January 26, 2014

Clay Nelson

Epiphany 3     Matthew 4:12-23

Any student of church history will quickly discover that one of the few things, if not the only thing, Christians have in common is their inherent ability to disagree with one another. It was evident in James and Paul’s argument as to whether or not Gentiles were to be included in their new start-up religion. Followers of Arius and Athanasius exiled one another when they were in power for centuries over the exact nature of Jesus’ relationship to God. A thousand years ago the Eastern and Western Churches split with one another over whether or not the Holy Spirit proceeds from God alone or through the Son. When the printing press put Scripture in the hands of the pew-sitters and any wannabe preacher, the church started dividing at the pace of melanoma. Suddenly Christendom was at war with itself for a hundred years. Even within denominations they couldn’t help fighting with each other. I remember one particular corner in the small Colorado town where I grew up that had three Baptist churches on it. There had once been only one but disagreements in the first resulted in the Second Baptist Church of Gunnison and disagreements in the second resulted in The Third Baptist Church of Gunnison. It wasn’t a very big town, so I was amazed they had enough Baptists to go around.

We Anglicans pride ourselves that we can hold our disagreements in tension and manage to stay together, but that is less true than it used to be. We, too, have had our schisms. There used to be lots of shouting as to whether we should be High Church, meaning more focused on the Sacraments, or Low Church, meaning we should be more about preaching the Gospel, or Broad Church, meaning our ultimate authority should be reason. Those divisions are less true in Aotearoa New Zealand than in Mother England and even less true at St Matthew’s where we embrace all three, but even here in Godzone we still divide ourselves into camps: Evangelicals, Traditionalists, Liberals and Progressives with the odd Charismatic sprinkled about.

But my recent experience in Barcelona and more recently, at the funeral of Lynette’s 97 year-old, devoted Brethren aunt have led me to the conclusion that there are really only two kinds of Christians. And we divide our selves by how we interpret today’s Gospel recounting Jesus’ calling of two sets of brothers, first Peter and Andrew and then James and John.

When I was in Barcelona I came to be very fond of the congregation and to admire their enthusiasm for and commitment to living out their Christian life, as they understood it. However, there was one aspect of serving them that I found particularly difficult. It was the lyrics to many of the hymns they sang. They were so enamoured with the blood of the Lamb sacrificed for them that I nearly drowned in it. The most prominent pronouns were I and me. The most prominent themes were what Jesus did for me and what I will do for him. And all I had to do for him was to believe in what he did for me. One friend I made in the congregation who used to survive singing the hymns by counting the number of I’s and Me’s we’d sing each Sunday, called it “My Little Pony” theology. Having granddaughters who are enthralled by toys that are marketed as being all about them, it seemed a peculiarly apt description.

Two weeks ago I was reminded of My Little Pony theology at the funeral of Aunt Ruby. She was a rather complex individual who had a remarkably simple theology revealed in the hymns she specifically chose for her service. We began with a real tambourine thumper, When the Roll is Called up Yonder. It has such memorable lines as:

When the saved of earth shall gather over on the other shore,

And the roll is called up yonder, I’ll be there.

The next hymn was that popular tear-jerker, I Come to the Garden Alone where in the chorus we sang:

And He walks with me,

And He talks with me,

And He tells me I am His own.

We concluded with the hymn that had converted a 9 year old Ruby and thousands of other souls, Just As I am. It begins with:

Just as I am, without one plea,

But that Thy blood was shed for me,

And that Thou bidst me come to Thee,

O Lamb of God, I come.

For those three hymns the I-Me count was 22.

For Aunt Ruby and other My Little Pony Christians, today’s Gospel makes them want to sing another rousing favourite, first sung by new believers in the Garo tribe in India, I have decided to follow Jesus. All by itself the I-Me count is an impressive 18!

While it is a pithy description with an infectious tune about the cost and commitment of discipleship that requires “no turning back,” it misses an important aspect of discipleship and where My Little Pony Christians and I part company. It isn’t about me. It isn’t even my decision. It is a social and political declaration that he is here to shake things up with or without me. It is about subverting the present oppressive order to bring in God’s reign. It is a clarion call for liberation and justice. This is no sweet Jesus walking with us in the garden, carrying us on the beach or making a blood donation on our behalf. This is an imperious, impatient Jesus conscripting the people he needs to accomplish his mission. There is no greeting, no stopping to chat, no waiting for the morning tea break. He was a one man press-gang shanghaiing subjects for his kingdom. He is making it clear he will brook no dissent. It is his way or the highway. And no ponies are involved.

To fully grasp the radical nature of the call of these fishermen, it is important to understand the fishing industry at this time in Palestine. These fishermen all worked for Herod Antipas, Rome’s lackey in the region. Antipas considered this lake his personal domain, his own little Mediterranean pond. Thus, its grandiose name, “Sea of Galilee”. He built an opulent new capital city on its shore and named it after the emperor Tiberius. You have to admire how he made kissing up to power an art form. It was worth it because this lake was an especially profitable income source as there was a booming demand for Galilean fish sauces and stews throughout the empire.

The business model required cheap labour who had few other options than to do the backbreaking work of trawling with nets through the night on a lake subject to turbulent storms, pulling in hundreds of pounds of fish, gutting and processing the product for sale or transport and finally cleaning, mending and folding the nets so they could do it all over again the next day. It was grimy, smelly, backbreaking, bloody work, despised by the elites and sophisticates, who nonetheless enjoyed its product. The beauty of the system was Antipas caught them in his monopolistic, conglomerate net, forcing them to procure licences and leases, to meet demanding quotas, and then to pay taxes, tolls and other fees to a massive bureaucracy monitoring the entire fishing enterprise, from catching to processing to shipping.

When Jesus called Peter, Andrew and the Zebedee boys it wasn’t about rescuing a few small fries from Herod Antipas’ oppressive net, it was about changing the system that had caught them. He was making the fish the catchers of the likes of Herod. This was a political act that could be considered an act of war by one king against another. He was threatening Herod’s prosperity by raiding his work force. And if there was any question as to its political nature, it is answered by the next person he calls, Matthew, a tax collector. Just as he will later turn over the tables of the moneychangers in the Temple, he is turning over Herod’s tollbooths by doing so. He is making a direct assault on the system’s means of oppression. There was a method to his madness of eating with impure tax collectors. He was co-opting the opposition. Jesus’ kingdom isn’t some pie-in-the-sky utopian dream. It isn’t about the next life. His sandals are firmly on the ground and he wants to liberate and free everyone now. But he needs some followers willing to metaphorically but meaningfully kick some Herodian arse.

If we are not prepared to do so, we will be left by the wayside. When we fail to subvert power structures that oppress and exploit our sisters, our brothers and our selves, we are supporting them to do so. Choosing not to be involved if Jesus comes calling is not an option in his mind.

Too often in the church we have been the tool of the Herods of this world. When we focus on what Christianity does for us we play into their hands. If we are not fervently committed to bringing in his kingdom of liberation and justice, we have been co-opted by our oppressors. When we blame the poor for their plight, we let Jesus walk on without us. When we excuse our selves, our government, and the Chamber of Commerce from paying a living wage, we let Jesus walk on without us. When we deprive others of the opportunities and tools to live meaningful lives through unjust public policy, we let Jesus walk on without us. When we remain silent while international conglomerates exploit and destroy our environment for short-term profit, we let Jesus walk on without us.

If you are here for a comfortable My Little Pony Christianity, I must inform you that Jesus has left the building. He’s got things to do.