Big Talk

Text: Jonah 3:1-5, 10
Other texts: Mark 1:14-20

Someone said this past week that one thing that Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama had in common was their intense belief in the power of words.

Martin Luther had the same belief. Luther was a preacher and a teacher. It is hard to preach or teach if you don’t think anything you say makes a difference. Luther said quite a few things. His collected writings, sermons, and other talks fill up a fifty-two volume set of books. I’m sure that Luther loved to talk, but I’m equally sure he loved to talk because he thought that words were a force to transform his world, a world that needed transforming.

Jonah did not believe in the power of words. But he was later convinced. Jonah was told by God to go to Nineveh and speak to the the people there. Proclaim to it a message that I tell you, God says to Jonah. God moves Jonah to action. God moves Jonah to action by saying things to him. He doesn’t poke him with a stick or pull him along with a rope. It is the word of the Lord that makes Jonah go down to Nineveh. God’s words to Jonah are powerful, and by speaking them, God prevails on Jonah to do what Jonah doesn’t really want to do at all.

What Jonah does not want to do is to speak powerfully to Nineveh. But he does. In forty days, he tells the Ninevites, things are not going to be so good around here. And, to Jonah’s surprise and annoyance, the people repent. They change their ways. A whole city is transformed. The whole city fasts, and the whole city starts wearing scratchy clothing. The whole city is transformed. And when God sees what the did, God changes God’s mind. God changed his mind, the passage says, about the calamity that God had said he would bring upon them; and God did not do it.

Jonah’s words were powerful. They changed the world. Jonah was not happy. He had wanted his words to be weak and puny, and to change nothing. Jonah really wanted to see Nineveh get it. Right after this in the story, Jonah sulks about this and complains to God. But the good has already happened, on account of Jonah’s words.

God’s words are powerful. In the book of Isaiah God says

“As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”

Maybe not all words are as powerful as God’s, and maybe not all our words accomplish what we desire, but they are pretty powerful, and they accomplish much.

Words are like filters or lenses. They make sense out of what our eyes record. They make things distinct, separating out the trees from the forest, or making a bunch of disparate trees be one forest. When we name things we see them. How we name them makes us see them as good or evil, useful or useless, indifferent or threatening, possible or impossible.

When we first moved to the city, we met someone at a party who lived near Inman Square. She loved Inman Square. We loved Inman Square. It was one big Inman Square lovefest. But then she asked about our street. What street did we live on? We live on Tremont Street, we said. Her look grew cold. Oh, she said, East Cambridge. And she walked away.

We lived on the wrong side of Prospect Street. Now I have to say that the houses one block east of Prospect. where Tremont is, and one block west of Prospect (which is called mid-Cambridge) are not all that different. Nor are the people who live on one side and the other. But in her eyes, as her eyes saw them, they were. Much as people see others who live across borders, which are often just lines on the ground, or lines of culture, religion, race, or class.

Not only do words determine what we see, they determine what we can do. They constrain us. They are like a template or a jig on a workbench. They define what is right, good, and fitting. Our friend from the party would have been unable to live on our street. The words “east” and “west” have constrained her freedom. Half the city is closed to her. Too bad for her, I’d say. But she pities us. Not only have we not seen or named a crucial difference, in our ignorance we have trespassed, sinned in her eyes. We have mistakenly gone where she could never go.

Not only do words determine what we see and what we can do, they determine what we want. Words are desire, pulling us toward one thing or another. Words are little pieces of imagination, put together to pull us to one future or another. Perhaps after we considered them, our friend’s words have convinced that we should move to mid-Cambridge, where life is grand and people are all happy. I don’t know how you feel about our new president, but by the words he uses—like courage and sacrifice and fairness—he hopes to enlist our imaginations and draw us forward. He hopes to direct our desires.

We do more than listen. We speak. Words move us. And as a result we create the words that move others. Jesus calls Simon and Andrew. But he calls them not just to hear but to say. I will make you fishers of people, he says. I doubt Jesus means that they will trap, net, and ensnare people. I suspect he means that they will gather, inform, and persuade people. That Jesus will speak to the disciples, teach them (disciple means student), and then send them out as apostles (apostle means one who is sent) to teach others, help others see things in a new way, to be free of old boundaries, and to imagine different futures.

We gather later today at Faith’s annual meeting. Why do we do that? (Besides that we have to by law.) When we meet like this, we read reports. We do that because it helps us tell ourselves who we are and what we hope for. We name our roles. The congregation of Faith Lutheran Church. But also the Community of Faith, made up of Faith Lutheran plus the Eritrean Worship Group plus Calvary Praise and Worship Center. Calvary and the Eritrean group are not guests of Faith, but we are all three of us part of one community. We are because we say so. We name it so. We do not say we are a church with young people in it but a church where many people are young. Not a comfortable home for people passing through but a worshiping community where many here are at the beginning of their life’s adventure, and who knows what’s next?

We are a church of Christ. We come here and hear the words of Jesus. And then we in turn speak them to others. We are the disciples and the apostles. The recruits and the recruiters. The guests and the servers. The eaters and the cooks, as we say at Faith Kitchen.

Talk is transforming. It transformed the lives of the people of Nineveh. It transformed the lives of Simon and Andrew. And it transformed the lives of people they talked to. And the people they talked to. And the people they talked to. All the way down, through 2000 years, to us. And the people we talk to.

Last Sunday we discussed being called and listening for God. Listening is good. A good first step. On Tuesday millions of people stood in the cold and listened, and many millions more watched remotely. Eyes filled with tears, and hearts were uplifted. But what happens now?

After listening, it is time to speak. If Jonah had never spoken, Nineveh would not be saved. If Simon and Andrew never preached, we would not be here today. God created the universe, it says in Genesis, by speaking it into existence. The future is made by what we say. Listen. Then speak.

"Don't call me late for dinner"

Text: John 1:43-51
Other texts: 1 Samuel 3:1-10

Sometimes it seems as if our destiny were in our own hands. Sometimes is seems as if we have some control of our future. But usually it isn’t, and usually we don’t. And that can be good news.

Do you remember as a child looking out the windshield of your parent’s car as it moved along the road? It seemed that the road magically straightened out. The car seemed to go straight ahead while the road came around to meet it. The magic was that the car, or your parents, or you, seem to control the world.

But as you get older you realize that the road is fixed in space, and that the driver is directing the car to follow it, rather than making the road follow the car. So some of the power of the driver—your parent—is diminished. But not entirely. The road is not a rail. A train or trolley. The road does not compel you to follow the path it lays down. It is as if the road issues an invitation. Follow me. Follow me and your life in the minutes ahead will be easier and safer. The road does not compel you to follow it. It calls you to follow it.

It calls. Jesus calls his disciples. Samuel is called by God to be a prophet. Ministers are called to serve in a church. You are called to be here, since the word for church means to be called out of one’s house into assembly with others. Calling seems to be a religious activity.

But your vocation is your work, and the root of the word vocation—the “voc”—means to call. What is your calling, people used to say about people’s careers. One can evoke a memory—same root—meaning to call up images of the past. Academics gather in convocation, meaning to be called to gather with one another.

It may be that we march through life. Bushwhacking, blazing new trails, climbing new peaks, conquering new ground. Our future, in this view, is an open, uncharted, and virgin plain, and as our life proceeds, we create its path as we go. There is no room for calling in this view.

But trying to live like this seems to me to be like trying to push a string, trying to barge into our future rather than being invited into it. It can be hard, fruitless, and lonely work.

Or it may be that we are called into the future. That God, through others and through circumstances, makes constant tiny (or not so tiny) invitations to us. God neither pushes us nor lets us figure everything out for ourselves. Instead, God beckons us. Come this way. Come and see. Come listen.

It is not that these two views bring us to different places, though I think they do. Or that the road is any easier to travel—we are called sometimes to do hard, hard things. It is that we are blessed to live as recipients of a constant gift: the gift that we are offered a future, invited into a future. That we are called. There is adventure ahead, but it is not dependent only on our own energy and wisdom and strength. Thank God for that.

Both Samuel, in the first reading, and Nathanael, in the Gospel reading, respond to the call they experience with a sense of open, trusting, and eager acceptance.

But perhaps you don’t find this prospect thrilling and comforting. Perhaps you find it scary. Or annoying. In that case, we might look for reassurance to these two stories to find out more about how God seems to work when calling us.

First, we are called in the midst of others. We are not alone when called. Samuel is not just walking down the street when God calls to him. Samuel was ministering to the Lord under Eli, it says. Samuel was supported by his history, by his parents, by his work with the priest Eli. And they in turn were supported by the history of prophets and priests and stories of Israel. So Samuel is surrounded by all these witnesses and is called out of them. We are called not at random but from the story of our own lives.

Second, we are called to be with others. We are not alone after we accept God’s call. Nathanael became one of a group of disciples. Philip, already a follower of Jesus, invites Nathanael to become part of a particular gathering of followers, including Simon and Andrew. So Nathanael will be surrounded by all these companions and is called to be with them. We are called not into lonely endeavors but into associations of new friends and colleagues.

And third, we are called unexpectedly. None of us knows how and when we will be called. It often surprises us. Samuel hears God calling three times and three times thinks it must be Eli calling. It takes Eli to point out that maybe something is happening that Samuel should attend to. Samuel does not expect to be called to be a prophet. Eli sees what Samuel does not. We are called by God who sees us better than we see ourselves.

Others may suspect you are being called before you do. You think you are the wrong person, too skeptical maybe, too young, too old, too rude, have other plans. But look: here we all are at Faith in Cambridge. How did that happen? Isn’t that amazing? Who would have guessed? One moment Nathanael was lounging under a fig tree. In the next, his life is changed.

I suspect that God has hopes for us as a world and as individuals. But that does not mean that God has a blueprint or a script that each of us must follow. Whether God knows what is going to happen is up for debate. And it is unlikely that God pushes us around like little toys for God’s own amusement, or even for our own well-being. Our destiny is more complicated. It seems that God prefers to work, as we hear from scripture and in our own lives, by making us offers. By calling us.

A call is an invitation to movement. And therefore to change something. Something in our heads, or hearts, or lives. In small steps or big ones. In the way we see or the way we act. To make different practical decisions than we have been making. To hope for different things, too.

And though the consequences may be momentous, the call is gentle. God invites Samuel: Listen. Jesus invites Nathanael: Come and see. Open your ears, open your eyes. Open your hearts. Do not be afraid.

And God demands little in the form of a reply. Only an acknowledgement, not a contract. The simplest and most basic answer we can give. Our existence. And our attention.

Here I am, Lord. Speak. I am listening.

Hooray! God is Good

Text: Sirach 24:1-12
Other texts: Wisdom of Solomon 10:15-21, John 1:1-18

We are about to emerge from the season of gifts. Epiphany marks the last of the twelve days of Christmas. As in “On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me.” Did someone give you something that you wanted this season? Did someone give you something you did not want? Some little something that you now have to store away for years. The crystal swan or the napkin holder. The something you cannot throw out or give away because the person who gave it to you loves you and you love that person. Re-gifting, a new word and an old concept, is still a little impolite and shameful. You do not want anyone to see that you have given their gift to someone else. To deny their gift to you would be hurtful and mean and harm your relationship.

The readings for today—Sirach, Wisdom of Solomon, Ephesians, and John—come at this time of the church year, this second Sunday in Christmas, because they all celebrate God’s presence among us. Immanuel, meaning God with us. But they all preface that celebration with a note about the things God has given us. Gifts to us, God’s children.

For starters, the readings say, God gave us the universe. I came forth from God and covered the earth, says Wisdom. Wisdom, with a capital “W,” is a divinity in what is called “wisdom literature.” She is often considered the equivalent of the Holy Spirit. Here, she has the same role as the wind, the breath, the spirit that in Genesis moved over the waters and brought forth creation, the heavens and the seas. In the Gospel of John, the Word is the creator. In the beginning was the Word, writes John in this amazing poem, in the beginning was the Word. All things came into being through the Word. We start by acknowledging that all we are is from God.

But God did not just make us. God continues to fiddle with the universe and to interfere with history. Our god is not standoffish, shy, or reluctant to meddle in the affairs of humans and the elements. God opened the waters of the Red Sea, the reading reminds us, God guided the Israelites from Egypt—by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night—guided them from slavery to freedom. God adopted the people of Israel as God’s own. And the people adopted God and gave God a place to live among them. “In the beloved city he gave me a resting place,” sings Wisdom, “and in Jerusalem was my domain.” And John writes that the Word became flesh and lived among us. God comes to us and lives as Jesus, a human being with us.

These are God’s gifts, given to us by one who loves creation and the humans within it. They are three big gifts.

Creation. Our existence, really, and all that we see and all that we are. Our hopes and our abilities and our comforts. And all the things we love—the world, and pleasures, and other people—and the ability to love at all.

Freedom. The scripture speaks of political freedom for the Israelites. Freedom from slavery and oppression and all that includes: violence, imprisonment, exploitation, indifference to the plight of others. But we also are given through Christ the freedom from fear of death and the freedom from all the fear that keeps us from loving others, even those unfamiliar to us.

And God’s presence here with us. We are not cut loose to find our own ways in a mindless, thoughtless universe. And we are not experiments observed from above in some far off heavenly laboratory. We have not been created to see how things work out in the end. God who created us is near us, hears us, knows us better than we know ourselves, knows what it is like to be us. We are not alone.

God has made us. God has freed us. God is with us. These are the gifts that scripture tells us about. And in the best of times our hearts tell us too. They are fine gifts, one that fill the writers of today’s readings with hope and pride and gratitude.

Yet they are not always whole-heartedly welcome. They obligate us. We cannot in good conscience store them away in the closet—and there is no way to re-gift them. They are ours, given by a loving and interfering God, ours to keep. And therefore to keep care of and to use wisely. They can be mixed blessings. The Temple in Jerusalem, God’s house and resting place and beloved city, as Sirach says, has been in history and in the present also a focus of sadness and conflict. The call to Christians to treat others, even enemies, as one’s self has been a difficult standard to live up to. Walking without fear requires trust that we don’t always have. God’s presence among us means that God is sometimes closer than is comfortable. We can be selfish, violent, and nasty folks sometimes. And in those times, we don’t really want to be reminded that we are God’s favorite relative and recipient of God’s blessing.

If we see these things as God’s gifts, whether we are enthusiastic and grateful for them or not, the question is: how should we respond? Should we pretend that they have no call on us? Should we try to put them in a spiritual closet? Should we act as if we have no particular or specific responsibilities, even though we are free creatures loved by God? Does that mean anything, and if if does, what does it call us to do?

Wisdom literature is often a guide to an ethical way of living. Proverbs, for example, is part of this kind of writing. But the ethics and guides, though sensible, are not derived from common sense. They are derived from our relationship with God. Our good behavior is not a kind of ethical to-do list of chores. Not “Be good because I told you to” sort of thing. We save our aunt’s crystal swan because we have a relationship with her that we do not want to jeopardize. Even when it might be a pain to care for, we do it out of respect and love for her.

The big story of the Bible is a story of the connection people have with God. Our gratitude for what God has given us is part of that connection, both in the history of our religion and the history of our own personal faith. We can lean on that connection. But it also demands things of us, just as the connection we have with our friends and family demands things of us.

These scripture passages are ones of happy thanksgiving. Hooray! they say, God is good. We have received much. Grace upon grace, as John writes. The word he uses is the root of the word for gratitude (you can hear “grace” inside “gratitude”) and thanksgiving. How we respond to that grace is an ongoing and lifelong quest, for the church as a whole, for this church, and for each of us. But we can start, on this the second Sunday in the season of Christmas, with a simple thank you.

Thanks to God for all God has given us. Hooray! God is good.