Let us Pray - Creator and maker of us all - bless the words of my lips and the meditations of our hearts - grow thou in us and show us your ways and inspire us to live by your truth. Amen
The very first words of Jesus when he met Simon Peter and his brother Andrew on the shores of the Sea of Galilee were "Follow me, and I will make you a fisher of men."
Most of you knew that before - and if you didn't - you heard them read today from the first chapter of the Gospel According to Mark.
But how many of you know what the last words of Jesus to Simon Peter were? Words also spoken down by the waters of the sea of Galilee - just before Jesus was taken up into heaven?
Yes - this is a bible test... something for you to think about - but to have mercy - I will give you the answer.
His very last words to Peter, words spoken just before he was taken up into heaven, words spoken after Peter and the others had been his daily companions for three years, were virtually the same as the first: "Feed my sheep, Follow me."
Our calling - the calling of every single person here - and the call that is extended to all of God's children is the same as that of Peter.
Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.
Follow me and feed my sheep.
We have a twofold calling - you and I.
We are called to be disciples - to be ones who walk with Jesus and who learn from him and we are called to be apostles - to be ones who go forth, and in the particular way that God gifts us for, act as Christ's ambassadors in the world
- to be ones who allow Jesus to speak through us.
- to be ones who minister God's reconciling love to the world,
- to be one's who bring God's word of forgiveness and of hope, God's life giving word to all who need it.
A twofold calling.
The first aspect of our calling is to enter into a relationship with Jesus, that is one of complete and utter trust. To come to him as he asks us to come - and to give to him our weariness, our burdens, our anxieties - and to receive from him those things he wants to give us - peace, hope, joy, truth, love, strength, wisdom....To come to him - and to follow him - where-ever he leads - even if it be to a cross. To come to him and to learn from him. To come to him and to live in him - and have him live in us. To come to him and to be made new by him and in him.
This is not easy.
It is not easy
- not because Christ is unable to bear our burdens and to give us rest,
- nor because Jesus does not have the power to make us new and turn us into the salt of the earth and the light of the world.
It is not easy because it demands of us more than most people are willing to give.
It demands discipline, single-mindedness, a determination to indeed make Christ the centre of our lives.
It demands of us the resolve to do those things that our Lord asks us to do, to go where-ever our Lord leads us - even if that involves leaving behind things precious and dear to us - even if that involves doing things we think we can't do - or wish that we would not have to do.
In certain church circles there is a story told about Dr. George Darby who
served as a missionary Doctor for over 45 years.
"I hope that no one will ever say to me that I stuck it out here", Darby said at a retirement party way back in 1959. "It was a privilege, and I thank you."
When Doctor Darby graduated from Medical School in 1914 his professors recognized in him a great deal of surgical skill and tried to persuade him to take up a lucrative practice in the city, but he was determined to minister in Christ's name and out of his love for a people who needed someone to care.
And he did - in tiny fishing and logging camps and Indian villages, and under conditions that were frequently harsh and almost always uncomfortable.
Compare that to the choices some people make.
Compare it to those folk who can't even spend a hour or so a week at worship or three or four hours a week helping children or youth learn about or experience the love of God because these activities take place at the same time as mahjong games or might interfere with a favourite TV show, or some money making activities.
The benefits, my friends, of the Christian life, can only come if we actually live the Christian life, if we actually follow Christ where he went and learn and do what Christ taught and did.
Christ prayed every day - indeed he prayed continually. Christ went to the synagogue to worship and to learn every week. And Christ allowed his meals to be interrupted and his time of relaxation to be interfered with by the hungry, the crippled, and the needy.
Does this few, relatively little things I have lifted up, describe our lives? In whole? Or even in part.
Discipleship involves discipline.
No one, as Paul puts it in another place in his letter to the Corinthians can win the prize if he doesn't run the race. No one can receive the crown of victory - if he doesn't persevere to the end of the course.
Or as Jesus said - "No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other."
Jesus spoke those words about choosing between God and Money. But they apply to every area of our lives. We either serve God - we either follow Christ - or we follow after the desires of our own hearts.
Our call to be disciples and our life as disciples is perhaps best described as a choice - a choice between living like everybody else, or living in the way Christ shows how to live: living in the way of the cross - knowing that the this will lead us as well to the resurrection.
Peter and Andrew, James and John and all the rest were told over and over again by Jesus that they must chose and that all who would follow him must choose: that they must chose between seeking to save their lives - between pursuing their own desires and wants - and the cross, his cross.
We sang about that choice a few minutes ago:
Jesus calls us from the worship of the vain world's golden store from each idol that would keep us, "saying Christian, love me more". In our joys and in our sorrows, days of toil and hours of ease, still he calls, in cares and pleasures, "Christian love me more than these"
Our Apostleship flows forth from our discipleship.
Those who are called to follow are also sent forth, they are given a ministry - what Paul calls the ministry of reconciliation, and told variously to feed Christ's sheep, to fish for men, to be Christ's Ambassadors, to allow God to make his appeal to all humankind through us.
This is not a hard thing - though it may involve hardships. This is not a difficult thing - though it may involve difficulties.
It - as I said - flows forth from our discipleship; it flows forth from the fact that as we follow Jesus we are made new in him, - by his power we are equipped and made ready to do all that we are called to do, - we are made to be, as Paul puts it in our epistle reading today, "the righteousness of God" - we are made to be people who embody the saving love of God - and who share it.
When we join God's team - when we follow Christ day by day, God equips us, God empowers us, God uses us, God supports us, God helps us.
We are all called to the ministry of reconciliation. And we are all equipped to discharge that ministry.
We are made, by the power of Christ within us, to be the salt of the earth. We are made, by our daily choosing to follow Christ, the light of the world.
All of us are called - each in our own way - to follow and to serve. All of us are called - each in our own way - to be made new in Christ - and to allow Christ to speak through us, to allow God to act within us and to reach out and touch others using our hands - our hearts - our words.
When we follow Christ, when we learn from him and obey him, when we allow him to come in and live in us and then go out and carry him to the world, great things happen - no matter who we think we are - or who others might think us to be.
Rick Warren, in the book "The Purpose Driven Church" writes:
Small ministries often make the greatest difference. The most important light in my home is not the large chandelier in our dining room, but the little nightlight that keeps me from stubbing my toe when I get up to use the bathroom at night. It's small, but it's more useful to me than the show-off light."
In the dark night of the soul that our friends, our neighbours, our co-workers, might be experiencing, the light we have because we are disciples of Christ - because we are followers in his way - might be the most important thing in their lives.
We are called to let it shine.
Our Christian life revolves around two poles
- discipleship - following Christ
- and apostleship - carrying Christ into the world.
May you indeed be fully resolved to follow him and live up to your calling as fishers of men, as ones who feed his sheep.
May His Name be praised day by day. Amen.
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