Sunday 22 January 2017

God of Goodbyes (Matthew 4:12-23)



(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Sunday Worship on January 22, 2017, Epiphany III)

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A Faith Full of Farewells

For many religious folks, faith is another word for the familiar. Faith means the same seat in church, the same friendly faces every week, the same routine of worship.

But when I read the Bible, I get the sneaking suspicion that we have domesticated faith. Because in the Bible, faith is not the assurance of the familiar. Quite the opposite. In the Bible, faith always seems to be waving farewell to the familiar. Faith is always saying goodbye to what is safe and secure.

Abraham, the legendary ancestor of three world religions, begins his journey of faith when he hears God’s call. And God’s call is simple: “Leave your country and your family and your home” (cf. Gen 12:1). So Abraham waves farewell to all that he knows and strikes out into the wilderness, traveling to God knows where.

Like father, like son. Abraham’s children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren also live a life full of farewells. The Bible calls them all sojourners, which means that they are always strangers in a strange land, always leaving one place and journeying to another. When Pharaoh asks Jacob how many are the years of his “life,” Jacob responds by saying, “The years of my wandering are one hundred thirty” (Gen 47:8-9).[1] For Jacob, life is defined by wandering, by leaving one place after another.

Before the story in today’s scripture, Jesus himself has said plenty of farewells. First he must say farewell to his manger in Bethlehem: for he and his parents must flee to Egypt when King Herod discovers about Jesus and flies into a rage. Later they say farewell to Egypt and return to a different town in Israel. And then just before today’s scripture, Jesus hears the call of God and is led into the wilderness, after which he will journey for the rest of his life as one who has no home—as one who has “nowhere to lay his head” (Matt 8:20).

If Jesus’ life has anything to say about it, faith is full of farewells.

Farewell to Safety and Security

That is certainly the case for Peter and Andrew, James and John, in today’s scripture.

When Jesus calls Peter and Andrew, they leave behind their nets, which is to say, they say farewell to their livelihood. In first century Galilee, the fishing industry had a wide market. Fishing may not have been the most glamorous of lifestyles, but it was solid and certain. It would have put bread—and fish—on the table. For Peter and Andrew to leave behind their nets, is no less than to leave behind their life.

James and John leave behind their father. Scripture commonly calls James and John “the sons of Zebedee,” which suggests to me that their family heritage is important—and perhaps even that they are particularly close to their father. Indeed, when Jesus calls James and John, they are with whom else but their dad.

If I’m being honest, it’s this part of the story that upsets me the most. I know that James and John are going to leave, as Peter and Andrew just did. I know that they are going to make a big sacrifice; Peter and Andrew left behind the security of work, James and John are going to leave behind the safety of family. But there’s not one mention, not even a hint, of a tearful goodbye or a long hug. James and John simply leave the boat—and their father in it. (A goodbye like this would be an unspeakable sin in my mother’s book.)

If It Were I

And so I have to wonder: did it really happen like this? Do Peter and Andrew, James and John, say farewell to safety and security so easily, so abruptly, without a look over the shoulder, without a hint of regret or worry? Perhaps so.

But I like to think that maybe our storyteller, Matthew, is just getting ahead of himself. Maybe he wants to get to the good stuff, the adventure of Jesus’ life, and so he rushes through this opening scene breathlessly, failing to mention some of the details. Maybe before Peter and Andrew leave, they first give their nets to some of their fishing buddies and let them know that they’ll be taking an indefinite leave of absence. Maybe James and John really do give their father a gruff hug before leaving him alone in the boat.

I wonder: how would it have looked if it had been us in the fishing boat? If it were I there, I know things would have looked a bit different. In fact, I imagine it would have looked a lot more like the beginning of another adventure, a story with which many of us may be familiar….

The Hobbit Who Left His Hobbit Hole

Bilbo Baggins was standing just outside his door, enjoying the morning, when a man in a long, grey cloak approached. After exchanging pleasantries—for everyone knows that there is little a hobbit enjoys more than small talk—the grey man said what Jesus said: Follow me. Except—he said it a bit differently.

“I am looking,” he said, “for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging, and it’s very difficult to find anyone.”

Unlike Peter or Andrew, James or John, Bilbo did not immediately say farewell to his life. No self-respecting hobbit would up and leave for an adventure. Instead, he responded: “Sorry! I don’t want any adventures, thank you. Not today. Good morning! But please come to tea—any time you like! Why not tomorrow? Come tomorrow! Good bye!”

Now if their conversation had ended there, there would be no epic tale. No The Hobbit. No The Lord of the Rings. But things do not end there. The next day, the grey wizard Gandalf returns, and with him an entire troupe of dwarves, ready to set out on an adventure. As the dwarves whisper tales and sing songs of danger and triumph and glory, something strange happens inside Bilbo. For a glimmer of a moment, the prospect of new life captivates him. As the storyteller puts it: “Something…woke up inside him, and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves.”

But it’s only for a moment. Before too much longer has passed, the hobbit’s good sense returns, and he demands some assurances, similar to the ones I think we might demand: “First I should like to know a bit more about things,” he says. “‘I should like to know about risks, out-of-pocket expenses, time required and remuneration, and so forth’—by which he meant: ‘What am I going to get out of it? and am I going to come back alive?”[2]

An Adventure with Risk and Danger…and Life

He takes some convincing, but eventually Bilbo says goodbye to the familiarity and comfort his hobbit-hole. Never does he receive a guarantee of safety or security or survival. Quite the opposite, in fact: this is a journey filled with risk and danger. He is stepping foot into a most incredible adventure, where he will encounter trolls and wolves, elves and giant spiders, and the most fearsome of all, a fire-breathing dragon. And yet it is also an adventure where he will live more abundantly than ever before: trusting in strangers, forgiving quarrelsome companions, hoping against hope in the darkest of situations. By saying goodbye to the safety and security of the familiar, Bilbo—for the first time in his life—comes to life.

I wonder if the same might not be said for the disciples in today’s scripture. When Jesus says, “Follow me,” he doesn’t promise them a safe journey. Quite the opposite: when they say goodbye to the life they know, they will be stepping foot onto a most incredible adventure, filled with risk and danger and ultimately a cross. But it is on this adventure of faith that they will also find abundant life through some of the strangest experiences, like loving their enemies and welcoming strangers and trusting in a leader who leads them into the darkest of valleys and beyond.

Blessed Be the Ones Who Let Their Blessings Go

Life is a curious thing. As Jesus says elsewhere in scripture, if we seek to hold onto life, to preserve it in safety and security, we actually lose our life. But if we say goodbye to the life we know, if we strike out onto the path of faith, which is also a path of risk and danger, there we may actually find life, new life, the life of a holy adventure.

In our culture, “goodbye” is generally a sad word. It means loss. It means the end. But as I reflect on the experience of the disciples, who say goodbye to their work and their family, and also Bilbo Baggins, who says goodbye to his homey hobbit hole, I cannot help but think that “goodbye” might also be a good word, a word of hope, a word of promise.

I don’t think this means we must literally say “goodbye” to our family or our work, but rather that we must say “goodbye” to the life that these and other things bring us, in the faith that there is always more life ahead. Faith means we are in the habit of saying “goodbye” wherever we are, because we’re also in the habit of following God somewhere new. Our God is a God of “goodbyes” because our God is also a God of new life.

And so for us Christ-followers, the word “goodbye” takes the form of a paradox. If we were to put it into the shape of a beatitude, we might say, “Blessed be the ones who lets their blessings go.”

Perhaps the easiest way of remembering the good news and blessing of this word, “goodbye,” is to remember what it actually means. “Goodbye” is a contraction of a longer phrase: “God be with ye.” At the heart of every “goodbye,” then, is God, who goes with us and invites us ever forward onto the road of faith, the holy adventure that goes ever, ever on.

Prayer

God of holy adventure,
Loosen our lips
To say “goodbye,”
Whether we are confronted with loss,
Or we are comfortable and content;
May we like the disciples
Leave behind our life
In order to follow you into new life.
In the name of him who had no place to lay his head, Jesus Christ.
Amen.


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[1] Literally, “the years of my sojourn.”

[2] J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit (New York: Ballantine, 1997), 4-22. All narration and dialogue taken from the novel are enclosed within quotation marks.

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