light, salvation, redemption, and baptism we have the calling and the strength to move beyond the walls of our cubicles into the larger community. I invite you be prompted by Jesus who put the premium value on people. He taught them, brought them the Good News, healed their hurts, and let God’s light shine into their darkness. Let us pray. Everloving God: You poured all that you had into the human flesh and blood of Jesus Christ. Immerse our hearts in your overflowing love, that we may risk living as a people touched by your grace. In the name of the One who risked everything for us. Amen (The Daily Office: A Book of Hours for Daily Prayer, “Advent through Season After Epiphany,” p. 270).
Posted on: Sat, 25 Jan 2014 14:49:50 +0000
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