Life or Death?

As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him.” Just like that.

We can only hope that he had kindly relatives who would take charge of his family when he abruptly got up and started followed Jesus around to all the villages in the region.

Matthew had been the pinball -type, being batted around from here to there, just doing the ordinary things without thought.

Jesus' command, “Follow me.” and all of his subsequent words and actions

put an end to the aimless pinball, and instead set him on a specific course.

Was it difficult to live?

Was it hard to see how things could come out in God's favor?

Yes, indeed!

But the gyroscope is set, and spinning.

And he got up and followed Jesus.

The word for “got up” is a common New Testament word for resurrection from the dead, “anastas.”

That is what happened to Matthew that day in some unnamed village on the road between Capernaum and Samaria, maybe even Hamam where I was digging in May, since that village is right along the likely road.

Matthew 'got up”; Matthew was raised from the dead that day and became a new person, a person with true and everlasting purpose.

He had to start over, to go back to school as a student.

The first instruction session was at a banquet table where Jesus was reclining with his friends.

There were also onlookers at the meal, as was common custom.

This was a major event in village life, so not only are there the invited guests, but lots of others hanging around the edge to see what is going on and to hear the news.

Among them are some Pharisees, the watchdogs, who were observing closely so see that everyone is following all the rules.

They sniffed, “This man eats with tax-collectors and sinners!”

Jesus jumped on their attitude quickly.

He explained, “This operation is something like a doctor's office.

You don't go to a doctor because you are perfectly healthy, do you?

No, you seek help when something hurts, when you are scared, or when your leg ...or heart, ...is broken.

I'm here to tend the sick and the dying.

There is death in the air, and I am here to face it with you.

If your life is really working well and every little thing in your heart and soul is in perfect order, then you don't need me.

If that is the case, then get out of my way so that I can serve those who do need me...

...the ones banging around from here to there like the dead weight of a pinball.”

Still moving, but dead weight.

In our Divine Drama conversation this week, we were musing on the deadly power of sin.

One participant observed that in both students and adults, there seems to be many persons who are merely going through the motions, but who are dead inside.

It is as though there is nothing there, we observed.

...no reason for being,

...no rudder to guide,

...no principles that inform,

...no deeds that flow as a product of truth, but instead devolve from what is the easiest or of momentary pleasure.

We went on for a while describing the God-shaped hole that can be in a person's life that so much of the time is filled only with things that lead to death.

Several centuries later, St. Augustine analyzed the situation, and described it thus:

Thou hast created us for Thyself, and our heart is not quiet until it rests in Thee.

Outside of the Lord Jesus, everything is agitated, but dead;

but within his body, all is intended to be united in perfect peace and bursting with life... if we could stop messing up things time after time.

But we can't!

That is why the invitation from the Lord Jesus is not just given once, but often: Hey, you,...

...yes, you, with the straight ...curly ...blond ... black hair;

...yes, you, with the attitude that wants to take over;

...yes, you who are burdened with the cares of life and worries about how to accomplish them;

...yes, you whose words are disconnected from your heart, leaving only a zombie.

Come.

Come, not just once in the waters of Baptism,

but come again now as Jesus' word is spoken,

come, as his very self is shared at the Table.

“Come, follow me,” Jesus says.

We rise with Matthew the tax-collector and with every other fearful saint across the centuries.

We rise, not just from our desk or bed or humdrum existence.

We rise also from the dead.

We rise from the dead and follow this Jesus just a bit more today,

on the road that leads through trouble

---even as Jesus had trouble in Jerusalem

and through joy

---even as Jesus rejoiced at the unblinking trust of the child he took in his arms,

all the way through suffering and death on Calvary to fullness of life with the Father.

We get up again and again when death tries to drag us down, until that final time, that rising on the last day.

With the eye of faith we can experience each day as a holy event.

Perhaps we don't often think of it that way, but it is!

We begin as good as dead, completely oblivious to the world in sleep

until the dog licks our ear or the alarm rings.

We get the bones and joints operating enough to get to the shower and there remember again the refreshment of Holy Baptism.

We eat a bit, feeding one part of our being until that time when we gather here for the complete food of Christ.

We take up daily tasks to care for our families in love, even as Christ continues to love us whether we acknowledge him or not.

We step out into the world with a commission in hand, the gyroscopic call to point to Christ in all that we say and do,

and to know that when we fail, when the gyroscope wobbles, there is room for amendment of life and a fresh start, yet another rising from the dead.

The disciples thought that things with Jesus would always and simply be glorious, one brilliant success after another.

The power of sin is too great, the lure of all of the other gods around us is too insidious and entangling.

This week I have been engaged in clearing my day-lily bed at the western edge of our lot.

It has been infested with quack-grass, and the only way to rid it of that plague is

to take the bed apart completely,

to pull out each strand of quack-grass root that has twisted among the day-lily bulbs,[the grass can even send a root directly through a lily bulb!]

to sift the soil meticulously,

and only then to replant the bulbs in renewed soil.

It is a very tedious, slow, tiring job; but in the end, the lily-bed rise, it will bloom again next year, joyfully.

As Jesus is engaged in this kind of cleaning process in and around us, we know that it will take time.

God has plans, big plans, and he has said that his plans involve you and me.

He doesn't just say, “I want your light to shine forth before the handful of people you meet on Monday morning.”

Instead he says, “You are the light of the world.”

That is Jesus' plan for us; large, cosmic, considerably more grand than our idea of what it means to be a disciple.

To that unnamed child sitting on Jesus' knee, to Matthew, James, and Martin and Katarina, and to you and me,

“Come, get up, follow me,” Jesus says, “be risen from the dead, and live!”

It may not be the most elegant phrasing, but I'll risk it anyway:

as we live our lives, may we find them to be lives with a point, goal, and purpose rather than lives that are like slapped-around pinballs!

What will you and I do today because

Jesus has said to us today, Come, rise up from death, and follow me? Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.