CALLED TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE

November 9, 1986, 11:00 a.m. Worship Service
John M. Buchanan
Fourth Presbyter ian Church, Chicago

Scripture
Mark 1:14-20

“And Jesus said to them, ‘Follow me and I will make you become fishers of
men.” And immediately they left their nets and followed him."
--Mark 1:17,18 (RSV)

Jesus said to them: "'Follow me and I will make you become fishers of
men.* And immediately they left their nets and followed him."

It begins in that instant: Simon Peter and Andrew get up and follow.
Oh, to be accurate historically it begins when Mary has a baby in
Bethlehem. And to be accurate Biblically you'd have to say that it begins
on back in the saga of those chosen people who sense that God has a purpose
for them to live out. And to be accurate theologically you'd have to say
that it begins at that mystical moment before there are any moments, before
time, space, and matter exist, when all there is - is Divine energy and God
surveys the void and says, "Let there be light" and there is light, or as
the poet images it, it begins when God gets up one morning and says "I'm
lonely - I'll] make me a world." [The Creation, James Waldon Johnson]

That's the primal, theological beginning, but the beginning of the
Christian part of the story, the segment that includes you as a principal
actor begins here when Jesus says "Follow me" and two people get up and
follow. It begins here, and here is where it rests for us, for if you have
not been here: if you have not yet heard that call, and if you have not
yet felt the compelling impulse to get up from mending some nets to follow
the Lord Jesus Christ, you may not yet know what this Christian enterprise
is about,

As those who read their mail and know a little bit about the church
calendar realize, this is Stewardship Sunday. Stewardship, for the
uninitiated, is the euphemism Christians often use to disguise the fact
that the Trustees hope we can raise enough money to pay the bilis next
year. I have always felt a little sorry for the visitor, innocently
walking into a strange church on Stewardship Sunday. If you are visiting a
church for the first time in 10 years and the first thing you hear on your
return is a pitch for money - it may be another 10 years till you try again.
For the visitor from another church - choosing Stewardship Sunday for your
visit is not unlike traveling to New York to see a Broadway show and having
the understudy in the lead. But before the visitors leave, or the members
tune out and start frantically trying to find enough reading material in
the bulletin to last for 20 minutes, allow, please, the preacher several
prefatory observations...

ONE - Stewardship is not fundamentally about money. Money is part of
stewardship. Jesus talked more about money than he talked about sin or the
Kingdom of God. But money - how much of it you give to the church and how
you use it - is only one dimension of the broader concept of stewardship. If
money is the only issue, we do waste a lot of time and energy trying to
justify it theologically. A more efficient way to pay the bills is to

divide the budget by the number of members and send out assessments.

Simpler yet - raffle a Pontiac.

TWO - Stewardship is really about responsible management - management of
what we have and are. It is about living responsibly which surely
includes intentional generosity. But...

THREE - The issue ~- the fundamental issue for al] of us and each of us:
member of Fourth Presbyterian Church, member of some other church, member
of no church - is the encounter with Jesus Christ and the response. And
so, back to the text... ,

There is no more startling sequence in the whole Bible. Mark's
economy of words is intentional and powerful. Walking along the shore of
the Sea of Galilee, Jesus saw two fisherman mending their nets: Simon and
Andrew: “'Follow me and I will make you fishers of men' and immediately
they left their nets and followed him.” A little later the same thing
happens with two more fishermen, James and John. They're in a boat with
their father. Finally, Levi, sitting at his desk at the tax office.
"Follow me." And he rose and followed him. Just as simple and complicated
and disturbing as that.

Simple because there is no more to it. You cannot squeeze anything
else out of the text: just the call of Jesus Christ and the immediate
response. Complicated and disturbing because everything in us objects to
the simplicity. There must have been more to it than that. Perhaps they
had known him for some time. They must have been talking about him at
least. Perhaps they had contemplated a career change. Perhaps the
therapist to whom they looked for help with depression and mid-life crisis
had suggested a second career. People don't just leave their nets and
follow. Besides, what happens to the boat, the unmended net, the
incomplete tax form? Some kind of world it would be if everyone acted like
that!

People don't act like that and people didn't act like that in the
First Century either. My hunch is that Mark wrote the account in this
manner precisely to get our attention. My sense of it is that the
abruptness is intentional. It's purpose is to startle us, to stimulate us
to ask "What is going on here? People don't act like that?" My sense of
it is that here - at the beginning of the first account of the life and
ministry of Jesus to be written down, religious faith is being radically
redefined rather, as hearing the call of God in Jesus Christ, and
responding to it out of the personal immediacies of one's own life -
fishing nets, tax forms and all. Mostly we are inclined to think that
religion is theology or ethics. Religion, this overture to the Christian
enterprise insists, is existential: it is not primarily believing ideas

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about God, or following rules: It is hearing a call, encountering the
Christ, and responding - getting up and following.

Here the agenda is set for those who want to be friends with Jesus 30
A.D., 1986 A.D... Call... encounter... response. And here the agenda
is set for the Christian Church. The call of Christ - The summons to be
with Jesus, to worship, pray and enjoy the celebration, in community, of
the Good News. And the Mission, the Mandate to get up and follow, to live
a new and different life, as an institution. Jesus said two things
essentially. He said “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden
and i will give you rest." And he said "Go ye, into all the world in my
name." Come and Go. Call and Response. Celebration and Mission.

That word is ancient. In the Old Testament Lesson, the intriguing,
mystical account of the call of the Prophet Isaiah which we heard this
morning, the sequence is there. The word of the Lord comes: the prophet
is called. The question is put: “Who will go?" The prophet responds
“Here am I. Send me." God commands: "Go." The sequence, the rhythm, the
counterpoint.... "Come unto me...go into the world" are the heart of the
matter.

Those who study theology discover that the great heresies of history
were not outright demonic Ties, the product of people who hated religion...
Heresy is usually a half-truth, masquerading as the whole truth. Dangerous
heresies occur when a zealot purposes that his or her portion of the truth
is the whole and only truth, is so’consumed by a part of the truth that he
becomes myopic to the big picture. So the church, the would-be friends of
Jesus, has been notoriously inclined to hear one or the other half of the
word.

“Come unto me all that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you
rest..." That is so precious - so good - so overwhelmingly gracious to us
when we feel burdened. When life has ceased to be fair, when we feel
hemmed in, weighed down, when the pace of the world and the demands on us
lower our stress level out of sight, Jesus' words of inviting comfort are
like soothing balm...like a cold drink on our parched and dry lips and we
resist the "Go into the world" part. And so popular religion, typified by
the enormously popular television evangelists, seems to present the
salvation promised by Jesus Christ as a personal, private, luxury. It is a
compelling and for many, moving invitation to an acceptance and affirmation
and support that is available nowhere else in life. "Come to me and I will
give you rest." To the cynical observer, it is the theological and
ecclesiastical expression of the New Narcissism, the religious equivalent
of the “if it feels good, do it" school of morality.

It's not that the message is untrue, or inaccurate. It's just
incomplete. William Willimon, in a fine new book, What's Right With the
Church, writes "When religion is reduced to the momentary psychological
high, the sporadic encounter...we are thereby protected from having the
faith get under our skin." [p. 37]

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The church itself, is tempted to reflect this half-Gospel, by
withdrawing from the world or posturing itself as a safe haven from the
world, an escape almost from the vexing, stress-producing, wearisome
realities of life out there. It is instructive to recall that the most
popular Protestant hymn is always "In the Garden" which assures us that
faith is a personal matter between Jesus and me, and its arena is the
garden, where it is quiet and the dew is on the roses... certainly not
Michigan Avenue, or the courtroom, classroom, board room, bedroom.

“Our Lord calls us" Willimon wrote, “not to form a cozy little club
of the religiously inclined but to help him turn the world on its head. We
cannot be who we are as the church without being involved in the world."
[ibid, p. 53]

Honest, Biblical, incarnational Christianity will have a love affair
with the world because God loves the world, and it will hear the call of
Christ to go into the world, to be in the world and it will follow that
Christ into the world precisely because he loved it so much he was willing
to die for it.

Sometimes, of course, the church doesn't hear the summons to come to
Jesus. Observers of recent church history suggest that the liberal branch,
the social activists have heard the "Go into the world" so clearly and
urgently that they miss the invitation to come to Jesus for comfort and
strength and support. That too is a danger, one half of the whole truth.
The church is not just one more social service agency. The church jis not
adequately defined as a political advocacy organization regardless of the
rightness of its political objectives. That is not to say that the church
has no political agenda or political influence. It is to say that our
social action and social service do not begin to exhaust the definition of
‘Church or of Christian faith.

Using the common political and social categories, conservative
Christians sometimes seem to hold that "Come to Jesus" is what the faith is
about. Liberal Christians, on the other hand, sometimes sound as if "Go
into the wortd" defines the faith. The New Testament teaches that it is
both: come and go: piety and social action.

Jesus calls us. Jesus called Simon and Andrew to make a difference
with their lives. The call to “get up and follow" was a call to
involvement, service, action... So he calls us singly - and together as a
church. This church has heard that command and has responded.

We make a difference - as a reminder to the world that we live in a
world created and loved by God. In an essay written a generation ago the
great American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr observed that “For the past two
hundred years the Christian Church has been proclaiming its Gospel in a
worid which no longer accepted the essentials of the Christian Faith."
[The Essential Reinhold Neibuhr, p. 79] It's not that the Magnificent Mile
is hostile to the Gospel. But it is indifferent...the assumption is that
whatever it is that happens in here is not terribly relevant. And so our
graceful architecture, tucked between soaring glass, stone and steel, is a
reminder that we live with the Holy in our midst, that there is a God,
that, we make that difference.

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We make a difference in the lives of 300 students, mostly minority,
mostly disadvantaged who come here for tutoring, and to homeless men and
women for whom the Social Service Center is the only place where they are
called by name, treated as human beings. We make a difference to the
elderly who frequent the Senior Center and people who are hurting and
anxious and afraid - and who receive professional attention at the
Counseling Center. This church makes a difference because it responds to
the call of Christ. The call is to continue - to follow Jesus Christ ~ to
make a difference in the future as well,

What might that mean? It might mean, for instance, that we find a
way to increase our tutoring program to accommodate somehow every youngster
who wants to be helped. It might mean that we would meet the housing needs
of the urban elderly who can't live alone any longer and want desperately
to remain in the city. And the needs of the homeless, the permanent
homeless who walk our streets and use the warmth and facilities of this
building during the day and sleep at nights in the doorways, and alleyways
or in the air vents of the Magnificent Mile. And it might mean a Fourth
Presbyterian Church clinic in Africa or school in Central America through
which we could affirm the oneness of the human family and make some small
difference in the ongoing quest for international reconciliation and peace.

This church can make a difference. Christ calls it to that faithful
response - to get up and follow... As Christ walked beside the sea and
invited Simon and Andrew, so he walks down Michigan Avenue and says to us
"Get up and follow."

You can make a difference here - or wherever you express your faith.
In fact, I believe part of the glory of the Christian faith is that it
takes us seriously as individuals. It suggests that our creator expects a
lot of us. Part of the glory of the Gospel is that it humors our
individuality by insisting that each one of us makes a difference. We are
called to make a difference by giving sacrificially and generously to
Christ's church; to join our resources so that the church can be about the
work which needs to be done. But there is more to it. We are called to
make a difference with the totality of our lives and the impulse, the call,
is a part of God's love for us. God's offer of salvation, I have come to
believe, is connected to God's summons to make a difference. It has been
the Christian experience that it is in loving that we know we are loved,
and that it is in serving others that we experience the servanthood of Jesus
Christ, and that it is in suffering that we understand the suffering of our
Lord on our behalf. We believe that in giving we do receive, and that we
begin to expertence our salvation when we live our lives for others.

The stage on which that is played out may be relatively modest - no
matter. Christ is honored when we make a small difference. At Deborah's
Place, a shelter for homeless women not far from here, volunteers report at
6:30 to serve the evening meal and prepare the mattresses and bedding. The
30 or 40 women who come there each night after walking the sidewalks and
Streets since 6:30 a.m., are treated with careful respect. One couple,
prototype young, urban professionals, weekly volunteers, prepare a salad

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with all the accouterments and love and care one would invest ina family ‘
dinner party. They also bring flowers for the table. They make a
difference.

A young man who is one of our volunteer tutors, recently became a
church member. Ten years ago, he was one of the Cabrini-Green students who
received tutoring at the church.. Someone made a big difference in his
life. Now he's back, a graduate, employed, wanting to make a difference in
someone else's life.

The Christian secret is that the closer you get to Jesus the more you
want to make a difference - and ~ the more you give yourself to making a
difference, the closer you are to Jesus even when you don't realize it.

I learn that every day as I am privileged to associate with Christian
people who quietly follow their sense of Christ's call in lives of love and
generosity and devotion. I was captivated by the notion, initially, I
suppose, as I learned about a young Navy surgeon in the 50's by the name of
Tom Dooley. Dooley resigned his commission to practice medicine in the
mountains of Laos. He established hospitals, trained midwives and aids,
taught hygiene, raised money by badgering governmental officials, business
executives and church leaders all over the world. He made an incredible
difference in the lives of thousands - and in ways far more dramatic than
will ever come to any of us. And then, incredibly, at 32 Dr. Tom Dooley
had cancer. After surgery he returned to Laos, fully aware that his disease
was terminal. He worked frantically, literally until he dropped dead two
years later. And in dying he taught me - what it means to be alive, to
live with the fullness that God expects of each of us wherever we are...

At his funeral, the presiding Bishop read several lines from Dooley's
favorite poem, Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.'

"Whose woods these are I think I know
His house is in the village though:
He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

“My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

"He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake

The onty other sound's the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

“The woods are lovely, dark and deep
But [I have promises to keep

And mites to go before I sleep

And miles to go before I sleep."

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Those lovely, dark woods, I have been told are Frost's metaphor for
death, real death or the symbolic death of meaningless purposeless living.
The moment in the poem is the critical one, like that indescribable moment
when the piercing eyes of Jesus met the eyes of Simon and Andrew and he said
“follow me" and they got up and followed. The moment is the critical
one...to live intentionally, or to drift into quiet, selfish oblivion. The
resolution is one of brave intentionality, high morality and, for us,
faithful responsibility to the Lord Jesus Christ who calls us - to make a
difference. The™werdsmert™ hore padaceandedeese

"The woods are lovely, dark and deep
But I have promises to keep

And miles to go before I sleep

And miles to go before I sleep."

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