Well, it’s a provincial election coming up this
week. As it is wrong for ministers to
endorse candidates from the pulpit, I won’t do that. In fact, I wouldn’t know who or
what to endorse. Elections and politics
are so enshrouded by a famine of truth that I just shake my head. Elections are odd events. I remember when Barack Obama was elected. The way the CBC – Canadian
public radio – portrayed him, his candidacy and then the
events of his election and inauguration you would have thought that there was a
world-wide feeling that a new day had dawned, a new era in peaceful and just
global relations. This man, Barack
Hussein Obama, was to be the harbinger of change who would end wars, turn the global
economy around, bring about environmental solutions, end the dominance of big
money cronyism in Washington, and on and on the hope list went. The hopes and expectations placed on Obama
were of messianic proportion and I don’t think I’m exaggerating.
Well, I've brought all this Obama stuff up because all that hope in a
new day dawning that surrounded his election in a small way helps us look at
what was going on in Jesus' day. I am in
no way equating Barack Obama to Jesus the Christ. I'm just drawing a meagre analogy. Many Americans and more than quite a few
people globally were hoping that with Obama a new era characterized by peace,
justice, equity, and prosperity would come onto being. Such also was the expectation of most of the
people of Israel in Jesus' day; except for those entrenched in power. People were hoping, indeed expecting that any
day the Messiah God had promised them would come and run out their Roman
oppressors and the corrupted Jewish monarchy and temple authorities and at last
establish the Kingdom of God on Earth.
They were expecting peace, justice, equity, and prosperity to become a
reality in their lives rather than poverty, oppression, religious fanaticism,
and constant rebellion. Most people,
some more than others, were really expecting the Day of the Lord and the
Messiah to come at any moment, true intervention by the hand of God.
And then, in the midst of that tumult of despair and apocalyptic hopes
comes Jesus of Nazareth proclaiming, “The time has come; the kingdom of
God is at hand. Repent and believe this
good news.” Jesus
taught with an authority that the religious authorities simply did not
have. He healed every sickness and
disease. He cast out demons. He did these miraculous feedings. The Kingdom of God truly was at hand, the
hand of Jesus. By Jesus a new day was
dawning.
Indeed, the time had come. The Greek
word that we translate as “time”, kairos, means a decisive moment in history that demands a
response. Jesus himself is that decisive
moment. The demanded response is to
repent and believe, to leave everything behind and enlist your life in Jesus’ work of bringing in the kingdom of
God, falling in behind him and following. He would say, "Come, follow me" and
people would.
I’m not sure if I’m letting us off the hook in noting this, but according to the Gospels
there were only twelve people whom Jesus invited to come and follow him;
thirteen if we count the rich young man who went away sad. These twelve responded by leaving everything
behind. There were also others who left
everything without Jesus asking them. I’m thinking particularly of several women,
the wealthy women who supported Jesus’ ministry.
There were also whole crowds who left everything to follow Jesus. Following Jesus always resulted in leaving
everything either permanently or just for a while. He was the watershed event after whom everything
would be forever different.
Of these twelve, the first four were fishermen and why fishermen? Well, fisherman would intrinsically
understand something about the nature of the work involved in God’s bringing in his kingdom through
Jesus. That work would be a lot like
fishing with a net. You spend your time
preparing and repairing the net and then casting it either from the shore or
from a boat. In Jesus' case, the net is
the means by which people are brought into the kingdom. It is the gospel lived and proclaimed by the
church, the good news that Jesus is Lord.
So then, the work of the kingdom that these fishermen would
intrinsically understand was the preparing and the casting of the Gospel net. This proved true for them. Peter, like Paul, was a great caster in the
early. He traveled all over the Roman
world gospeling – proclaiming Jesus as Lord and planting
churches. James and John were great
churchmen, bishops of the early church who helped keep it ready to cast the
net.
The kingdom spreads by casting, by the simple proclamation of the gospel
in word and action not by gimmicky whatever’s to try to attract people and work
a decision out of them. The kingdom
comes as congregations go about the work of being Jesus' disciples, the work of
loving each other as Jesus himself loves us.
Kingdom work is all about how we do relationship in the church and with
the world around us. We spend our time
preparing loving community among ourselves and then in time we cast our
Gospelized community upon our surrounding community meeting real needs and by
the power of the Holy Spirit Jesus shows himself to be truly the Lord.
Well, for all of us Jesus and his kingdom is the most decisive moment in
our lives. We know our lives would not
be the same had he not called us. To
bring in his Kingdom Jesus continually requires from us the response of faith
and repentance, of leaving behind what we’re doing and
enlisting our lives in Jesus and his work of bringing in the kingdom of
God. This in turns means that the
primary responsibility in our lives is following Jesus in the work of preparing
and casting the Gospel net. How we as
followers of Jesus love one another, our families, our neighbours, indeed our
God is the task that is of the highest priority for us each and us together.
Peter, Andrew, James, and John were fishermen. They had to leave that life behind and go
forth and plant and build Christian communities all over the world. Their work as fishermen prepared them for
what Jesus would have them do in his Kingdom.
So also with us, Jesus takes all that we've been and done in our lives
and by the work of the Holy Spirit uses that to give us our own unique
perspective on how to use our gifts for participating in Jesus’ ministry of bringing in the Kingdom.
Just like Peter, Andrew, James, and John through everything we have done
in our lives the Holy Spirit has been preparing us for our work in the
preparing and casting of the Gospel net together as a congregation.
I can speak for myself. I’ve be a son, a brother, a grandson, a nephew, a cousin, a friend, a best
friend, a student, a musician, a retail clerk in an automotive store and a
hardware store, an assistant manager in a steakhouse, an immigrant, a divorcee,
a husband, and a father. Those relationships
are where I have learned the relational skills necessary for the work Jesus has
called me to do. More specific to the
call, I’ve been a seminarian, a minister in small town
West Virginia, a presbyter in West Virginia, a minister in a small church where
the Greater Toronto Area met farmland.
My work as a minister necessitated that I get steeped in the area of
congregational redevelopment and the nature and needs of small churches. Finally, I’m a Doctor of
the Ministry, which means I’m qualified to teach and have a qualified opinion
on the relationship between theology and congregational redevelopment. My whole life has been Holy Spirit school
preparing me for what I do in Jesus' church.
Moreover, through who I am and what I do the Holy Spirit continues to
prepare and gift me for what comes next and will do so until the day I die.
Now with respect to your
each, I would encourage you to look at who you are and what you’ve done and are
doing with your life and ask how the Holy Spirit has been preparing you for
work in the Kingdom. The highest
priority of our lives is being a Christian, being a follower of Jesus Christi
in the midst of all our relationships.
The life of Christ is in us each and in every relationship we find
ourselves in. In the midst of our
relationships is where we find Jesus ministering through the Holy Spirit and
where we find him we repent, believe, and follow. Take this thought home with
you: through every relationship of your life and everything you have done and
are doing the Holy Spirit has been preparing and gifting you for the ministry
of preparing and casting the net of the gospel through this congregation right
now in this particular community. Keep
that in mind and in constant prayer be asking Jesus where he is ministering around
you and through you. Eventually you will
see. Last week, I told you to look
around and pray and you will see the Kingdom coming. That’s not just preacher babble. I’m serious about that. Amen.
