St. Thomas’s Episcopal Parish

Newark, DE

The Second Sunday after the Epiphany – January 15, 2012/Year B

1 Samuel 3:1-20; Psalm 139:1-5, 12-17; 1 Corinthians 6:12-20; John 1:43-51

The Reverend Paul W. Gennett, Jr.

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May my words reveal the greater glory of God. AMEN

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Our fifteen days into the New Year now returns us to the route and routines of life, no longer filled with holiday music and joyful wishes for peace and goodwill to all people. Traffic builds and frustration returns, children return to school, households fill with the hectic pace of having to do everything, because we would not want to miss out on anything, and our exhausted body slumps into bed at night, just to start all over again tomorrow. Once again, we are totally connected to our world with all our “I” technologies so we can post and paste, friend or unfriend, LOL as much as we want, and of course “Tweet” away with reckless abandon, as long as it is only 144 characters long.

The Gennett household is not free of this connectivity mania of our current day life. Rarely does an evening pass that Marilyn’s work I-Phone does not “ding” away with incoming emails or texts again and again and again. We now become living proof that Pavlov’s experiment was successful, responding to each “ding” no matter what we are doing, who we are with, or what is happening at that moment. ALL this noise in our life, how can we ever be expected to LISTEN, let alone HEAR, God’s Word and call to our spiritual life? How can we be present to the One whose presence we desire to live fully and freely in faith? How can we … sorry, I just have to read this text!

If we REALLY HEAR God’s Word in our story that is Holy Scripture, they invite us to the authentic life that God desires for us, God calls us to live. The authentic life of the attentive listener … the occasional doubter … and the undeterred follower of God.

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From Hebrew scripture, we hear of Samuel’s call to be the prophet of God. Samuel’s birth was the answer to the persistent prayers of his mother Hanna. In thankfulness, Hanna dedicates her son to the service of the Lord. We enter the story of Samuel serving the old priest Eli at Shiloh, since Eli’s sons were considered “scoundrels … who had no regard for the Lord or the duties of the priest to the people …” [1 Samuel 2:12-13]

Samuel was called in a time when hearing the Lord was rare, so Samuel’s confusion of the source of the voice is understood by Eli. After Samuel hears the voice for a third time, Eli realized the call of God was being offered to young Samuel, so he instructed him to respond, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is LISTENING.” God then affirms his call as prophet, saying that

the words he will hear, and convey for God, will make the ears of anyone who hears them “tingle.” The story of Samuel affirms that our call by God is not dependent on your age,

your experience, your gifts, or your relationship to God up to that point. Hearing God’s call to our life begins by our LISTENING TO GOD! Are YOU listening?

In our Gospel story, “domino evangelism” continues to unfold  as Jesus invites Andrew … Andrew invites Peter and Philip … and onward to “come and see.” Now Philip carries forth his call by inviting one named Nathanael, whose name means gift from God. Despite his name, his response to Philip is less than generous, filled with class prejudice and sarcastic judgment, all to cover his lack of faith and doubt in God EVER being present to God’s people again – “Can ANYTHING GOOD come out of Nazareth?” What is principally instructive for us this day is Philip’s response, which is not “tit for tat” sarcasm, or self-righteous defense of his belief. Philip just replied, “Come and see.”

Philip responds to Nathanael as he does because, first and foremost, he cares for this one who is “without guile.” The foundational principal of any effort to bring people into God’s life and love of Christ, into the Church, begins, continues, and ends through our GENUINE care for the other person. The reason why most Christians never share their faith with others is because we really are not concerned about them! Once we get beyond the closest levels of family and friends, we rarely are concerned to offer ourselves and our faith to the other. Archbishop William Temple said, “The church is the only gathering that exists for the benefit of those WHO ARE NOT MEMBERS. We do not exist for ourselves … the church never has.” We might be a “welcoming” church, but are we a disciple-making church for God? Are YOU listening?

From the Hebrew hymnal, Psalm 139 unwraps the truth of our God who created us … who knows us … who desires ALL of us of know, to serve, and to follow God and Christ in our life. I would suspect, with the level of knowledge in our parish, we are familiar with the salmon and the jellyfish. Now, before you wander in wonder trying to figure out where the heck I am going with this image, just LISTEN for a moment.

We know that the salmon is predominantly found in the fresh and frigid streams of the Pacific Northwest. Not long after birth, the young salmon begins a long journey swimming downstream to the warmer water of the ocean, where they spend most of their adult years. Then, for reasons known only to the salmon, they begin a journey by swimming upstream to return to the place of their birth! We have seen those shows on Animal Planet of the salmon leaping, struggling, and fighting all odds of nature and predators to return to the EXACT PLACE where they were born. When they arrive home, they spawn, and then die … and the next generation follows the same journey.

Then there is the jellyfish. They are not the most attractive of God’s creation, almost like part of something else God was creating fell on the ground and there was the jellyfish. Some are small, while some have tentacles that measure in feet. They are born and die in the ocean, or sometime on the beach where we might encounter them in a vacation altering sting to our naked foot.

Their movement is limited, never seeming to go anywhere in particular other than where the winds and tides take them. They just go through their life floating, stinging, existing.

So, the question this image begs – are you like the salmon in your faith life, lived with clarity, direction, and purpose … or are you like the jellyfish just drifting about with the tides of life, never really committing or convincing or celebrating your life and faith? So now you know where the heck I was going, if you were still LISTENING.

The point of Psalm139 is that God  KNOWS US AND LOVES US UNCONDITIONALLY, and desires to serve God fully, freely, and joyfully with all our gifts, all our warts, all our life. God calls to FOLLOW ME and pass God’s love on again and again and again. In other words, God wants you and me to keep the dominoes going down and round and up and onward in our days. The way we accomplish God’s desire is to be in SHAPE for God, which means …

• Freely offering to God and others your Spiritual gifts. All of us are “marvelously made” by God, and all of us have at least one spiritual gift. Discerning, discovering, and then using your gifts will lead to a salmon faith life.

• Opening and sharing your Heart. Your heart will lead you in the direction God’s calls you to share in your spiritual life. LISTEN to your heart calling – what do I deeply care about … how do I want to spend my life … how can my heart’s desire and spiritual gifts meet the greatest need of our ministries … what can I do to make every day Christmas?

• Freely share your Abilities, which supplement and enhance your Spiritual gifts. We all have abilities, whether they are artistic, musical, athletic, mechanical aptitude, a good “number cruncher”, and so on. The invitation is to use them IN CONCERT with the spiritual gifts and abilities of others in this body of Christ we call the church. As Archbishop Temple said, “We do not exist for ourselves … the church never has.”

• Engaging with others through your Personality. Know your likes and dislikes, and be aware how they affect you and others. Perhaps you are a Type A achiever – high strung, running at warp speed all the time, which can be absolutely exhausting to the Type B person who is slow but sure to win the race with others.

• Recognize, honor, and use your life Experiences. I am most frustrated when a person agrees to serve on a ministry, particularly for the life experience they bring to the ministry. Then they seem to FORGET all this experience in their leadership of the ministry. Where you have been and what you have done matters, both success and failure, pleasant and painful. Another translation for “marvelously made” in verse 13 is “uniquely made.”

Are you in SHAPE for God? Are you the all known follower of God?

In our parish life, the New Year points us to our Annual Meeting in March, and the call of new servant leaders for your Vestry. Sadly, it often becomes a time of “n’ts” in response to this call for your church – “I couldn’t … I shouldn’t … I can’t … I won’t. Take a moment and LISTEN to the words of Archbishop Temple again – “We do not exist for ourselves … the church never has.”

To be called by God is to live FULLY in the manner of our life that is worthy of God’s call to us. We do not earn special highly exalted status though our service to God, to one another, our community, and our world. What we do experience is the opportunity to live the most authentic life we are created and called to live through the fruits of God’s Spirit in our lives – “… love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things … If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.” [Galatians 5:22-23, 25]

Are you LISTENING … without a DOUBT in your heart … in SHAPE as the God loving follower that you can be?

AMEN