John 11:33-54: These signs are written so that you may come to believe in Christ Jesus.

At the end of his gospel account, John summarizes his purpose writing, “These [signs] are written so that you may come to believe.”  What does it mean to believe? What does believing look like? Or, who does believing look like?

Today’s gospel reading, which I have expanded to include most of yesterday’s story of Mary and Lazarus depicts two of three members of a family from Bethany. Martha, Mary, and Lazarus might just be belief personified at least according to John.

Before what we heard this afternoon, Martha hears that Jesus is near and does not wait in her household, but seeks out Jesus in the streets. The subsequent conversation enlightens the characteristics of a believer in the face of life and death.  Martha greets Jesus simultaneously challenging him and illuminating her belief in him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” She longs to be reconnected with her brother, but thinks this will happen through the Resurrection on the last day. When Jesus makes a profound confession, “I am the Resurrection and the Life,” Martha is able to make a personal response looking Jesus in the eye and saying, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.” Martha takes one form of a believer, and when we confidently go out to meet our Lord we like Martha personify belief in Christ.

Mary is called by her sister to go and find Jesus. She does not hesitate to respond to this calling, as she gets up quickly and goes to him. The interaction that Mary and Jesus have depicts another way of believing. She uses the same words as her sister’s to greet Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Instead of following up with confident words of belief, she weeps. Mary’s response is not a display of disbelief, rather it is a glimpse of the inner pain that accompanies death and loss. Jesus does not tell her that Lazarus is in a better place, nor does he attempt to take away her pain with a cliché phrase of false comfort, nor does he make a theological statement, instead Christ joins in the weeping. Mary walks with Jesus to her brothers tomb to continue in her grief process, not knowing what will happen next. Mary, displays another form of a believer and when we weep in grief, frustration, or anger we again personify belief, and Christ weeps with us.

Lazarus does not seek out Jesus in the same way as his sisters, rather Jesus seeks him out. This interaction displays another shape of believing. In this story we may focus upon Lazarus’ natural death, yet it is also about his emotional/spiritual disconnection from his friend Jesus at the time of death. Jesus calls out Lazarus from the darkness of his tomb, and any doubt in Jesus as the Messiah is overcome when Lazarus shakes off all disconnection and death to respond to this call. Jesus calls the community to unbind him. Lazarus is a believer like his sisters, and I believe even in our disconnection and spiritual death we too personify belief.

Many believed through Jesus’ raising of Lazarus from the dead, but the Pharisees, the religious elite of the day, worried that Jesus would cause a revolt that would bring the Roman Empire’s wrath upon them. The Chief priests and Pharisees did not want to shake the status quo, as life was comfortable to them. More Roman troops would diminish the power that they had, so Caiaphas, speaking as the high priest, offered to his fellow temple leaders a solution. Instead of letting the believers of this upstart “Messiah” gain too much momentum and fervor, let us have this one man killed instead of our whole nation. What Caiaphas did not realize in this statement that he was prophesying in the name of the Almighty God. The death of Christ would call all the disparate Children of God together as One Body to believe in the Son that God sent to earth. What does it mean to believe?

To believe is to run out to meet our God. To believe is to weep when we are grief stricken and to know that Jesus weeps with us. To believe is even to be spiritually dead and to allow for Christ to raise us and for our community to unbind us. To believe is to see that even through the fear of losing the status quo and the systematic sin that took Christ to the Cross God’s Will is accomplished. These signs are written so that you may come to believe in Christ Jesus.

What call would immediately change your life? Matthew 4:18-25

Simon and Andrew, James and John have been doing the same work their entire lives. Rising early in the morning, they spend long hours in the scorching heat without cover out on the waters of the Sea of Galilee. Their hands are severely callused, their arms and shoulders routinely sore, and their backs extremely tight from hauling in fish, that is when they have been fortunate enough to catch them. Zebedee, James’ and John’s father sits in the boat, a constant fatherly presence and a reminder of the one who taught them not only how to fish, but how to live. From the time they were boys Zebedee brought them out upon the water not just as sons, but also as apprentices. These brothers live off of what they catch, and not just them, but their entire families. Before they caught their livelihood in the Sea of Galilee their fathers and uncles did, and their fathers and uncles before them. This is the family business. This is their life. They are fishermen.

Every day possesses the same routine: rise early, cast out over and over again, hopefully haul in fish, then return home sore and tired. Then, one day a stranger walks onto the shore where the brothers cast off to make their catch. He simply utters an invitation, "Follow me, and I will make you fish for people." The men, without hesitation, lay down the family business, their livelihoods, their life’s work at the request of passerby. “Immediately they left their nets and followed him.” 

Wait, what?! Are you serious Matthew?! That’s it?! No further explanation. No more detail, then that they laid down their nets and followed him. We hear this quaint story about fishing for people so many times that it becomes easy to overlook. Simon, Andrew, and the two Zebedee boys leave the work that provides them with food, shelter, and an opportunity to continue living, so that they can follow an itinerant preacher and healer. Fishing may be a smelly, sweaty, back-aching job, but it’s a way to make a living, it is a way of providing for one’s family, it is a way to survive.  

What was Zebedee thinking of his two sons James and John as they put down their nets? He might have thought, “I raised you to be fishermen. Now you want to go and follow this homeless stranger! You are going to throw away your life.” Later in Matthew, Jesus will say, “If you want to save your life you will destroy it.” We all know this saying, but still how many of us could even fathom giving up the power and control we have to make money, to make a living, to provide for our families? This is radical what these brothers are doing on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. They are leaving everything they have so that they can follow Jesus. Is there anything in this world that would make you leave your means for security and survival? Or put another way, what call would immediately change your life? 

I can tell you the precise geographic location (All Saints’ Chapel Sewanee, Tennessee) and specific date in history (Saturday, March 22, 2008) when I clearly heard Jesus’ call “Come, Follow me.” The two years before this day had been a struggle. I had fought with God trying to believe that he did not exist, but every time I turned my back on God, he was there. Finally I relented, and so on this night, the night of the Easter Vigil, I had reaffirmed my baptismal vows. I was serving as a chalice bearer, and the first person who extended his hands to receive the chalice was my childhood priest. As our eyes met, we shared a moment of communion. Then, I lifted back the silver chalice to reveal that the reflection in the cup made it appear as though all those gathered around the altar were making up the chalice. We, gathered together, are the Chalice, the Blood and Body of Christ. I knew then, that my call was to serve within that Body and to continue to hold up those sacraments as signs of God’s grace in this world. Before that moment I knew God existed, I knew I loved God, but I was not following him like Simon, Andrew, James, and John. God is calling each of us to immediately drop our nets and follow him. Maybe it’s not so dramatic as what I just described or what the Galilean brothers did, yet we are all ordained through our baptism and we are all called to be ministers in God’s Church.

This week we have spent a good bit of time at St. John’s exploring our congregational call to ministry through the envisioning process. We are learning one sheet of paper at a time, who we are as a community, for what we are thankful, what we yearn for as a church, and what ministries we are craving. As we continue to listen, I encourage us to listen to Jesus’ simple invitation, “Come follow me, and I will make you fishers of people.” Amen.