WEBVTT 00:00:01.600 --> 00:00:03.919 The second lesson I'll read in front of me. 00:00:05.440 --> 00:00:08.720 This to you, I write hoping to come to you soon. 00:00:09.039 --> 00:00:23.199 But I am writing these instructions to you so that if I am delayed, you may know how one ought to conduct oneself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth. 00:00:23.920 --> 00:00:27.839 Without any doubt, the mystery of our religion is great. 00:00:28.800 --> 00:00:42.079 One who was made known in the flesh, vindicated in spirit, seen by angels, preached among Gentiles, believed in throughout the world, and taken up in the glory. 00:00:42.960 --> 00:00:44.399 The word of the Lord. 00:00:49.840 --> 00:00:51.119 Sorry, so I can't play it. 00:00:51.280 --> 00:00:59.200 I may not even be able to play this one very well, but uh, as a sequence hymn, I'm gonna invite us to our blue hymnal, hymn 488. 00:00:59.759 --> 00:01:01.439 Be thou my vision. 00:01:07.359 --> 00:01:31.920 Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart, not be all else to me save out thou thou my best old py home waking for speaking thou present. 00:01:40.400 --> 00:02:41.439 Thou my true I wish I wish me for thou my great father be dwelling and victories one may I teach heaven choice bright heaven my whole heart would ever be for This is the holy gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Matthew. 00:02:44.560 --> 00:02:56.159 As Jesus walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew, his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fisher folk. 00:02:56.560 --> 00:03:02.319 And he said to them, Follow me, and I will make you fish for people, women, children, and men. 00:03:02.800 --> 00:03:05.599 At once they left their nets and followed him. 00:03:05.840 --> 00:03:15.680 As Jesus went from there, he saw two other brothers, James, son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets. 00:03:15.840 --> 00:03:16.879 And he called them. 00:03:17.120 --> 00:03:20.479 At once they left the boat and their father and followed him. 00:03:20.800 --> 00:03:31.759 Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the reign of God, and curing every disease and every malady among the people, women, men, and children. 00:03:32.000 --> 00:03:44.560 So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought to him all the sick, those who were afflicted with various diseases, and tormented by pain, demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics, and he cured them. 00:03:44.719 --> 00:03:50.719 And great crowds followed him from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and from beyond the Jordan. 00:03:51.199 --> 00:03:53.759 This is the gospel of the Lord. 00:03:54.080 --> 00:03:56.560 Praise to you, Lord Christ. 00:04:07.599 --> 00:04:09.919 Name of God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 00:04:10.159 --> 00:04:10.719 Amen. 00:04:10.960 --> 00:04:12.240 Please be seated. 00:04:13.680 --> 00:04:16.800 The faithful who braved the 37-degree weather. 00:04:16.959 --> 00:04:17.759 Thank you. 00:04:19.040 --> 00:04:20.959 Almost freezing weather. 00:04:21.279 --> 00:04:27.120 Now, this might come as a shock to you, because some of you know I was born on Valentine's Day. 00:04:27.279 --> 00:04:28.319 Yes, I was. 00:04:28.720 --> 00:04:31.120 But I am not a romantic. 00:04:31.360 --> 00:04:33.439 Like, I'm just not. 00:04:33.839 --> 00:04:40.000 I say things to my wife, like, sure, we're married, but I could have married a lot of people. 00:04:40.160 --> 00:04:44.079 I mean, statistically, there's like three and a half billion women out there. 00:04:44.240 --> 00:04:47.519 You think you're the only one that I was gonna build a life with? 00:04:47.680 --> 00:04:49.759 There's no such thing as soulmates. 00:04:49.920 --> 00:04:52.560 That's ridiculous! I say things like that, y'all. 00:04:52.720 --> 00:04:55.199 I am not a romantic. 00:04:55.439 --> 00:04:59.920 And yet, I still have been affected by what is called romanticism. 00:05:00.160 --> 00:05:20.720 So at the end of the 19th century, early of the 20th century, there was this sort of big movement philosophically called romanticism, where people really wanted to talk about the power of your own story and being the main character, the hero of your own story, marked by lots of emotion and holding up emotion, and beauty, and magnificence, and seeing it everywhere. 00:05:20.879 --> 00:05:22.000 And I like that. 00:05:22.319 --> 00:05:22.959 Like I do. 00:05:23.120 --> 00:05:24.959 I like the reality of beauty. 00:05:25.040 --> 00:05:31.360 Um I like to think that there are, you know, these big, huge moments in life where we get to make decisions. 00:05:31.519 --> 00:05:38.800 Um I like to think um about a god who is is active and in magnificent and supernatural ways. 00:05:38.959 --> 00:05:41.199 Um, who doesn't like a hero? 00:05:41.600 --> 00:05:46.079 I mean, heroes are really the way we do it about romanticism, right? 00:05:46.240 --> 00:05:48.079 They're very romantic stories, right? 00:05:48.480 --> 00:06:00.720 Um and so when I read scripture and uh I'm thinking about the sermon and stuff, I catch myself and I think, oh my gosh, I have such a romantic understanding of this. 00:06:00.879 --> 00:06:30.480 Uh and so I don't know about you, but in my own like cinema of the brain, I imagine this call story with Andrew and Simon and James and John, like Jesus is kind of like Fabio walking down the beach with his hair flowing and all this miraculous, you know, things are happening swirling, and he looks at Simon and Andrew and he's like, you, you, follow me, I will make you a fissure of men. 00:06:30.800 --> 00:06:35.439 And then he walks back down to the road and he says, James and John, follow me. 00:06:35.519 --> 00:06:44.000 And like, oh like I have this whole like miraculous, amazing romantic story in my head that this must be how it happened. 00:06:45.199 --> 00:06:46.319 And it's not. 00:06:46.560 --> 00:06:47.439 I mean, it's not. 00:06:47.519 --> 00:06:50.800 So then my brain went to, well, it clearly wasn't that. 00:06:51.279 --> 00:06:56.639 So maybe like it was Jesus kind of like a carnival marker just walking. 00:06:56.959 --> 00:07:02.319 You know, he's you know, okay, so I went to Monkey Python, like, okay, I'm jumping a shark here. 00:07:02.399 --> 00:07:08.160 But you know, like the whole bring out your dead, bring out your dead, like Jesus like ringing a bell down the street, like, anybody want to follow me? 00:07:08.319 --> 00:07:08.800 Anybody? 00:07:09.040 --> 00:07:09.439 I don't care. 00:07:09.600 --> 00:07:12.079 Any of you, would any of you like to come follow me? 00:07:12.480 --> 00:07:14.399 It's probably not that either, Jim. 00:07:14.560 --> 00:07:16.000 It's probably not that. 00:07:16.240 --> 00:07:18.800 It's probably something like in between. 00:07:18.959 --> 00:07:23.439 Like, I think that Jesus was inviting a ton of people. 00:07:24.000 --> 00:07:28.720 Like, he didn't just specifically pick romantically the heroes of the story. 00:07:29.120 --> 00:07:36.560 I think he was just going about life, being a rabbi, being a teacher. 00:07:36.879 --> 00:07:43.360 And he was down at the beach where everybody went ashore, where they were catching fish because people had to eat. 00:07:43.680 --> 00:07:48.079 And everybody was just in the kind of mundane reality of their life. 00:07:48.319 --> 00:07:54.959 And Jesus was teaching and talking to people, and he was inviting anybody who wanted to come. 00:07:55.439 --> 00:07:58.240 He was just casting out invitations to people. 00:07:59.680 --> 00:08:12.560 And so that's like the first thing that I want you to just to think about is that these aren't miraculous call stories where the heavens had to come in like a thunderbolt, and this was just every day. 00:08:12.800 --> 00:08:14.000 It was just every day. 00:08:14.240 --> 00:08:18.639 And Jesus was inviting everybody to be a part of the work he was doing. 00:08:18.800 --> 00:08:28.560 So if that's the case, right, then my next thought was well then why did some people say yes and most people say no? 00:08:30.000 --> 00:08:30.480 Right? 00:08:30.720 --> 00:08:40.720 And started thinking, I was talking to Mike, and you know, we decided that the the primary reason that people probably followed was because they were young and dumb. 00:08:42.080 --> 00:08:53.679 I mean, truly, they were probably, these these men were probably like, you know, and women were probably like 17, 18 years old, and who knows, James and John were probably like the sixth and seventh sons, right? 00:08:53.919 --> 00:08:56.879 And their older brother was gonna inherit most of the business anyway. 00:08:57.120 --> 00:08:59.120 So they just wanted to have some adventure. 00:08:59.360 --> 00:09:02.960 I mean, that's probably it, but we're not gonna think about that. 00:09:03.759 --> 00:09:09.440 I started thinking, like, maybe it's because they were really good people. 00:09:10.240 --> 00:09:14.559 They were like really faithful, good Jews, and they really understood Jesus. 00:09:14.720 --> 00:09:17.039 Like they were listening to the message and they really got it. 00:09:17.360 --> 00:09:21.600 The problem with that is the whole rest of the gospels. 00:09:23.519 --> 00:09:28.559 Because Peter is like constantly screwing up. 00:09:28.879 --> 00:09:40.399 James and John, the sons of Zebedee, the sons of thunder, with their temper, right, were like, hey, Jesus, let's cast fire down upon this town because they didn't like us. 00:09:40.559 --> 00:09:42.080 Let's just destroy it all. 00:09:42.320 --> 00:09:44.320 Like, that's literally what they say later on. 00:09:44.480 --> 00:09:53.279 And then James and John's mom come up to Jesus in one gospel and the two of them in the other, and they're like, hey, we really want to be powerful and important in the kingdom. 00:09:53.600 --> 00:09:55.440 Can we make that happen? 00:09:56.799 --> 00:10:01.919 Like, these are not people who are really understanding what Jesus is up to. 00:10:02.000 --> 00:10:08.320 So I thought, well, the reason they said yes isn't because they had some profound faithfulness or piety. 00:10:08.960 --> 00:10:20.559 So then I thought, well, maybe it's because they they like the idea of baiting people into something and then hooking them so that they can be consumed and eaten later on. 00:10:22.159 --> 00:10:24.559 I mean, who's been to a church like that? 00:10:25.919 --> 00:10:32.080 Put some bait on the hook, get you in so that Jesus can clean you up. 00:10:32.559 --> 00:10:36.240 But then I thought, oh Sean, they didn't fish like that. 00:10:37.519 --> 00:10:38.720 They didn't fish like that. 00:10:38.799 --> 00:10:48.399 See, the word fish, the fisherman, the fisherperson, um uh Diyala in the Aramaic, it really meant a gatherer. 00:10:48.879 --> 00:10:53.519 Like a gatherer, because that's what people did to fish. 00:10:53.759 --> 00:10:54.240 Right? 00:10:54.480 --> 00:10:58.559 They gathered together fish in a net, right? 00:10:58.720 --> 00:11:00.080 They were gatherers. 00:11:00.639 --> 00:11:04.879 Uh and then I thought, well, maybe that was maybe that was it. 00:11:05.759 --> 00:11:13.440 Maybe it was people who saw that the work that Jesus was about was gathering people in. 00:11:14.879 --> 00:11:18.399 And maybe the net isn't so much a net to trap you. 00:11:18.879 --> 00:11:21.279 Maybe the net is more like a safety net. 00:11:22.080 --> 00:11:25.279 Because there can be nets out there that are comforting. 00:11:26.799 --> 00:11:44.000 And then I thought, maybe it's because the work they were interested in doing was perhaps not necessarily catching the fish as much as it was mending the nets. 00:11:46.080 --> 00:11:48.960 And then I thought, man, maybe I'm on to something here. 00:11:49.919 --> 00:12:13.039 Maybe in this really boring, mundane story of Jesus walking down the beach and inviting everybody in their daily life to the work of being part of the mission, that when we hear clearly that the work we're being invited into is mending the nets in our own lives and in our communities, that there's something inspiring about that. 00:12:14.480 --> 00:12:22.159 I'm thinking that maybe this is good work for us to think about doing in our own life and in our community. 00:12:22.240 --> 00:12:30.159 I mean, how many of you have been a part of a family or a community in the church? 00:12:31.200 --> 00:12:35.919 And there seems to be a whole lot of holes in the nets. 00:12:39.679 --> 00:12:42.879 I mean, Jesus kind of gets at this. 00:12:43.279 --> 00:12:47.919 He seems later on to be pretty critical about the word hypocrite. 00:12:48.559 --> 00:12:49.759 Stay with me. 00:12:50.159 --> 00:12:53.360 Hypocrite from the Greek usually just means actor. 00:12:53.759 --> 00:12:54.559 Just means actor. 00:12:54.639 --> 00:12:56.080 It means somebody that is on the stage. 00:12:56.159 --> 00:12:57.600 So a hypocrite stands on the stage. 00:12:57.919 --> 00:12:59.120 It's an actor in a play. 00:12:59.279 --> 00:13:12.240 And I and I think the reason Jesus seems to be the most critical about that is because, you know, have you ever walked into a church or you've been a part of somebody and you're listening to what they're saying and they're saying a whole bunch of stuff, but then you're like, there's a whole lot of holes in these nets? 00:13:12.399 --> 00:13:16.320 Like, I'm not entirely sure y'all are mending your own nets here. 00:13:16.559 --> 00:13:23.360 I hear what you're saying, but this doesn't feel like a community of inclusion, of safety, where we we we support and catch each other. 00:13:23.519 --> 00:13:37.519 Like, and and so I wonder like, is the work that James and John signed up for, is the work that they heard very similar to um what they were doing on the beach? 00:13:38.720 --> 00:13:40.720 They were just mending the nets. 00:13:41.279 --> 00:13:45.679 And what does that look like for us in our own life? 00:13:47.200 --> 00:13:58.240 You know, for me it probably means taking some time to think about the relationships and the connections that I have in my family and how am I about the work of repair when it's broken? 00:14:00.080 --> 00:14:05.600 How am I about the work of honesty and repentance? 00:14:07.759 --> 00:14:10.480 Am I looking at the way that I am in the world? 00:14:10.639 --> 00:14:12.320 Am I looking at the family and the system? 00:14:12.399 --> 00:14:15.519 And how are the relationships in the family and the system? 00:14:15.600 --> 00:14:17.360 And where does repair need to happen? 00:14:17.519 --> 00:14:22.240 And is it a place that is catching everybody and healing? 00:14:23.600 --> 00:14:25.600 And I wonder about the church. 00:14:26.320 --> 00:14:34.480 Like, are we a community that is about the work of mending the nets and attending to the relationships? 00:14:34.799 --> 00:14:41.759 Do we leave here and have parking lot conversations and power issues and complaints and triangulation? 00:14:41.840 --> 00:14:45.519 And I mean, I don't think we do, but I think it's worth thinking about. 00:14:45.600 --> 00:14:48.000 Like, are we a community when somebody comes in here? 00:14:48.159 --> 00:14:51.840 They experience like more of the gathering in. 00:14:52.000 --> 00:14:54.879 I mean, y'all, Mike was telling me that's what the word synagogue means. 00:14:54.960 --> 00:14:57.360 It's really what the word ecclesia, church means. 00:14:57.600 --> 00:15:02.799 Misa comes from dismissal in Latin, but it's also the gathering, the mass. 00:15:03.039 --> 00:15:10.159 I mean, the work of the church has always been about gathering together and tending to the holes that are allowing people to slip through. 00:15:10.320 --> 00:15:14.000 I mean, y'all, I gotta be honest. 00:15:14.799 --> 00:15:25.200 Uh I am currently overwhelmed by the amount of pain and hurt and sadness and violence in the world. 00:15:25.440 --> 00:15:27.120 And maybe it's always been like this. 00:15:27.279 --> 00:15:35.360 The problem is, is that because of communication and media, I now have access, you have access to it all of the time. 00:15:35.519 --> 00:15:45.759 And I'm not entirely sure our brains have adapted and evolved to be able to care about seven billion people and all of their problems. 00:15:45.919 --> 00:15:53.440 When I see on Facebook a friend of mine from high school is now dying of cancer, and I can't do anything about it because they're states away, and I haven't talked to him. 00:15:53.600 --> 00:15:57.360 Like, I my brain isn't able to care for that. 00:15:57.519 --> 00:16:12.240 I am confronted with my own like impotence, my own inability to affect any change or make a difference in the world that seems so completely overwhelming, so violent, so destructive, so hellbent on power games. 00:16:13.200 --> 00:16:19.919 And then I think, well, what I can do is work on mending my own net. 00:16:21.039 --> 00:16:22.639 I mean, I can do that. 00:16:24.879 --> 00:16:27.519 I can attend to my behaviors, and you know what I can do? 00:16:27.679 --> 00:16:29.200 I can attend to this place. 00:16:30.159 --> 00:16:45.039 I can ask hard questions, and I can be about the work of reconciliation, be about the work of inclusion, be about the work of healing, be about answering the call to be a part of the building of the church, the kingdom of God. 00:16:46.480 --> 00:16:54.720 And so, you know, I, in summary, y'all, this isn't miraculous. 00:16:55.519 --> 00:17:10.160 Like what this is, is people in their everyday, boring, mundane life, hearing the invitation that is for everybody to be a part of the work of building the kingdom of God. 00:17:10.640 --> 00:17:18.000 And that work is not out, you know, barkering and manipulating and convincing. 00:17:18.240 --> 00:17:20.960 The work is mending the nets. 00:17:21.759 --> 00:17:24.960 In our own life, in our community. 00:17:25.680 --> 00:17:37.680 And so I wonder, what does that look like for you today as you go back to your mundane life and you hear the invitation? 00:17:40.559 --> 00:17:41.119 I wonder.