"Spiritually Unbalanced in Zone Unknown" January 26, 2014

Isaiah 9:1-4 Matthew 4:12-23 Several years ago, the Film The Matrix began with Keanu Reeves character suddenly waking up, bursting through the surface of a watery womblike pod to realize his entire life has been a dream, and life is lived out in the world with people. In the Lord of The Lord of the Rings, Gandalf the Wizard explains to Frodoo Baggins that they are about to undertake a great quest, leaving behind the Village and Shire you have known, recognizing that if you return, you will never be the same, you will see life differently. Captain Phillips begins with one more journey, one more trip across the sea, when the crew see modern-day Pirates, approaching fast, and one who comes aboard declares that now instead of the leadership they had known this new man is the Captain, and Captain Phillips is Captain no longer. Joseph Campbell spent his entire academic career and life researching the origin of Archetypes, twenty years ago he published a series of books and VHS Tapes on The POWER OF MYTH. According to Joseph Campbell, every great story begins with the Hero recognizing their reality has been changed, destiny has transported them to a place where their Spiritual Center of Gravity is Off, they are in an Unknown Zone. In Zone Unknown, the past is a dim memory, you know you can never truly return to. You may return to the same table, the same office, the same company, but because you have been Called to Live differently, you can never truly return to where you were. The difficulty is that the future is unfolding more quickly than we can take in, all we can do is trust our relationships, trust ourselves, trust we are not alone, that there is God, and see where the journey takes us in Zone Unknown. As 21st Century Christians, there are phrases and stories out of context, we think are safe, we think we know, about Fishermen being Called to become Fishers of Men; we only just read parts of Isaiah 9 on Christmas Eve recognizing Christ as the light piercing the dark world. Part of the wonder of The Bible, is that verses, the words, seem ever new and fresh and different, each times we listen. We remember the Old Testament as being about King Solomon, David, Moses and Abraham. This new day, both of our readings come from the same geographic location, but in different times and cultures. Galilee is the region in Northern Israel in and around Lake Galilee, sometimes called Gennesaret, or Sea of Tiberias, near the Golan Heights. It is the fresh water lake at the lowest elevation of sea level. Being in the Rift Valley between Africa and Asia, it is known for earthquakes and tremors. The Scriptures could have said that, could have given us longitude and latitude, but how much more romantic, fable-like, mythic, to identify this by the names of the ancient tribes of Israel: The Lands of Zebulun and Naphtali, Galilee among the Gentiles. Our Old Testament reading is from a time after Abraham, Moses and David, after the time of King Solomon, but still over 700 years before the birth of the savior. There have been constant wars in this area, first with the Canaanites, more recently from the Assyrian invaders. As an outlying region, we know what it is to identify ourselves to strangers as our being from Syracuse or Buffalo, although we are neither of those. As a settled people, those of Northern Israel hid in their homes when attacked. Anything of value was hidden or sold. They lived in darkness, waiting to be invaded. They lived in fear and doubt. Waiting to be taken over by the armies of Tigleth-Piser the General of Assyria. Knowing that if we should survive the onslaught, should we survive the battle, we would then be exiles, taken out of our culture, away from home and family and all we had known, to be foreigners in a foreign land. I was in awe, hearing those from South Sudan, describe the recent conflict, confident that come what may their Nation, their culture, their people would survive. There would be and have been thousands of people killed, tens of thousands displaced, but they would survive. This passage from Isaiah names that though you live in doubt and darkness, a land of deep darkness surrounded by those who are depressed and fearful, a new time will come, a savior, hope to lead us out into a different way of being. I have known a difference between people living with dying, versus those living with fear, with loss of job, loss of a child, imprisonment, those with a loved one in danger. Each of these, fear something more, something greater than death. Where those who are dying may or may not fear death, but wonder what lies beyond, what is next. For generations, I have heard preachers use this text from Matthew on the Call of the Disciples, to preach on the Call to a great Vocation. That choosing to Fish for People instead of Fishermen, was a Calling to a Vocation a purpose in life, rather than to a job. Yet, while many preachers can describe our sense of vocation in a Career, what I have heard from people is working for this business or that, working in a field or in management. I think the difference between the two is that preachers have as a career, as a job that we train for, working with people. We have no product, in our reality there are only souls and spirits and people who know joy and sorrow. There is importance in Jesus having called Fishermen. When we imagine fishing, it involves leaving behind all that we regularly know, rising in the morning when it is dark, to go out on the water, where our center of gravity is different, where reality is different. I know that it is simply a difference in temperature, but I am continually awed witnessing the clouds of steam that rise up from the lake and dance upon the waters. When we imagine fishing, we are not working, we leave all those pressures and stresses and responsibilities behind. I recall learning to fish, as piercing the worm and dropping a line. Only later to learn to cast, first for distance, then for accuracy, of dropping the line where you wanted. And later still taking up fly fishing, to whip the line in motion and set the fly upon the water where you desired. But that reality, that escape, is not what James and John the sons of Zebedee had known, not the experience of Andrew and Simon as Fishermen. Day in day out fishing had been their work, not with a bamboo pole, or waders, or specially tied flies. Their nets were skeins, that one team would let out and the other would walk or use their boats to drag into the current, until the whole net was let out in a great circle, then drawn in capturing everything inside. If there was a hole, even one, all the fish, all the labor would be lost. But this was not only work, day in day out in all kinds of weather, but in the time of the Roman Empire, where fishermen were taxed for their bait, taxed what they caught, taxed for their boat, taxed for how many fishermen you had, paying toll upon toll, until you did not enough to feed your village, you might barely have made enough to keep your family alive one more day. Jesus Calling, was a call from existence, from day to day survival to live in the Unknown Zone following where he led. Jesus Called them to leave the daily existence they had known to live in relationship with others and with God. Instead of this being a Calling into a Vocation, what I hear is a Call to Relationship. We do not know what the future holds, we do know what will happen today or tomorrow. What we do know is we can face tomorrow together, not having to be alone. This day is our Annual Meeting. For generations, Annual Meetings whether in the Church or Social Engagements, on a Sports Team or in Business have been done in much the same manor. We Call the Body to Order, we elect officers, approve salaries, review the events and circumstance of the past year as if a Shareholders Statement of Profit and Loss. What if, we could this differently? We as a congregation are entering into a new Journey. We know where we have been. We know there are churches around the world that have been doing the same thing for year after year after year. We know there are churches that are provocative and avantgarde. My Doctoral Thesis looked at a wide variety of congregations of differing sizes, all of which were stuck and what it would take to get them unstuck. What we found essential were 4 things: First, An identity of being the Church. We are not a club, not nice people, not a business. We are Church, The Church in this place and time. Our Session wrestled long and hard with what our Mission is today. What we agreed upon seems so simple and yet revolutionary. We exist, we are called to be here, to share the resources of the Church with those wanting to receive. That means we do weddings and funerals and faith celebrations, sharing our resources as gifts of God that we can host. Second, that we have the Resources to address the problems before us and a willingness to use them. Third, that the level of trust, and level of conflict are inter-connected. The greater our level of trust, the greater the relationships the more can be done. The greater the conflict competition with one another, intent on harming others, the less. And Fourth, that we embrace that there is a future Unknown. Those organizations, especially churches which envision how long before they close, are set to close, to die. Those church who share together, living in Zone Unknown where our Spiritual Center of Gravity will be off-center and we will all feel like exiles in a foreign land, but we will not be alone, and we believe in the possibilities of our working together to change the world will change the world working together.