"Drop What You're Doing"
A Sermon Preached by The
Rev. Thomas C. Leinbach
January 27, 2008 - Harwich, Massachusetts

Preaching Text: "Immediately they left their nets and followed him." (Matthew 4:20)

Last week, we touched on just about everybody's favorite subject: sin! Yet we talked about it in a way that differs from common misperception. Sin is not a hell-fire-and-damnation term, but a much softer, relational one.

Sin simply means "separation," or, more specifically, "separation from God." It has to do with our relationship with God. Awareness of our sin does not, biblically, at least, suggest shame-filled, perfectionist lives, lives centered on doing everything right for the sake of doing everything right.

Rather, the awareness of sin reminds us instead of the primacy of relationships, with God and neighbor, and of our need to experience stronger, better ones. It prompts us to remove the impediments that would separate us, and calls us to conduct our lives in ways that ennoble and enhance our relations, and to partake of those actions and behaviors that would make them healthy, life-affirming and joyous.

f our relationship with God is distant or broken, the Bible knowingly asserts, we miss out on our heart's deepest desire: to experience oneness with the One who created us and knows and loves us best.

And when our relationship with God is close, intimate and properly ordered, all of life's priorities are set straight, positively affecting relations with everyone and every thing. Peace and harmony naturally result, in studied contrast to the discord and division otherwise so common to this life.

The biblical story, therefore, is all about God's attempt to heal and restore distant and broken relationships. The story last week of the two disciples in John's gospel who seek to "abide" with Jesus, clearly reveals human nature's most basic need to be "at one" with God and the world, as God intends.

Today's gospel reading from Matthew speaks about the very same thing. Andrew and his brother Simon Peter, we are told, drop their fishing nets in order to be with Jesus. Their desire is to be one with God, and to be one with all of humanity. That they drop everything so abruptly is perhaps striking, a subject we will return to later.

But if the gospel is supposed to bring about harmony and oneness with God and others, how do we explain the divisions and conflicts in Corinth? For Paul, you see, has received word that there is a lot of bickering going on there, with various sub-groups within the church at odds with each other.

He reminds them that they all have been baptized into Jesus Christ, who has overcome such strife and division. He goes on to remind them that as those baptized in Christ are to be "united in the same mind and the same purpose."

Many of us today fear this may mean that we're all supposed to think in lockstep, that we're all supposed to agree with each other in all respects. In so doing we forget that what Paul really is saying is that we are to be unified in Christ's love.

The Corinthians were Greeks, and the Greeks loved wisdom, or, what we today might refer to as intellectualism. The problem with intellectualism is that it is by nature argumentative and disputatious. It divides and separates. And in the realm of ideas, there invariably are winners and losers. Nothing proves this more effectively than today's culture wars.

So while the intellect divides and separates, love unites. In love, intellectual matters become secondary at best.

A few years ago, in a story I've told you all before, if not several times, a friend started attending a largely African-American church in a city near where he lived. What most struck him about the church was not only the vibrancy of their worship services, but the way they interacting with each other.

While attending a weekly men's Bible study, he was amazed at how intensely they disagreed with each other about all kinds of things, about theology, politics, etc. Their disagreements were both many and passionate.

Yet after each meeting, he said, they'd be laughing, smiling and hugging each other with a deep and genuine affection. The reason? They loved each other as brothers in Christ - first and foremost. Their disagreements on other lesser matters did not define either them or their relationships with each other. On those issues, they could disagree heartily, yet still share the same unity of mind and purpose born of Christ's love.

Put another way, they had their priorities straight. It was not that their political, social or theological differences were unimportant, only that they were not the most important. Truth that does not advance our relationships is, in short, sinful and not Christ's love.

No doubt the desire for this same kind of love is what prompted Andrew and Peter to drop their fishing nets and follow Jesus. After all, to know Christ's love is to know life's very meaning and purpose.

But the way they did it strikes me as curious. For one thing, they did it so abruptly. Of course, to follow Jesus is to exchange life's lesser things for the very best. This we understand. Except, that is, when you get into the specifics. To follow Jesus sounds good - at least in theory - before, that is, you put it into action. Only then does it threaten to disrupt our daily routines and habits, our daily living.

For instance, the two men, Andrew and Peter, were working at the time. Had they been sitting around doing nothing, we'd probably be far less taken with the story. But they instead are at their jobs, doing what they're supposed to be doing, making a living!

Now this, it seems, gets at the heart of the matter. For if our relationships are the most important thing in the world, both the one we have with God and those we have with our fellow human beings, then all else in life must take a back seat.

If our main job, so to speak, is to nurture and maintain relationships, what does that say about our jobs and careers?

As important as our jobs are, we know all too well the stories of those (most often men) who, looking back, express regret at having spent so much time away from their families. The stereotype, in fact, is the career business man who laments neglecting his wife and children during a lifetime dedicated to "providing for his family." Conversely, one rarely hears anyone say they wish they'd worked more and spent less time with their family over their working years!

Then again, in one way or another, we all are guilty of this kind of neglect. For whenever we put anything ahead of our relationships, even an otherwise perceived good, we negatively affect life's most precious gift. And this occurs not just when we spend time away from others. Whenever we utter a thoughtless word or speak in a manner that disrespects the other, we chip away and separate ourselves from the intimacy all relationships need to thrive.

During our book study this past week, we got on the topic of idolatry. Idolatry, in a nutshell, consists of turning the things God has created into gods themselves. My own personal definition is that an idol is something that promises that which only God can deliver: unity, love, peace, joy and happiness. The big three idols are perhaps money, status and power. But the complete list could take us all day to name.

John Calvin, the great Protestant Reformer, in fact, once likened the human mind to an "idol factory," which constantly fashions substitutes for God.

The reason for this very human propensity toward idolatry is, curiously enough, due to our inborn need to worship someone or some thing. Christians believe that each and every human being is created for one reason: to know and worship God. Our hearts, as Augustine famously put it, simply cannot find rest until they find rest in God.

The problem is that we don't always look to God to fill that need. Instead, we substitute the people and things of this world for God. Not being able to see or hear God, we choose too easily the things we can see and hear.

Paul Tillich, the famed German theologian of the 20th century, once said that whatever is our "ultimate concern" becomes our god. If our ultimate concern is our job, then our job becomes our god or religion. If our ultimate concern is status, then status becomes our god or religion. What's worse, we worship these gods with the fullest force of our being, precisely because worship is basic to who we are. If it is not God we worship, we will devote our whole lives to whatever substitute we've chosen.

The power of this morning's story, for me, is that Andrew and Peter drop what they are doing abruptly in order to follow Jesus. They do so because they rightly perceive the need to be in right relationship with God. As such, why waste another precious second doing something that prevents them from achieving this goal? Why waste another precious second denying what their hearts now know and for which they yearn?

That they were willing to drop everything is significant. So the next time you get a phone call from someone, will you immediately drop what you are doing to give that person your undivided attention? The next time you see a way to help somebody, maybe with a kind word or a helping hand, will you immediately drop what we're doing to make that happen? Throughout your day, will you remain ever vigilant in attending to the relational needs that are the essence of life?

There is an array of things in everyday life that separate us from each other. They detract from the primal human need for intimacy and oneness, producing only strife and disunity.

Loving relationships are life's biggest challenge. So don't wait. Don't put them off. Drop whatever you're doing and pursue them with everything you've got.

Amen.