Trust Builders “Foolish or Fools for Christ”
Introduction
Wednesday night I was driving home on I-65 heading North after a church meeting and a car raced past me, driving at high speed, cutting across three lanes of traffic at a time, zipping in and out between cars. I blurted out to myself: “look at that fool.” If you spend any time in a car I bet you have your own stories observing fools on the road, what with all the growing traffic challenges in Metro Nashville. Our home is near I-440 which seems to be a favorite road for the posse of motorcyclists who see how fast their crotch rockets will go. I find myself thinking: “just listen to those fools. Glad Vanderbilt Med Center Trauma is so close by.” It can be easy to think we are a mecca for fools. But then if you are not careful you can get sucked into the reels on Facebook showing stupidity behind the wheel all around the world and you realize there are fools everywhere. Then I look in the mirror sometimes and realize that a fool is following me wherever I go. Sometimes, after a frustrating, humbling day, I’ll look in the mirror and sigh, “Just look at this fool!” This week I had a conversation with someone who said to me “to turn my sigh into a smile when the fool in you shows up. Smile and just say ‘there I go again.’”
Looking at the Scripture passage: Matthew 4:12-23
Turn to today’s Scripture passage and it is easy to say: “look at those fools.” Did you catch what was going on? The disciples: what fools. Sermons abound of describing how we like to think the disciples fools. What with the stories of Jesus feeding the 5000 in the wilderness with a couple of loaves of bread and a few fish, then later when it is just Jesus and the disciples on an overnighter, they worry whether Jesus is going to let the disciples go hungry. Then there is Jesus calming the storm on the sea and they wonder “who is this guy?” Then after Jesus is teaching the disciples that following him means serving one another, the disciples ask him “which one of the disciples is “the greatest” and “who gets to sit next to him” at the table and get the coveted “This is your special day” plate. Preachers like to say, “look at those fools.” How can Jesus possibly do anything with them?
Probably that day the human beings around the disciples were thinking it, too, because they, too, saw their inexplicable behavior. Simon and Andrew’s daddy. James and John’s father, Zebedee. Were there other family members looking on? Like mothers and sisters and aunts and uncles. Maybe they saw it, too. Sitting on the seashore, they watched the boats come in. They watched those four husbands and fathers who were needed in their families walk off those boats and walk out into some other life with this Jesus guy.
Scholar N.T. Wright writes in his commentary that they were, in today’s language, small businessmen, working as families not for huge profits, especially given the heavy taxation by the Roman government, but to make enough to scrape together a living and have a little left over (N.T. Wright, Matthew for Everyone. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, pp 32-33). No questions asked. They just follow him! They just walk off their boats and walk away behind this man. They don’t think about it. They don’t discuss it. They don’t come to say goodbye. They just go! Text says: “Immediately.” Immediately, they just drop everything. Text says, “they just left everything and followed.” and follow. It is easy to picture family members all with jaws dropped. Pointing and saying, “Fool!”
What makes the disciples do this? That is the question Brian Blount is wondering? It is what I am wondering. Heck, it is what we are all wondering. Brian Blount is President of Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, VA and I am following much of his lead this week and in his sermon “Look at These Fools”, his search for an explanation to to this kind of behavior leads him to Eugene Boring (Brian Blount, “Look at These Fools” in A Sermon for Every Sunday; Epiphany 3A).
Scholar Eugene Boring writes about this call story: “There is no parallel to such an unmotivated call story in all of ancient literature. (M. Eugene Boring, Mark: A Commentary (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2006, p. 60). It is unparalleled because it is unexplainable as Boring concludes “that the 4 fishermen have a boat and employees indicates that they are not penniless peasants; they have something to leave, and they [just] leave it.”
I wonder: The disciples have to be asking the same thing about this Jesus who walks out of the wilderness and calls them to follow. They have got to be asking themselves, “Is this man with the crazy claim that the Kingdom of God is at hand, sane or insane, good or bad?”
They don’t know and yet they still follow. An example for us in this series we are calling “Trust Builders.” To follow means to trust. It involves surrender and sacrifice. But also accepting an invitation to be empowered by the living Christ.
We don’t know if their family can possibly understand it. I know we struggle to understand it. And here is where I want to turn to David Jacobsen who says if we are honest with ourselves, we will admit that we cannot understand because Jesus’ call and the disciples’ response to that call “makes little sense to us, in part because we may be inclined to confuse discipleship with a lifestyle choice.” (David Schnasa Jacobsen, Preaching in the New Creation: The Promise of New Testament Apocalyptic Texts (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1999), 37. As cited by Brian Blount in his sermon)
You see, in the church we use this word “call.” Called to be a disciple. That sounds lofty. While we talk in terms of our calling – from “priesthood of all believers” to being called “to go and make disciples” – we know that our calling and our responsibilities and our wants and needs can easily get all twisted up when it comes to making key decisions around issues of family, of children and schools, of spouses and employment, of communities (e.g. what community has good music and hot chicken as here in Nashville) and comfort level, of job expectations and realistic probability of living up to those expectations. That’s not calling. That’s lifestyle.
And when we hear the stewardship team people in this church speak about our church’s needs - utilities, building upkeep, mission in the community - and to give to God “your first fruits” you are likely to hear what they have to say from the standpoint of a lifestyle decision.
How much can I realistically give to the church? How much disposable income can I dispose of to support the movement of God’s Reign as it breaks into history? How much can I set aside to patronize the church’s vision of mission in this city, and beyond and still have sufficient monies left over for college tuition, house payments, car payments, groceries, or living a little? There’s that trip to Disney and we had planned to be in Ireland for St. Patty’s Day.
How much can I afford to give? When can I afford to give it?
What does what I give to a church mean for what I’m able to give to myself and my family?
Those are lifestyle decisions. Real, important, crucial lifestyle decisions, but lifestyle decisions nonetheless. Brian Blount has me thinking about this and of our tendency to:
“reduce the disciples’ story to lifestyle decision making, too, if we want to.” So, Blount says: “on the boat, on the Sea of Galilee, you ask, what happens if I don’t follow in the family fishing business? On the boat, on the Sea of Galilee, you ask, what happens to my family if I’m not catching enough fish to earn enough of a living. Off the boat, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, you ask, how do I follow this Jesus and bring my family safely and comfortably along? On the boat, if you’re thinking lifestyle, you’re thinking about you and how to take care of you and the ones you love. And that’s right. That’s appropriate. And that is exactly what is NOT happening in this text when Jesus calls his disciples and they follow. They don’t make a lifestyle choice. There is not a chance in Hades that the choice they make is an appropriate lifestyle choice. There is no lifestyle logic that makes their drop-everything-and-follow-Jesus choice make sense…
…We don’t have sense. We have flames.
…The fire that fuels this foolishness is Jesus’ claim that the Reign of God is an apocalyptic forest fire on the historical horizon. When somebody comes believably proclaiming that God is about to visit, you drop whatever it is you were doing and you start doing whatever you can do to get ready. The disciples got out of their boats and got underway . . . with Jesus. This imminent, inbreaking Reign of God Kingdom is what drives the plot of discipleship living. Jesus has just fished the disciples out of their boats and plopped them down, writhing and squirming, on the shore of the arriving Kingdom. Driven by Jesus’ kingdom vision, they will be compelled to cast a line out to others and catch them up in this fever of fishing and following. Jesus caught them. They will catch others. Caught up in the kingdom vision, all of them, having given all that they can give of themselves, everything!, will go forth from that shore line and fish for people. Is that the gospel truth? Or is that just plain foolishness?” (Brian Blount “Look at These Fools” A Sermon for Every Sunday,)
That is what Jesus does, you know. Fishes us, so we will fish others. So we will be fools finding other fools who will inexplicably follow.
We are a long way from the Sea of Galilee where Jesus called the disciples to leave behind their boats and nets and follow and fish for people. We are a long way from sea level. In fact, we heard this week that we are standing at what architects call 546. We are 546 feet above sea level. Far above the seashore where Jesus called the disciples. We are called to fish and to follow.
I want to talk with you about a pretty ambitious plan, like this effort of the fisherman in the small boat who has hooked a large shark in this Winslow Homer painting.
Here is the master campus plan. This is what we would like to do. This comes out of our plan for ministry and from six months of research, conversations, and dreaming. It is ambitious, it is aspirational over the next 5-10 years. It is a master plan. To use an ascription for God that many are familiar with and some uncomfortable with, there is a Master, and the Master is going to have to send people before there is any reason to pursue some of the additional components of the master campus plan. As I said in last week’s sermon, as disciples of Christ we invite others to “come and see” and to create a space that people feel welcome and safe. This master campus plan:
Addresses the problem of confusion people have when they look at our nice big sign and then see a little house - what we are calling the Jones Center, the residence of the Jones who had a small dairy farm here and who willed their property to us, with a commitment on our part for the house to remain for the couple to live out their lives in. We built around them. The result is this little house is confused by the thousands of those who pass by as our church church.
This plan addresses how we are buried down here and suggests how we can be more easily seen from the street and connect to the out of doors with an amphitheater off of the sanctuary to be used by preschool and church. .
There is an expansion of the preschool to try to meet ongoing demand.
There is a plan for utilizing the upstairs.
Also, there is a concept for a new worship space perched on the edge of the grove that can be clearly seen from the road and would be absolutely stunning with tying into our beautiful natural surroundings.
The plan highlights the barn and includes a pavilion.
Again this is ambitious!
But my purpose here is to talk about the initial phase. Most, if not all, of what I am going to show you is what the Master Campus Plan Team feels that we need to do now. EBPC is clearly and uniquely poised for growth, yet the building is holding us back. Our church facilities are not working for us, the building coming to “define” us, rather than in the beginning when the church was launched - full of hope and strong in spirit - and we defined the building as the foundation of God’s work in our community.
The question is how much we will do. Following the service we have renderings that will be shared and that will be made available on our website for review. What I want to speak to today of this multi-phased, multi-year plan is phase 1. The focus is upon the renovation of our multi-purpose space - renovating the sanctuary and connecting it with gathering spaces for preschool and church community to gather (and be able to do it at the same time) and to make better use of spaces for community, education, and mission that are not working for us effectively. In the coming weeks we will help you understand how this space is limiting us and affecting our growth. When we do this and how much of this we will do will be how much we have committed. What may result is not going to be the biggest or the best but we are going to do the best with what we have because excellence honors God and inspires people. We have a premiere capital stewardship fund company in America advising us. We feel like we need to do this NOW. A representative of INJOY, Jeff Benefield, is with us and is interested in talking with you during 3 focus groups today. Your input along with InJOY’s advice will help our Session make the decision on how far to go in Phase 1. There is a spiritual component to this: “here is what we need. Here is what we can raise. What does God want.” How much we do of phase 1 will be looking through this spiritual component; but will be determined by how much is committed.
Conclusion
Wednesday night I was driving home when that fool in a souped up car passed me by zipping in and out of traffic. I was coming home from the Master Campus Plan Meeting wondering what I was going to say to you on Sunday; wondering what to do with this foolish plan.
I am not saying, as I am sure you are not as well, for us to go and be a fool and say “let’s do this whole plan right now.” That would be foolish. But we must do something and through our focus groups happening after this church service and in the coming weeks, we will get a sense of how much to do. All the while as “fools for Christ.”
As the Apostle Paul wrote in his letter to the church at Corinth:
1:17 For Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power. 1:18 For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. (I Corinthians 1:17-18)
As we look at this opportunity I invite each of us not to look at this important decision in the life and future of this church as a “lifestyle choice” but through the lens of a disciple…as a wise fool. You want to be fishing for the Kingdom of God. You want to override all this Christian decency that won’t let you do any Kingdom of God foolishness because we see this whole thing as nothing more than a lifestyle choice.
On the boat…lifestyle choice. Off the boat, following Jesus: discipleship. Recognizing what his disciples must have understood immediately: The Reign of God is on the horizon.
Follow!” That is what those four disciples did. That is what we are invited to do. Be fools for Christ. Amen.