Sermon for 3 Epiphany

Sermon for 3 Epiphany * Jan. 21-22, 2006

St. Luke’s Church

The Rev. Eric M. Williams

Out of the Rut

I have had the privilege of living in several parts of the country.

I grew up in Los Angeles,

went to college and worked in Massachusetts

and went to seminary in Manhattan

before coming to Western New York.

I love this area and I wouldn’t trade with any of those other places,

but I have noticed something about this region.

I thought about it recently when I talked to a priest

who has just moved to our diocese

from a church in the Midwest.

She had just gone to her first clergy gathering

and after listening to her fellow clergy all morning,

she reflected that everyone seemed depressed.

And it’s true.

With all of the wonderful things in our area—

and there are too many to count—

we have an attitude problem.

Maybe it’s the economy—decades of shrinking manufacturing and job losses.

Or maybe it’s the weather—not so much the cold but the endless grey skies.

And this time of year is the worst – from New Year’s to Easter.

Maybe it’s the imprint of so many Scandinavian settlers.

Perhaps we have inherited the genetic gloominess

of the Swedish motherland.

Whatever the cause,

This attitude problem afflicts some more than others,

But one way or another we are all affected.

You see it in body language – faces turned down to their feet.

You hear it in the way people talk about events and ideas.

We have come to expect defeat and failure,

We almost revel in bad news when it comes.

We are in a rut.

“We tried it once and it didn’t work,” is one way it is expressed.

Or the flip side, “We’ve never done it that way before.”

It’s not that people are against change per se,

it’s that no one has confidence that change will work out.

We gradually have lost confidence in our institutions,

in our leaders,

and, worst of all, in ourselves.

The defining bumper stickers of our time here in Western New York

Have been testaments to our expectations of failure:

“Wide right” and “No goal.”

I’ve got to tell you I’ve felt it myself.

I am naturally one of the most optimistic people around.

Maybe it’s the Californian still buried inside me,

but I always think that tomorrow will be better than today.

At times recently, however, I have heard that inner voice

changing from encouragement and optimism

to discouragement and pessimism.

And this is a problem for me.

Because that voice, the voice of defeatism,

is not the voice of God,

but rather the voice of the enemy.

And the more we listen to that voice,

the harder it is to hear the voice of God

and respond to his call.

If we keep digging our rut deeper and deeper,

eventually it becomes impossible to climb out.

Just when we need creativity, boldness and optimism the most,

we are least able to tap into them.

That is why our lessons today are so appropriate

For us slump-shouldered, rut-digging

eternally gloomy Western New Yorkers.

The prophet Jonah is perhaps our patron saint.

He expects the worst and often gets it.

He is, quite possibly, the worst prophet in the entire Bible,

as far as attitude is concerned.

He is so reluctant to speak God’s word to Nineveh

that he runs the opposite direction

and has to be dragged back by God in the belly of a fish.

Now that’s someone who is in a serious rut!

In the story the hated Ninevites,

ancient enemies and oppressors of the Jews

actually listen to Jonah’s half-hearted preaching

and immediately repent and turn to God.

That’s the wonderful irony of the story.

They get it and Jonah doesn’t.

They, the pagans, the enemies, the bad guys

hear and respond to God’s call.

While Jonah, the good Jew, the prophet, the good guy,

is so deep in his rut of anger and self-righteousness

that he is closed off to the very message

he is speaking to the Ninevites.

In the end the story is not so much about the Ninevites’ salvation.

It is about God’s desire for Jonah’s salvation,

a much more difficult and problematic task indeed.

In our Gospel today we have the equally miraculous story

of the calling of the first disciples.

Peter and Andrew, James and John had their own kind of rut.

Every single morning from the time they were small children

They had done the exact same thing.

They had woken up, had breakfast and gone to tend the nets and the boats,

Before setting off for their daily fishing expedition.

As fishermen their lives were built around this simple unchanging daily ritual.

Until one day, a stranger invited them to drop their nets

And try a different kind of fishing expedition.

And they did, just like that.

What does it take to have that kind of faith,

that ability to drop everything and follow the fisherman?

It seems incredible, somehow, overwhelming, impossible.

So many doubts, so many questions.

Where will we stay, what will we do, how will we eat, and on and on?

But the Bible records that no such questions were asked.

“Follow me,” he said, leave your nets and your ruts, and they did.

Somehow they brave enough or crazy enough to just do it.

And their lives weren’t perfect after that.

They made plenty of mistakes and fell on their faces plenty of times.

They had no clue when they set out how things would turn out—

They couldn’t have borne it if they had known.

But still they followed.

And God blessed their decision and used it to change them,

and through them to change the world.

The thing is, Jesus is still making that same invitation.

Day after day, he comes to us, just as he did to Peter and the rest.

Day after day he invites us to leave behind our nets, our boats,

the emotional and spiritual ruts that enslave us.

The question is, how will we respond?

Will we be like Jonah, fighting God at every step

and clinging to the familiar patterns

of failure, depression and defeat.

Or will we be like the disciples,

hearing the voice of Jesus and jumping for joy

to follow him wherever he leads?