Epiphany 3 Year B
January 21, 2018
This past summer, I had the opportunity to attend both the chapter meeting, as well as the Provincial gathering of my religious community, The Third Order of St. Francis. Chapter met before the convocation; a group of 15-20 of us from different areas of the province, as well as guests from The Third Order from other Provinces spent 4 days together doing the work of discernment for the future of our Community. It was a wonderful time of gathering, worshipping, having fun, and working really hard together. When another hundred or so joined us for the Convocation, more conversations happened around some of the discussions that we had in the smaller meetings.
Our Community sees some of the same “issues” that the larger church is seeing. We are seeing many of our members get older, we have seen our community get bogged down by administrative stuff, as well as watching ourselves get all worked up about who was in and who was out, and what list of rules have to be ratified in order for someone to join the community. Now… having said that, we all know that there are some rules or at least expectations whenever we want to become part of a community; however, sometimes I think that human beings tend to make things WAY more difficult than they need to be.
For instance: there used to be a rule in the Order, that you could not attend a community fellowship meeting unless you had achieved a certain level in the formation process… It had the flavor of being a real gatekeeping kind of rule that tended to keep people out of the community until the proved their worthiness.
As we were sitting around bemoaning that time in our Community’s life, one of our members, who is a deacon, and who has a street ministry outside of Philadelphia with drug addicts living on the street, says, “I joined this Franciscan community, because I was invited by OTHER Franciscans to join them in their work and mission.” The group of Franciscans he was working with were what we would call first Order Brothers, who live in a monastery kind of setting together; and, they weren’t Episcopalian, they were Roman Catholic. It didn’t matter that Phil was neither of those things; he was an Episcopalian, who wasn’t a deacon or a Franciscan… but he found out about the street ministry and was invited to help and participate anyway. Phil said that, he became a Franciscan in our church because he shared the same passion of these Friars that he was ministering with. Their passion for their work was contagious. Phil had found like minded people whom he could work with, even though he wasn’t going to actually one of them -- he was Episcopalian, and he was married, neither of which would have allowed him to be a Friar… but, he COULD be a Third Order Franciscan in the Episcopal church.
Phil’s story, and other stories around the table, all led to the same conclusion; that we had to be more open to others and we had to allow people to join us in our passions, whether they became “One of us” or not. That for our fellowships to be healthy and vibrant, we had to invite people to join us in our passions, in the ministries that we were engaged in where we helped others; not give them homework, and a list of readings to respond to, and when they answered correctly, to then allow them into fellowship.
In today’s gospel, we hear the call story of Simon, later to be called Peter, and his brother Andrew, and well as James and his brother John. When Jesus calls them, he doesn’t say, “Hey, dudes, I have some really great stuff I need to do, but… you can’t come, because you haven’t met all the requirements to be a part of my club.” Rather, he says, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” Jesus is inviting these early disciples to come on a journey with him; he is inviting them to discover and share in the things that he is passionate about; next Sunday, we will hear the piece of Mark’s gospel that comes next, but I will give you a bit of a spoiler; the disciples follow Jesus and hear him teach in the synagogue and they witness his encounter with a man possessed by demons. No amount of “training” could have prepared them for what they would experience when they left their nets to follow Jesus. Even if they had heard about him through others, they had to experience him for themselves; they had to see what he was passionate about so they would know more about him. Doesn’t it really work that way in the church too? This season of Epiphany is where we hear some of the stories that try to tell us something about who Jesus is; they are stories that say something about him that help us and others who were not his first followers know more about him, and perhaps at least make us curious to see what all the fuss is about.
I remember being curious as a child about who Jesus was because I had heard some of the stories, and I had heard some of the experiences that others had of Jesus. I remember wanting to see and experience some of that for myself; and like the first disciples, nothing could really prepare me for a live lived in Christ. No one can really explain those holy moments in their lives when they know, that Jesus is close to them, bringing them through the dark valleys, or celebrating the great joys in their lives. There are no words for that; but we are invited to fish for people too. Fishing, at least as it was experienced by my father, can be joyful, funny, relaxing, and crazy making. For those early disciples, fishing was the means by which they got fed… Jesus, wants us to fish for people so that we AND they might be fed; we don’t need to drag people into the church kicking and screaming, but neither do we need to keep the doors barred until someone recites the whole New Testament in Greek. We need to invite, just as Jesus invited others. Last week he said “come and see”. This week, he says “Follow me” and when they do follow him, they realize that he is what they have been searching for their whole lives. They come to understand that he is the way to God. They don’t need anything else; they need Jesus.
Today, we will invite Alyssa to follow Jesus. As she is baptized today, we will all recite the baptismal covenant that joins us together as fishermen for Jesus. Most of us don’t really understand what we are agreeing to when we are baptized, which is why we have adults who love us stand with us and help us to live into those promises. When Jesus asks any of us to follow him, we begin a life that we didn’t expect; a life of prayer, of breaking bread, of helping others to realize God’s love, mercy and justice; a life where we realized and live into the belief that all people everywhere are children of the living God. Allysa, I was only about a year older than you are now when I was baptised. It was an incredible day for me because I became part of a group of people that loved and cared for me, who taught me that Jesus loved and cared for me. I was able to learn about Jesus through them. My prayer for you go on throughout your life, that a church community will always be a part of your life, where you can experience Jesus in new and wonderful ways. Today, Alyssa, you become part of God’s family, a much loved child of God, and a sister to all of us who are also God’s children. It’s a wonderful day for us, and I know that Jesus is happy too.
For those of us who witness Alyssa’s baptism today, we are being invited to follow Jesus again too. He wants all of us to catch on to his passion for others, his passion for the radical justice of God… that is my prayer for us; that we will have our passion for Jesus come alive and that we will invite others to experience that passion. Are we ready to follow him?
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