union avenue christian church |
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Left Behind Mark 1:14 – 20; Psalm 62:5 – 12 A pastor was assigned to a congregation in Brooklyn (this is a true story). He arrived in October very excited, but then grew increasingly dismayed by the amount of work that would have to be done on the physical plant of the church. The congregation set a goal of having everything done by Christmas eve. They worked hard repairing pews, plastering walls, painting and on December 18 were ahead of schedule and almost finished. Then the rains came. On the 21st of December the pastor’s heart sank when he saw that the roof had leaked, causing a large piece of plaster (20 feet by 8 feet) to fall off the front wall of the sanctuary – just behind the pulpit. The dejected pastor cleaned it up and walked home – sadly bent on canceling the Christmas eve service. However, he walked past a local business having a flea market for charity, and there he saw a very large, beautifully made, ivory colored crocheted tablecloth with a Cross embroidered in the center. It was big enough to cover the hole in the sanctuary wall. He bought it and headed back to church. As he was going into the church a woman was running to catch a bus to no avail. Since it was now snowing, the pastor invited her inside to keep warm until the next bus came. The pastor set to work hanging the tablecloth. Suddenly the woman came up behind him, face ghastly white, and asked “where did you get that tablecloth?” After the pastor explained, she asked him to check if it had the initials EBG in the lower right corner. It did. And she explained that she had made this tablecloth 35 years ago in Austria. She and her husband had been fairly wealthy, but had been forced to leave when the Nazi’s took control. She left and her husband was to follow, but he was captured, sent to prison and she had never seen him again. She was in the States, working as a housekeeper. The pastor, of course, wanted to take down the tablecloth immediately, but she insisted he keep it for the church. The least he could do was to drive her home, which he did, over to Staten Island. Christmas Eve service was grand. The church was almost full. The music and spirit were wondrous. One older man, who happened in from the neighborhood, was still sitting in the sanctuary after all the others had left. The pastor asked him if he was in need. “Where did you get that tablecloth?” he queried. “It is identical to one my wife made years ago when we lived in Austria before the war.” Then he proceeded to tell the pastor the story of his imprisonment and never being able to find his wife after he came to the States. The pastor asked him if he would accompany him on a drive and so they drove together to the same house where he had taken the woman three days earlier. He helped the man climb three flights of stairs, knocked on the woman’s apartment door, and was privileged to watch an almost unimaginable reunion and Christmas gift. There are two words for time in the Greek language: chronos and kairos. Chronos (as in chronology) speaks of years, months and days. This is the kind of time that can be determined and counted by clocks and calendars. Kairos calls attention to a special and opportune time in which a constellation of factors create an unusually significant moment. The tablecloth experience — although recorded in December, chronologically — was a kairos event; a God event. A time when so many things were working together; so many people were open to possibilities and seeing life was as full and sweet as it could ever be. Mark sets us up in today’s Gospel passage for just such a time. We will be hearing from Mark a great deal during this year. He is the Gospel writer who writes without much flourish. He sticks to the basic facts, and says them succinctly. He also never lightens up on the disciples. His portrayal of them is mostly unflattering. In his estimation, the 12 never quite ‘get it.’ Jesus, however, never quits working with them. In today’s passage, we are just beginning to meet those disciples. And, amazingly, they DO ‘get it.’ And they ‘get it’ IMMEDIATELY. Mark uses that word twice. Against the realization of the author’s non-flourished writing and his re-occurring disgust of the disciples’ abilities, this story is pretty amazing. Jesus met Simon and Andrew and told them to follow him. IMMEDIATELY they left their fishing nets and did so. Jesus went a little further and met James and John. They, too, IMMEDIATELY were asked to leave and left not only their fishing nets but their father in the boat! Mark certainly has the privilege of literary license. So we can imagine he is jumbling this all together for emphasis. But consider for a moment this: What would it take for any one of us to move that quickly? What kind of decision needs to be presented to us, or invitation given to us, or possibility opened to us that would IMMEDIATELY move us? And how many times, invitations, possibilities have there been – that we have not (for whatever reason) responded to or for which we have been unable to be open? There is a major difference between our decisions and God’s decisions. We like to believe we are ‘in charge,’ making our own decisions and plotting our journeys. As much as I believe in goal setting and plan making, I know God has ways that not always coincide with my ways. We keep our calendars; We have liberty to determine what happens in much of our time; We can decide to go to a movie; We can choose to go to the symphony; We can initiate the plan to go to a baseball game. But I am here to tell you we do not choose, we are not in charge of, we are not the full decision makers of involvement within a faith community. Many are drawn in kicking and screaming. All are brought in because of the yearning placed within us by God. All of us are called into faith — and into a faith community — because of the invitation of God. Our responsibility, our task, our work is to be ready, to be open, to be available for that kairos moment when all things will be opportune. It is incumbent upon us to be ready so that we, too, may act IMMEDIATELY when the call comes, when the time is right, when God beckons. No one would have ever guessed that Peter and Andrew, James and John would have been able to respond in such a fashion. They did not have Jesus on their calendar, but they were ready. None of them was going to be left behind — like poor Zebedee. Who is to know what is waiting to happen? Who is to know when Jesus Christ will be standing in front of you, inviting you to do something that will be the most beautiful gift of your life? Who is to know when you will be reunited with something that you thought was lost forever? God knows. And in God’s time — kairos — all is possible. But we must be ready. We must be open. We must allow ourselves to be vulnerable to the spirit moving in and through and around us. The pastor of that church in Brooklyn could have had his eyes closed passing by the flea market. He could have had his heart closed, seeing a woman running after a bus in the snow. He could have shoo-ed out a lonely man sitting in the pews on Christmas eve. Peter, Andrew, James and John could have scoffed at Jesus. They had plenty to do. They probably had a decent life in the fishing industry. The good news — the greatest news — is that God is not just choosing a few, or preparing them for some raptured after-life, like the amazingly popular and heretical ‘Left Behind’ fiction. God is issuing invitations to us all every day. God invites us every day to respond to the fullness of life. Right here…now…in God’s world today. May we be so ready; so that we, too, can act and respond IMMEDIATELY. May we be open. May we be receptive so that the call that God is placing on our lives does not go unheeded. God is creating those unusually significant moments every hour of every day, and God longs for us to be responsive. God longs for us to drop our tasks, forget our calendared events and follow IMMEDIATELY. SW |
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