A Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany
The Rev. Patricia A. Gillespie
Judges 6:11-24a
Psalm 85
1 Corinthians 15:1-11
Luke 5:1-11
So did you hear the one where the three pregnant cows visit the Twin Cities?
Oh, it's a true story – you only have to have been watching the evening news earlier this week.
(Click underlined download speed to see the KMSP video: 28k
or 56k)
The cows managed to get out of their trailer in Oakdale. The troopers had to close up the interstate. Law enforcement officers spent a day and a half trying to catch those cows.
At first I laughed so hard ... and I could hear all the outstate dairy farmers laughing with me. The city boys tried to catch the cows with a snow fence! The officers and other willing helpers yelled and waved and ran around. Troopers cut out a ten foot piece of highway railing and herded the cows into the city streets. Television crews interviewed the highly qualified helpers, with their credentials listed under their names on the TV screen: So-and-So, caulker; Somebody-Else, third-grade teacher. While the stampede continued, these experts made astute comments, like, "That lead cow is really smart!"
Then I began to watch the cows ... and I was close to tears.
They were absolutely terrified.
Those poor animals.
Doesn't anyone have a rope and know what to do with it?
If I'd had access to an adequate horse,
I might have loaded it up and headed down,
hoping I could still remember what I used to do with a lariat.
But I was certain that the cows would tire soon,
and someone would put out some hay or something familiar and tempting
and get them safely back in their trailer.
But it was the next day before they caught the panicked cows,
when the guys showed up with horses and ropes and even tranquilizer guns.
Catching living critters isn't as easy as we'd like to think.
And then I have this odd, imaginary conversation with Jesus:
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Jesus taps us on the shoulder and says,
"Don't be afraid, you skilled catchers of cows,
now that you know how to do it,
I'm going to make you catchers of people." "Jeez," I think, "Get real. We've been at it longer than all night. We worked harder than those Galilean fishermen or Twin Cities cow chasers. Our churches have been working at this growth and evangelism thing for years. We've tried and tried and we haven't caught anything. We know these people. We've tried all this before and it won't work. "Anyway, Jesus," we continue. "We are too small. We are too old. Oh, we know just how that weakling Gideon felt when that angel called him, ‘Mighty Warrior!' – very funny – suggesting that the little guy might overthrow the powerful Midianites ... "We are comfortable here in our little churches just as we are. Jesus, you should get some big Baptist church in the Cities to do your people catching, all that growth and evangelism stuff. They can probably manage this total ministry team stuff too – they'd have enough people to put together a great team of ministers." Jesus sighs and says, "Yah, sure, the big city boys. Let them get out the snow fence and chase them. That's their gift - that kind of hustling evangelism. They do good work. Works great for some folks ... But you -- you, put out into the deep waters. Go out where my Father's children run in terror from the church. Go out where my Father's exhausted children ignore the church because it's meaningless in their lives." Then, like the angel who visited Gideon, Jesus disappears.
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It's true, you know. Jesus asks us to go out and catch others. And it's too much for us ever to imagine doing. And it is GOD who is asking us to do it. If we really believe that, it is terrifying. If it's true, we could catch so much that our churches would burst.
But proper Episcopalians that we are, we're not likely to gather up our nets and go knocking on doors trying to catch people for our churches.
But maybe that's not what we are being asked to do.
The past few Sundays – and much of the last couple of years as we talked about "the ministry of all the baptized" – we have heard about the variety of gifts and abilities God gives us. That's true of churches too – each church has it's own unique set of gifts from God. The spiritual gifts of tiny Episcopal churches are not the same as the gifts of Evangelical Megachurches. Just as our individual gifts are not the same.
We all receive that same good news of God's love that the Apostle Paul writes about, but we all have different ways of receiving and passing that tradition on to others.
Think, for a moment, about what you received that brought you here? Probably someone or something ‘caught' you for Jesus. Or maybe you're not ‘caught' yet – Then what was the "bait" that brought you here? What did you come here searching for? What are you hoping to find? Some of us were born into this church .... but we received something that has kept us here. What is that? Some variation of the Good News.
Whatever it is that we are searching for and hoping for, whatever it is that we have received, that is the gift we are asked to share, to pass on to others. It is our own way of catching people, because it is a piece of our own unique stories.
In my own story, I think part of the Christian Good news
that I received was acceptance even when I was different.
In my first Vacation Bible School, I was the only white kid.
Now, it seems, that my gift for Evangelism is not the
soul-saving, disciple-making evangelism
that my preschool "colored" friends may have grown into.
My kind of evangelism, what I hope to pass on, is
what I received:
a welcome into Christian community
for people that don't seem to fit in.
It is the gift I received. Yours will be different.
That's what evangelism is about. The word "evangelism" means good news. Evangelism happens whenever the Good News of God's love is shared. It may sometimes even look and feel as embarrassing as city boys trying to catch cows with a snow fence. Or it may be as natural as the touch of a hand or a warm smile.
Maybe it results in church growth till we overflow. Or maybe not. But we are all asked to share the good news of God's love each in our own way.
We may, like Gideon and Paul and Peter, feel that we are not worthy to share God's work. Yet, those whom God chooses often come from unexpected places:
What Paul said of himself, is true of us all: