Jonah 3:1-5, 10 Mark 1:14-20 I got home from the ER at 2:30 this morning. My hubby has a large gallstone which apparently caused to much pain to handle at midnight last night. I am hoping that the week of wrestling with this text and the fact that I am using a bit of a football analogy will work together to make this not be a sermon folks leave feeling I was half asleep as I did it. Feel free to pray for me. I really wanted to start this morning off with the song “Dropkick me Jesus through the goal post of life”. https://youtube/watch?v=SO5Y1OuQIxo (I think the link is at the end of this post) Still not sure If I will get that figured out yet or not. It is a way to start the morning with a little levity and yet, open up the thoughts about what it means to follow Jesus. Here’s how the song begins…. (imagine me singing..poorly) Dropkick me, Jesus, through the goal posts of life End over end, neither left nor to right Straight through the heart of them, righteous up rights Dropkick me, Jesus, through the goal posts of life Make me, oh, make me, Lord, more than I am Make me a piece in Your master game plan Free from the earthly temptation below Ive got the will, Lord, if You got the toe. Now the song is kinda cute and if I am lucky, it will be stuck in your head all day. Maybe, just maybe it will make you think about the rest of the message. However, What Bobby Bare sings of in this song is very different than the message we get from Jesus in our gospel or even from God in the encounter with Jonah. Consider Jonah. The first lesson this morning is a very small part of a very BIG FISH story. (like the pun?) Jonah gets the good word from the Lord to go to Nineveh and tell them that God is not happy with the way they are living. Jonah wants nothing to do with it so he runs. Jonah gets on this boat to go the opposite direction from where God has called him, but… God didn’t like that much so he causes a great storm. The folks on the boat are trying to figure out what to do to keep themselves from drowning at sea in the storm. Jonah knows God is mad at him and confesses that it is his fault and they need to get rid of him and they do. Jonah is thrown overboard, likely thinking that he would die for having disobeyed God. But nope, God sends this great fish to swallow him up and give him a nice ride in its belly. And the final port? You guessed it. Nineveh. Jonah is spit out on the shore and heads into town. The text this morning doesn’t tell you that part of the story. Then, as we read in the morning text, Jonah goes to Nineveh and proclaims that the Lord is not happy with them and that God is going to wipe you out in 40 days. The people listen and they change their ways. And God changes his mind. BUT….. As Paul Harvey would say, here comes “The rest of the story”. Jonah confesses that he didn’t go to Nineveh because he knew that if he told the people what God had said and they listened, that God, being a gracious God, would spare them. It doesn’t really explain what Jonah’s beef with the people of Nineveh is, but for some reason, God sparing them did not make Jonah happy. Jonah is not a willing participant in God’s plan. Oh, maybe on some level he is but, God had to do a great deal of pushing to get Jonah to do what God needed done. In the opposite end of the spectrum of being called by God, we have the story of Jesus calling the disciples. Jesus comes up to the water where Peter and Andrew are fishing. In both Matthew and Mark, Jesus simply tells them to come and follow him and he will make them fish for people. Luke goes a bit deeper and tells us that Jesus Spoke to a crowd on the beach and then had Peter and Andrew go out into the sea to catch fish when they hadn’t caught anything all day. They did as he asked and they caught more fish then then could handle… then Jesus said “Come and follow me”. Either way, there was little more from Jesus then to say come and follow me and these men dropped their nets and followed. They gave up the only life they knew to follow Jesus. Jesus didn’t have to threaten them with their lives. He invited them. Something about Jesus had to be amazing. Scripture doesn’t really tell us what it was exactly that grabbed these first disciples, but Jesus said come and Follow me and they did it. They gave up everything they ever knew as a livelihood and trusted Jesus. To finish off the “Drop Kick me Jesus” connection: The reality is that sometimes, in order to get God’s work done, there is some drop kicking that goes on. Sometimes even I feel like I need to be dropkicked a bit. You know what I am talking about. We get in those places in our lives where what we want in life and what God wants from us do not mesh up real well. We have a plan and God doesn’t seem to be doing things the way we want them done. To be pushed, through life circumstances or by people of faith around me giving me a serious reality check, God does do some drop kicking now and then. It is a bit uncomfortable because it is not what we want, and sometimes, we may even find ourselves out there under a tree pouting that God did not do things the way we wanted them to go. Our reluctance and our selfishness keep us from truly experiencing the joy we can have when we follow Jesus. Being a disciple of Jesus Christ isn’t about going to heaven. Being a disciple of Jesus Christ is following the Savior of the world into a life that may be very different than we have imagined; certainly different than our culture would have; and finding joy in the way God changes not just our own life, but the lives of all those people we encounter…. Even the ones we do not like very much. This is another one of those days I really wish we had a projection system in our church because I would love to use a projection system to do a “football play diagram”. You know what I mean. Before the days of tablets, coaches had big chalk boards or white boards and would draw the plays out during a time-out to be sure everyone knew what their job was. I want to do that today. But since I do not have that, it will have to be done in your heads. Imagine a diagram of a football stadium with the parking lot on the outside, the stands, the sidelines, and the field. Today, we are going to use this diagram to consider where you are when it comes to answering Jesus call to follow him. Again, it isn’t about going to heaven. This is about what role we are willing to play in bringing the kingdom of God here and now. So, as people of faith we start in the parking lot. This is where the fun begins. In any professional football stadium, there will be hundreds of people out in the parking lot, flashing their jerseys and having a great party. We call it tailgating. So if we are in the parking lot of discipleship, we are people who have chosen a team. We believe. We believe in Jesus Christ. Something about what we have heard about Christ, or someone who is a disciple of Jesus Christ has touched out lives and we are excited about the idea of being a part of this team. To be in the parking lot tailgating doesn’t really take much of a commitment. We get to go and have a good time. We celebrate the team win or lose. There is no real investment, especially if we were brought to the parking lot by a friend. We didn’t even pay the admission to the parking lot. There is nothing wrong with being in the parking lot. It is good that we can look at following Christ and feel like to do so will be a good time. We experience that good time when we attend gatherings or concerts. WE feel God’s presence when we are gathered with these people, but, we are not quite ready to make any deep commitment to the team. If things start going wrong with the team, if life doesn’t go the way we think it should, we may even stop coming because what is there to celebrate when the world I live in is going to Hell in a hand basket? No deep commitments. I just believe and want to have a good time. Then there are those folks who have sacrificed the cost of the ticket to come to the game. I am not just a fan. I am serious about this. I have paid the price of admission and I will stick with this team through good and bad. These are those disciples who have seen that following Christ does ask for an investment. To follow Jesus isn’t just about fun and games. It is important to get involved from time to time. So when someone calls and asks for help with the spaghetti dinner, I will donate supplies. I will be there to encourage the programs. I am in. I don’t have to do any training to be a committed fan and supporter. I just have to be faithful and available. Every football team needs great fans. The Christian faith gains a lot from these fan sort of disciples. They tend to be faithful and present even when things are not great. They are there. But, they are not all in. They don’t have to spend too much time in study. I will leave that to those who teach or those who preach. I will just be here to support and encourage and cheer the faith on. Then there are those guys on the sidelines. These folks have made a commitment. They have given up a lot to be on the field. They work and train hard and they are not likely getting a lot of attention for what they do. Believe it or not, in the game of discipleship, these players on the sideline are so incredibly important. These are the people who have given up their time to be involved in studying scripture. They are willing to sacrifice a lot to be sure the Church does well and the ministries of the congregation are supported. They sacrifice time and money and they are more than faithful. Even when they are not playing, they are the ones who make sure that those “in the game” have what they need to get the work done. You have to be willing to do all the work and training that the disciples on the front line do and yet, you are seldom recognized. These are the disciples that most of us become. The reality is that not everyone is called to be on the field. Not everyone is called into fulltime ministry. Not everyone is called to be a missionary in foreign lands. But we are all called to drop what we are doing and leave what we have in order to follow Christ. That is why so many folks never get out of the parking lot or the stadium. When we are called to follow Jesus we are called to let go of the desire to better myself, and focus on what it means to better the world for others. We are called to stop looking at life in the same way that the world tells us to, and begin to think about what it means for all people to experience the grace and love of Jesus Christ. The society has such a hold on us that the idea of living my life so that OTHERS may have justice and peace and love in their lives, not worrying about what that means for me, is too great of a sacrifice for most people to make. And so, they are not going to be on the field on the sidelines. They will be content being in the parking lot for the parties, or in the stands cheering others on. Finally, there are the starting players. Those folks who everyone knows their names. They are the ones who have thousands of fans out there with Jerseys with their names on them. These are the folks who are called to be key players in the game of faith. This is what Peter and Andrew and James and John were. These are the ones called to be on the front line of the game. And that is where the analogy ends. In football, these star players are paid quite handsomely. They are honored as heroes and they are loved by most. That isn’t the way it is in the game of discipleship. Those who are called to be on the front line of discipleship have to give it all up. They have to be willing to lose their lives in order to gain life for the world. Like a star athlete, there is practice that goes into being a disciple. We have to be willing to take some hits and get hurt a lot. We have to be willing to do whatever it takes to make sure the name of Jesus Christ is shared in love and grace. And sometimes, that means walking away from the life we know. Sometimes that means giving up what is easy for us. For the star disciple, their words are never self-serving. Their desire is never for personal gain. To be a star player means to give it all up-walk away from your nets and onto a field that is desperately seeking to share the love of God found in Christ Jesus with a world that is desperately in need. God can drop kick us into to doing what God wants done. He did it with Jonah, but even as God used Jonah to save the people of Nineveh, Jonah found no joy in serving. Jesus calls us to a new discipleship. One in which we drop what we know of this world and jump into a life centered on the love of Christ Jesus. This new discipleship isn’t just about having the joy of the Lord and partying in the parking lot. This Discipleship is calling us to give it all and follow. We will take the hits, we will fall down and be torn apart from time to time. But Jesus is calling us to get on the field and follow. If you are in church, you have at least found your way into the stadium. But Jesus is calling you. Calling you to more. Jesus is asking you to drop what you are doing and to get on field. It won’t be easy, and sometimes it won’t be a lot of fun, but discipleship is bigger than fun and warm feelings. Discipleship is knowing that God will use even you to touch the lives of a hurting world. You may not be a star player, But you are still being called onto the field. Are you willing to do what it takes and get in the game? Jesus is calling each of us to drop our nets, leave our families behind and follow. What will it take for you to listen? AMEN
Posted on: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 14:33:53 +0000
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