It's summertime and boy is it HOT! The kids are out of school and it's time to go on vacation. When Sarah and Kate were little, Rindy and I would look forward to our summer vacation. Sometimes we'd plan to go to the beach, sometimes the mountains. Either way, it was always like a military expedition. We'd plan our trip out – maps and brochures, reservations for hotels. We'd make sure the car was ready – oil change, tire pressure, tank full. We'd buy whatever we needed before we left because it was cheaper – food and snacks, sunscreen and towels. We'd plan for the necessities of travel with small children – strollers and cribs and toys. Pack up the car the night before, because we wanted to get on the road early. "We're leaving at 8:00 sharp," I would always say. "Everybody needs to be in the car and ready to leave exactly at 8!" Then, just as sure as I'm standing here now, 8:00 would come and we wouldn't be ready. Somebody needed to go to the bathroom. Somebody forgot their pillow. Or maybe we needed to stop on the way out of town to pick up one more thing. Delay, delay, delay. We were lucky to get going by 10:00.
Sometimes, we just have to make up our mind about what's important, and get moving.
In today's Gospel, Jesus has come to the point in his ministry where he knows what God is calling him to do – he has "set his face to go to Jerusalem." Jerusalem, the most important city of the Jewish people, is where he will find his destiny. And so he begins his journey with his friends and he decides that whatever comes his way, there's no turning back. As they start out, they comes on a town that would not receive Jesus. Two of his disciples are outraged, and want to punish the town by calling down a rain of fire. But Jesus simply moves on. Next, they meet 3 people who are interested in joining his band. One promises to follow him wherever he goes, but Jesus tells him that he's not going anywhere that's comfortable. Another hesitates when Jesus asks him to come. "Let me bury my father," he says. But Jesus can't wait; he keeps moving forward. The third wants to say goodbye to his family and friends, but once again, Jesus leaves him behind.
It doesn't seem very kind, does it? Surely, for something as important as burying a loved one, Jesus could wait a day or two. What's the rush? After all, it wasn't as if things were going to change there anytime soon And, there are customs to observe, there are social rules to follow. We can't just write off all of our families, friends and neighbors – just for some crazy notion of being called by God to go somewhere and do something, can we?
When I first started out in the computer business, I knew that it wasn't exactly the best fit for my skill and talents. I knew that there was something else that I might be doing, something else God might want me to do. But somehow, I never quite got around figuring out what it was. I never really thought about my calling because I let other things get in my way. For example, I would worry about what my parents would think – they wanted me to be a doctor. Or I'd worry about how my family might make out if I didn't bring home a big paycheck. Or I'd worry about whether or not my friends would think I was crazy for changing my career late in life. It seems that there was always something holding me back, something always causing me to delay. Sound familiar?
Now, there are lots of perfectly good reasons for setting aside what can only be called our vocation, our truest calling in life. There are lots and lots of perfectly good reasons to say, "just let me do this one more thing, Lord. Then I'll come." The problem is that if we put too many "yes, buts" into our lives, we will never accomplish what God wants us to do. We will never become the disciples we are called to be.
On the other hand, there are always people who believe that whatever action they take is justified by the rightness of their cause. Just like James and John, there are people believe that we should call down a rain of fire on folks who don't see how important their mission is.
Jesus teaches us that neither of these ways is the path to the kingdom of God. We cannot delay, delay, delay. We need to move forward. And yet we can't just bowl right over those who disagree with our point of view. Instead, we have to figure out what God is calling us to do and keep moving toward our mission, even if we sometimes have to move around an obstacle. We have to set our faces toward Jerusalem and move.
And what does that mean?
Each of us here is called to some form of ministry in the world. Now "ministry" doesn't necessarily mean "work in the church." This past week, I was talking to one of our members this week who sees his ministry as working in a law office. Another sees her ministry as teaching kids to read in school. Another works in a hair salon and listens to people tell their stories. The fact is that God calls all of us to use our gifts and talents in the service of other people. God has given us all a missional task to do. And when we understand what that calling is, we are to pursue it with every ounce of our strength, regardless of the cost in terms of our comfort, in terms of our family, in terms of our relationships.
What's true for us as individuals, is true for us as a parish family as well. We too are called to figure out what God would have us do in God’s world.
There is an old saying that goes, "The church is the only organization in the world that does not exist for the benefit of its members." This is a hard teaching, my friends. It means that this church doesn't exist to feel comfortable, it doesn't exist for our own benefit. It exists for the people out there, who are not members of any church. St. Simon and St. Jude exists for the people who either don't know who we are, or who do know but can't see any value in what we do here.
To exist for the benefit of those who are not members means that we need to begin in ernest on figuring out why attendance in our church has been decreasing year by year for the past ten years, while the area around us has been growing by leaps and bounds. We need to ask ourselves what God is calling us to be now, and decide that we are be willing to do something about it. It means that we need consider all the things that make us who we are as a church – worship, education, pastoral care, outreach, and fellowship – and be willing to make some changes. It means that we may have to stop doing some things that aren't working anymore, no matter how much we loved then in days gone by, and start trying out some new things that may feel a bit uncomfortable. We need to be willing to set our face toward Jerusalem – or in this case, Irmo – and do whatever it takes to complete God's mission of "making disciples and baptizing in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit."
Which brings us back to today, and John David's baptism. We welcome him as a traveller and disciple with us as we continue in the band of those who follow Jesus into places that are not comfortable, that require us to do things differently, that require us to step outside all that is so familiar to us. We know that like us, he will have setbacks, he will have challenges, he will sometimes stumble and fall. But we also know that God is with us, and with him, always – even unto the end of the age.
Thanks be to God.
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