Letting Go of the Darkness
Isaiah 9:1-4; Matthew 4:12-23

What does it take for you to "drop everything" and go do something else? To change your plans? Last Tuesday I asked those who came to Bible Study that question. We were looking at Matthew's account of Jesus calling the first disciples -- the one we just read. (It's a dangerous thing to come to Bible Study on Tuesdays, by the way. You risk being quoted in the sermon on Sunday.) Your responses were as varied as they were revealing. For some, an offer to go out to eat could get you to drop everything. That usually works for me. For others, it was a visit to a yarn shop or a craft store, or a good book store. For some, it was a beautiful day and a tee time at the golf course. For some, it was a friend in need.

We talked about how hard it is to leave what we have, especially after we've accumulated so much, and become so attached to our lives and our homes and our relatives and friends and, let's face it -- our stuff! And today's Gospel story of these guys just dropping everything and leaving their jobs and their father is really not something conventional wisdom and sensibility would encourage. The disciples appear to be impulsive, distractible, and restless. Those of us who try, with or without success, to be more deliberate, focused, and systematic might write this story off and assume it just doesn't apply to us: "Follow me!" the voice calls to us. "Sorry Jesus. You just don't fit in with my long term plans." I'll go to church on Sunday, put my token in the offering plate, as long as I don't feel the pinch, but I'm not one of these religious fanatics who makes this my life or anything. I'm not going to give up everything to follow Jesus. So I'm not even going to open myself up to the possibility. I'm not about to give up my job and my family and friends and my house and leave." And so we rationalize.

And what we DO do -- attend church regularly, write our check, serve on a committee, just may become sort of like an inoculation against following. When we're inoculated against a disease, just enough of the germs of the disease are introduced into our bodies so our body develops resistance and our immunity is strengthened. Sometimes I think that's what the church does. It introduces just enough of Jesus into our lives so we develop enough of a resistance to him that we don't REALLY have to follow him. We can stay comfortable and take him on OUR terms -- compartmentalize him on Sunday mornings when it fits in our schedule. That way WE can stay in control. We just don't take this whole religion thing very seriously -- because we're not like them. We're not like those impulsive, distractible, restless disciples. We're far more sensible.

Today in our first lesson we hear echoes of the lesson we heard on Christmas Eve. That same sentiment is echoed in our Gospel. I love Eugene Peterson's translation of this text in THE MESSAGE: "People sitting out their lives in the dark saw a huge light; Sitting in that dark, dark country of death, they watched the sun come up." Jesus is that sun, that light that transforms the darkness. Jesus, in his preaching and teaching calls us to repent -- to turn around, to change our lives, and to let go of the darkness, the way impulsive, distracted, and restless Simon and Andrew, James and John let go of their nets.

And without even realizing it, it is so often to that darkness that we cling. If you've ever taken a philosophy class you've probably encountered the story the philosopher Plato tells in his "Allegory of the Cave:" A group of people have spent their whole lives chained up in an underground cave, unable to turn around. Behind them a fire is blazing, but all they can see are their own shadows on the wall of the cave in front of them. They have never seen anything else, so they naturally mistake these shadows for reality.

One of the things that I have found most difficult about parish ministry over the years is the great number of interruptions that come up all the time. Interruptions that get in the way of what I planned to do. People in need. People getting sick and dying. And then a colleague told me something about that. It's true, that parish pastors are so vulnerable to interruption. And it is the interruption that IS our ministry. Planning is good and necessary. And sometimes my plan can be the shadow instead of the reality of ministry -- when it functions simply to feed my illusion of control. The reality of ministry is the interruption. The same is true for you. Our call today is one of being ready for interruptions, to expect them, and to seize them as opportunities for ministry. In a sense, our call is to plan for interruptions. That requires an openness to accept whatever might come our way in the course of a day, wherever we may find ourselves -- whether in a yarn shop or on the golf course -- and follow the call of Jesus to be light in the world.

I have to share with you how this just happened last week to two men in the hospital. I'll call them Bed A Man and Bed B Man. The man in Bed A was hospitalized recently and the man in Bed B was going through a terrible time. He had been hospitalized 14 weeks at that point, for any number of problems. He was writhing in bed behind the curtain that separated the two beds and so the two men as well. He was ranting and raving quite loudly. This was quite an interruption for Bed A Man whose plan was to be in the hospital for surgery and to heal. In his ranting, Bed B Man mentioned his experience in the military. And Bed A man, instead of clinging to the darkness of his own pain and problems, dropped that net, let go of his darkness, and struck up a dialogue with the ailing man behind the curtain. Immediately, Bed B man dropped his net too and they engaged in quite a conversation through the curtain. They discovered they had both served on nearby islands in the South Pacific during WWII, and became friends. Bed B Man's son was eternally grateful to the man in Bed A. He said no one had been able to quiet his father down in all the weeks he had been hospitalized. And we can be very grateful that the man in Bed A is one of us -- a member of Holy Cross Lutheran Church, who is teaching us how to let go of the darkness and make space for Jesus to illumine our hearts and minds. He gave us an example of accepting an opportunity to follow wherever we may find it.

Are you sitting out your life in the dark? What's the net you're holding on to most tightly? What's the darkness to which you cling? Is it preoccupation with the challenges of life? Is it illness, or grief? Is it estrangement in a relationship? Is it your plans for your life and your future? Or is it simply, as Andy Amstutz said last Tuesday, the "darkness of the daily grind?" What do you need to let go of in order to follow Jesus? What darkness do you need to release in order to let his light shine in your life and in your heart? What darkness keeps you from accepting whatever interruption comes your way as an opportunity to welcome and be his light?

When we come to worship, we get to practice what it takes to be the light of Christ in the darkness of the daily grind. We get to practice dropping our nets and preparing to follow, open to the light of Christ. It's like exercise. That's what the "Gathering" portion of our service is for. We come into this holy place, this place set apart, and drop the nets of our responsibilities. We quiet our hearts and minds and let go of the frenzy that so often dictates that daily grind. That is why the worship committee is asking that we use the time during the prelude not for friendly conversation, as important as that is, but for emptying ourselves and focusing our hearts and minds so we will be ready to receive. It's hard to fill a cup that's already full.

When we practice that together each week, we just might know how to do that during the week when an opportunity to follow and bear the light of Christ presents itself to us. Because we practiced emptying ourselves, we will know how to do it -- whether on the golf course or at the yarn shop or the restaurant or in the hospital. And so we invite worship to work for you as a spiritual training ground -- so that we all at any time, in any place, might be ready to drop our nets and answer that call to follow, letting go of the darkness, bearing the light of Christ.

Pastor Dana Runestad
23 January 2005 Third Sunday after Epiphany
Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Livonia

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