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LINKS TO THE SERMONS |
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| “The Summons” I got a jury summons this week. It didn’t look as oppressive as most government documents do – almost like a special invitation to some high profile event. They had paid careful attention to the design of the document and printed it in pleasant colors. And the wording was evocative raising up images of patriotic pride and civic responsibility. By the time I finished the first paragraph I was feeling those stirrings I used to feel when I was a school kid reciting the pledge of allegiance – how lucky I was to be invited to participate in the judicial system of the greatest nation the world had ever known. It was an honor. And they only want me for five days. I felt a twinge of guilt that my contribution would be so relatively small compared to the extreme blessing of being an American. And, on the next page, printed in a pleasant color of purple, were all of my opportunities to be exempted from the process if it proved to be too much of a burden. For example, did you know that if you are stampeded by a herd of elephants in front of your house, they will excuse you from serving? If you have a private meeting scheduled with the president in the Oval Office that day, you get an excuse. Then I read the fine print and saw that they weren’t exemptions so much as postponements. If you had your appointment with the president on the day you were supposed to appear at Superior Court, you still had to show up the next day. And if you were stampeded by elephants you had to submit an affidavit signed by a doctor estimating the length of your recovery period, then you had to appear. If you were killed in the elephant stampede, you only had to show up until the date of your funeral. I was beginning to understand why the wording on the envelope identified it as a summons rather than an invitation. The call of God is something like that. Jesus didn’t say, “Follow me unless you have something more interesting on your schedule.” God said to Noah, “Build me an ark.” (Not a request, not a suggestion, a command) In Bill Cosby’s telling of that story, Noah complains and God asks the rhetorical question, “Noah, how long can you tread water?” God called Moses and Moses complained that he couldn’t speak. “Get my brother Aaron; he has a preacher’s gift of gab.” God said, “You can take him along but your’e not off the hook.” Jeremiah made the same complaint and “besides,” he said, “I’m too young, no one will take me seriously.” God said, “I have good news. Youth is something you get over pretty quickly.” Solomon also tried the “I’m too young” argument. God said, “I’ll make up for what ever you lack.” And so it went with Gideon and Samuel and Amos and a host of others God called to do his work and speak his word. They all felt inadequate. They all looked for the exemption on the second page and they all discovered that it wasn’t so much an invitation as a summons. Neither your lack of aptitude nor the degree of inconvenience it caused your life qualified you for exemption. I just finished reading a biography of Billy Sunday, the big evangelist from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Sunday was a poor orphan from Iowa who made it to the major leagues as a base ball outfielder. Raised in poverty he was making a whopping $500 a month playing baseball; that was a fortune in 1890. In between games he would hang out at the bars in downtown Detroit and hustle women. One day a gospel wagon rolled up in front of the saloon, a traveling evangelistic show. Billy Sunday was hooked and he knew it. As he followed the evangelist back to the mission he called back to his friends at the bar, “I’m off to begin my new life.” His new life included making celebrity speaking appearances at evangelistic meetings. People came to hear him because he was a famous base ball player, but it turned out that he was really good at this preaching thing – folksy language and illustrations from his impoverished rural youth combined with personal power and an engaging wit. It wasn’t long before he got his summons. He had just signed a three year deal with the Philadelphia team when he became convinced that God wanted him to be a full time evangelist. He wrote the team owner and asked to be released from his contract and to his surprise got it. Where there is a call, God will make a way. As if to test his resolve he immediately got an offer from another team for $600 per month – more than most people made in a year. He turned it down along with the glamour of being a major league ball player to go to work for the YMCA as an evangelist for one tenth of the base ball salary. He never regretted the decision. He said that even when he had all the wealth and fame the world could offer he still felt empty. Christ had filled that void and nothing gave him more joy than telling others and guiding them to the faith that brings wholeness and newness of life. There is a satisfaction that comes to those who find themselves exactly in the center of God’s will and who experience the empowerment of the Spirit turning their puny offering into something with eternal consequence. It was said well by Eric Little, the British Olympic runner whose story was told in the movie, “Chariots of Fire.” He was a deeply religious man who wouldn’t race on Sunday even though that was the day his event was scheduled for. Instead he is shown in church reading the text from Isaiah, “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” Eric’s family wants him to be a missionary and he explains his calling to his sister this way. He says, “I will be a missionary, but,” he adds, “The Lord also made me fast, and when I run I feel his pleasure.” Those who have received the summons, we all are the same; we resist because we had other plans for ourselves. We look for the exclusionary clause and find none. Then we find that place in the center of God’s will for us, we feel the power of the Spirit blessing what we have to offer and turning it into something greater than we imagined – and then sometimes – we feel his pleasure, and we are glad the summons came with no escape option. We might have taken it and missed everything. We are glad the call of God is not so much an invitation as a summons. Finally to the text, Jesus, at the beginning of his ministry, is gathering his disciples. It is a select group who will be charged with carrying on the ministry after Jesus is gone; they are the bearers of the good news of God’s love and redemption. All of that is at the beginning of Matthew’s gospel, but at the end comes a different summons – a universal call to discipleship. “Go into all the world making disciples of all nations.” It’s the final proclamation, the last call if you please, just before his ascension which the church celebrates on this coming Thursday. Jesus began his ministry down by the Sea of Galilee where he said to some fisherman, “Follow me.” From there his message was opened to the whole world, to all people of all cultures and times – to you – and he issues this summons, “I have a job for you to do on behalf of the God of the Universe. Follow me, I will teach you how to fish for men - and you will feel God’s pleasure.” My jury summons came with a number on it. The ones who issued the summons gave me a number and they have my number in their files, so when the date comes, I’ll be there. God has your number. Resisting him is futile and tiring. The will of God for you is formed out of God’s eternal love for you – standing in the center of that divine will - therein lies abundant life and the joy of feeling his pleasure.
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