Immediately They Followed Him

January 22, 2012
Epiphany
Sermon by Eugenie Dieck

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts, be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer.

Immediately they left their nets and followed him.

Can we do this?  Leave our nets, the lives we know, and follow the Lord?  Probably not in the way that apostles did, but perhaps we can leave our nets at least for a moment. 

There are three steps for us to be more like the apostles:
First, we have to recognize that God is present.
Second, we have to follow that presence.
Third, we have to do so immediately.

My brother is the single father of two children who have bi-polar disorder.  After years of supporting his former wife and caring for the children through her, my brother has taken on full and complete responsibility for his son and daughter.  He realized that only by doing more could he lessen the difficulties of their circumstances.  My husband David says that my brother is his hero, because my brother starts each day realistic about his children’s challenges and optimistic about their progress.

My brother and his children have spent many weekends at our home.  Its expansiveness of space and spirit has given them all rest and refuge.  The boy, a laconic, lanky teenager, is devoted to David and the girl, a feisty soccer-playing Girl Scout, is my partner in many complex projects and adventures.

Loving this boy and girl has been an Epiphany for me and David.

So how do we get to Epiphany from lots of spontaneous family visits?  First, we have to recognize that God is with us.  God is with us all the time; it is our failing that we do not recognize that presence.  God is with us through blessings and burdens.  Many times burdens are converted to blessings when we reframe the experience as being about God and not about us. 

When there is a child with challenges, you can wonder “where is God?”  How is it possible that such a wide-eyed girl as my niece has moments when her brain’s biochemistry does not stay in equilibrium, such that she cannot manage herself or the world around her?  How can this happen?  I can’t answer that—I am neither a neuroscientist nor a theologian.  I am just an aunt, a woman sustained by faith. 

I pray …“God you love me and you love this girl.  We will share what we have in common, your love.” 

That’s how I know that God is present, because I feel called to love. 

I know it that this boy and this girl are ours to love.  In the moments that they share with me and with David, we need to love them fully. 
Over and over Jesus reaches out to the person without rank or status, and shows that He is present with and through them.  All of us have had moments, or days, or even years when we have felt that we were without rank or status.  No one else may guess that, but it is true. 

We are all seeking and hoping to be called out as being of worth. 

By recognizing that each of us is God’s creation, God’s intentional and beloved creation, we experience God’s presence. 

It is not enough to just recognize God’s presence, we must follow it.  That means going where God’s presence takes us.  In the case of my niece and nephew, it means allowing ourselves to fall deeply in love with them.  In fact, demanding of ourselves that we fall deeply in love with them.  This is the risk of following; that we go to a distant place that we did not chart.  We head off the edge of our experience into the boundlessness of creation; we fall into love. 

Loving my niece and nephew is like most true love, it is exhilarating and demanding, and at times even hurtful.  Following requires a sublimation of ego; loving them is about what God intends for them, not what we may want to fix or change.  True love is not blind faith, but an integration of our selves with God’s will. 

I wrestle with myself and my own inadequacies as we love these children.  I may be tired from the week’s demands or overwhelmed with the agitation and energy these children exhibit.  Yet we remind ourselves that we must love them as unconditionally as God loves us.  In that reminding, there is God.

Lastly we come to the word “immediately”.  I would like reflect on both timing as in “immediately” and presence as in “immediacy.”  Almost always, when my brother calls asking to visit, I say yes without thinking.  Sometimes I make myself say yes without thinking.  There is nothing that can have happened in my week that rivals his.  If my brother needs me, he needs me, and I allow myself to be needed.  Most true love does not make rational sense; really honestly it is just too complicated.  To love completely, we have to leave our nets and go immediately. 

When we genuinely respond to others and to God, we also demonstrate immediacy, that we are fully present.  How, without rationalization or ulterior motive, do we make ourselves the agents of God’s loving presence?  Our niece and nephew offer us a wealth of moments to follow God though direct and sustained engagement. 

The boy asks David to throw the football again and again and again; the girl wants me to help translate an idea she has into some fantastical construction of fabric and ribbon.  The responsibility of these moments is to follow God, to be in relationship with these children so that they experience the love that God gives each of us to share—that timeless moment of grace when we are fully embraced.

There is so much reward in loving these children.  When a challenging teenager says “I love you” and hugs his uncle, you know you are witness to God’s presence.  When a worrisome girl smiles and says, “I have a whole lot of ideas of what we can do today,” you know you called to follow.  When your brother sighs with relief and says “thank you,” you know there is immediacy. 

Each of us has a life filled with opportunities to recognize God’s presence, to follow that presence, and to engage with immediacy.  These moments occur when we are pulling our nets, throwing a football, or playing with ribbon.  As we experience Epiphany, as we pull on the nets that are our lives and our loves and our work—look up, recognize God’s presence, and follow…immediately.  We will fall into the boundlessness of creation; we will fall into love with God.