"SURPRISED BY JOY"

Isaiah 9:2-7; Matthew 4:12-23

You know, things are pretty good around here

right now for us as a church.

We've bought the land around our building

that we've wanted for years to buy.

The exterior of this building looks great now,

doesn't it?

The youth group is blowing and going.

Children's ministry is perking right along.

There's no capital campaign

to hang over our heads this year.

You'll be hearing more about this

at our called meeting in a couple of weeks,

but the good news

is that you all were generous enough with your pledges

that we're going to be able to try some new things this year

without having to come back and ask for help.

What a comfortable place for us to be as a congregation!

It feels like an old shoe.

And it must especially seem so

to those of us who've been around here long enough

to remember Januaries that weren't so good.

It feels SO good

that now must be the time for us to sit back and relax

and congratulate ourselves on our good work

and take a breather.

Isn't this nice?

Doesn't this feel good?

It feels so good to me

that I only have one thing to say:

watch out!

Now I don't mean that in a bad way.

My husband is one who believes that if things get too good,

well, the natural disaster must be around the corner.

That's not what I mean.

When you look at our scripture readings for today,

you can see it for yourself. 

When Jesus reached out

to invite those first disciples to follow him,

he wasn't reaching out to people who were hurting.

He was reaching out to middle-class working people,

who were settled into full lives,

who probably had strong circles of friends,

who were comfortably employed,

who were probably very active at their synagogue,

who weren't really asking for anything.

Jesus sought them out

and interrupted their contented, normal, everyday lives

to invite them to repent and to follow him.

That's what I mean by watch out!

Because if today's scripture reading is any example,

it's when we are most comfortable

and least expecting it //

that Jesus Christ comes in

and starts messing around with our lives,

and expecting us to do some things differently.

When I first started working on this sermon,

I called it "Surprised by Joy"

because it reminded me of the C.S. Lewis autobiography by the same name.

Now I'm wishing that I had called this sermon

"Disrupted by Light!"

That's because, you see,

things look different in the light

than they do in the dark.

And when the Light of the World comes

and invites us to repent and to follow,

things begin to look different indeed.

Our routines and our habits and our comfort zones

are bound to get disrupted,

whether we like it or not.

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The word "repent"

has gotten a largely-deserved bad rap in our time,

thanks to all the televangelists

who yell at us to give up our sinful ways and shape up.

That isn't at all

what Matthew or Jesus had in mind here. 

The Greek notion behind the word that Matthew used

had more of a sense of "change your mind."

But Matthew and Jesus were both raised as good Jews.

And the Jewish notion of repentance

meant more to "turn" or "return."

Turn around -

reconcile with God -

head a different direction -

change your mind.

Neither the Greek nor the Hebrew

had any sense of sorrow or shame or remorse in them.

Far more, it was a change of direction.

Because theKingdom of God has come near,

because the light has illuminated the darkness,

a call to repentance

was more an invitation to get a new orientation for the way you live,

and then act on it.

What are the things

that Jesus might be calling you and me to turn from,

to change our minds about,

so that we might re-orient ourselves towards the kingdom of God?

Rather than begin by beating ourselves about the head and shoulders

with a long list of predictable sins, //

perhaps we should begin

with looking at less obvious places in our lives,

places where Jesus would come not so much to comfort our affliction //

than to afflict our comfort.

There was a hymn in the old red hymnbook that said,

They cast their nets in Galilee

above the hills so brown;

such happy, simple fisher folk

before the Lord came down.

That hymn goes on

to detail some of the hardships the disciples came to endure.

And yet, at the end,

the hymn says that they found "the marvelous peace of God."

I think we're not too far removed from that place.

You know, in many ways,

our lives would be easier and simpler

if we chose not to profess Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.

Perhaps this is especially true

for those of us who live in a place

that more than one person has compared to Mayberry!

We're nice people

who go to a nice church  and have nice friends

and live in a nice town.

And yet, it is to us,

in our nice comfortable occupations,

            in our familiar habits and routines,

                        possibly even in some of the good works

                        that we dare to claim and take pride in,

it is there

that Jesus comes to disrupt us

and to challenge us to a new direction.

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And then,

Jesus calls us to follow him.

One scholar has said

that this passage in the fourth chapter of Matthew

may indeed be the first miracle recorded in the New Testament.

It was the miracle of the compelling spoken word of Jesus.

In that day and time,

rabbis were not the ones to seek students out.

Students sought out rabbis that they admired,

and tried to arrange to study with them.

In this case,

the one that the disciples called "rabbi"

was the one who did the seeking.

And when he approached those first disciples,

he didn't ask them to admire him

            or to appreciate the things he taught.

He didn't even ask them to accept him as their personal lord and savior.

He asked them to follow him.

And based only upon the compelling nature of Jesus

and his spoken word to them,

they left their work right where it was //

to take up on a journey who knew where.

And here we are again.

The light of the world has dispelled our darkness.

Far beyond any discipleship

that we might offer to Jesus,

he has offered the gift of discipleship //

to us.

Jesus seeks out you and me

and all of us,

not to be admired,

            not even to be accepted,

                        but to follow him in faith.

To allow ourselves to be led to who knows where //

because we are following the compelling voice of Jesus.

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Friends,

I can't make you many promises today.

I can tell you

that the coming of the Light of the World

has and will change the way that we look at absolutely everything.

I can challenge you

to look at those places and those institutions

which you find to be all too routine

and all too comfortable //

to see where it is

that our Lord and Savior might be inviting you to grow.

I can encourage you to think

about how we as individuals

and we as a congregation

can consider where it is that God would direct us,

beyond our comfort zones

into some new and challenging ministries.

But you know,

maybe there is one promise I can make you,

based on scripture.

I promise you //

that God through Jesus Christ

is inviting you to discipleship.

Our great teacher seeks you to be a student.

You don't have to sign on any dotted lines.

You don't have to agree to any promises that you can't keep.

All you have to do

is to turn around

and to follow.

Where is God leading us now?

Where are we being called to re-orient,

and where are we being called to follow?

Let's prayerfully seek that answer together

as we seek to do God's will in this place.

Amen.