The World Is Too Much WIth Us Sermon

Let us pray, Almighty, everlasting God, speak to us that we might hear.
Open our ears to fresh hearing, and where our listening fails, call us anew…
(phone ringing) Excuse me, this won’t take a minute…
Yes, I know but…. Alright… Yes…Okay…Right away. Thank you.
Amen.

We have a need to be connected. To never be out of touch. No matter what else occurs, nothing could be more important than our being available: for our career, for our family, for those who need us. Yet, we are so busy with our lives, we become too busy to listen to God, too busy to be called, too busy to believe.

Too often, we have made “The Calling” a reference to Ordination, to Priests and Pastors, when ordination is the same for all Ministers, Deacons & Elders. The responsibilities of leaders differ, but ordination, the election, the questions that are asked, the responses given, the laying on of hands, are all the same. And the CALL that is available from God, is available to All, not in being elected and ordained, but in Baptism. Every believer is able to pray. Every person is able to reach out to others, to offer forgiveness. At one point, the Pharisees thought this blasphemy, because they imagined only God Could FORGIVE, but though Jesus we know we can. Each of us is able to listen for the Call of God and respond in our way, if we are not too busy to listen.

The word of God was rare in those days.
Priests sought only what they could get for themselves; political leaders were corrupt; society was in turmoil and transition; warring and terrorism had persisted for years. The boy Samuel was waiting upon the ancient priest Eli, when in the night God called him. We have taken the power out of this Call of Samuel story, making this a description of “Childlike innocence compared with religious dogma”. Eli the high priest is too old, too involved with political structures and schemes, having turned a blind eye for too long to what was really going on, to be able to make a difference anymore. While Samuel, the apprentice, a child who spends night and day at the Temple of God, is chosen.

But the Call of Samuel is about a great deal more. God was doing a new thing, God was on the loose, Creating again, creating A New. But for God to begin in and through Samuel, God needed to cut off the former patterns that had become an abuse. There is always a measure of giving up what we know, what has been, when we do something different.

In Franz Kafka’s Novel The Metamorphosis, one family member is depicted as strong and successful, decisive and dominant, while his parents and sister are withdrawn, shy and reserved, unable to make decisions or even speak for themselves. Then one day, the man awakes, unable to speak, and understands that he has become a 6 foot tall cockroach. As he changes day after day, becoming more and more a parasite, withdrawing and secluding himself; the family members each become more independent, developing their own voices and personalities as they accept responsibilities. The beauty of Eli and Samuel’s relationship, as opposed to the one depicted by Kafka, is that Eli does not resent Samuel, but recognizes God’s need to act differently, and is supportive.
At certain times in our lives, it seems as though we can master anything. We apply ourselves and we make reality happen. But at other times we are needed to be supportive, to not protest, to not challenge, to not dominate, but to provide encouragement and support for others to make decisions and to act.

Nathanael sat upon a hillside, in the shade and protection beneath a fig tree, staring out upon the horizon, he meditated upon the problems of the world, oppression, prejudice, hatred, one individual getting ahead by stepping on someone else, if only there were someone who cared, if God could enter in and intervene, calling people to righteousness, to a right and holy relationship with God.

The Gospel of John is different from Matthew, Mark and Luke. In Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus finds people to serve as disciples and calls them to discover something new about themselves, “You are fishermen and I will make of you Fishers of Men.”
But according to John, once Jesus had been baptized, people began to seek him out, each perceiving in him something different. John the Baptist pointed Jesus out to his own disciples “Behold, the Lamb of God”, the innocence, the sacrifice for atonement, “the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world”. Phillip and Andrew left John and followed Jesus and with encouragement from Jesus, Andrew sought out his brother Simon Peter, Phillip sought out Nathanael, and brought them along, to witness “We found him!” “Him, whom Moses, in the Law, and also the Prophets all spoke of”. “Jesus of Nazareth”. “Jesus the son of Joseph the Carpenter”.

The world is too much with us.
We have a preoccupation with our own occupation, seeking getaways to escape reality, to decompress, listening through our earbuds, blocking out all sound, all voices but our own, yet being connected, accessible in case something should happen and we become needed.
Nathanael has spent the afternoon considering all the problems of the world, wishing for someone, the Messiah to come from God, when suddenly he hears all this from Andrew. Does he respond, “Really? I was just praying…” No, Nathanael is a skeptic…”Yeah Right, like anything good has ever come out of a backwater place like Nazareth!”
But he comes to see.

And Jesus provides Nathanael with affirmation: “An Israelite, in whom there is no guile!” We hear this and have no context. But, the father of Israel, the one who was renamed Israel when he was called to faith in wrestling with himself at night was JACOB who would have been known to anyone in Israel. Jacob who was filled with GUILE, who was always SCHEMING & CONIVING. Jacob who sitting beneath a tree had a vision of ANGELS ASCENDING AND DESCENDING A GREAT LADDER FROM HEAVEN TO EARTH. And Jesus provides the affirmation, you will see Heaven Ripped Open and Angels of God Ascending and Descending upon the Son of Man.

What do we seek? To make a difference in the world? To feed the hungry? To clothe those without? To provide for a people who have been oppressed, the families of those we care about? Shall we sit beneath a tree, or sleep in comfortable beds ignoring the challenges around us? What would happen, if we acted like the child Samuel? The next time we heard a challenge, the need for affordable housing, the need for healthcare for people in their homes, the need to provide for others, instead of blaming the government, or wishing someone would do something, we were to respond “I am LISTENING LORD!”

Instead of hearing a ringing in our ears, or all the distractions of this life, we might actually be CALLED to respond like Nathanael: RABBI! SON OF GOD! KING OF ISRAEL!