Sermon Third Sunday of Easter: The Rt. Rev. Andrew (Drew) Smith
Posted on
Readings for the Third Sunday of Easter can be found here. Learn more about our preachers here.
Third Sunday of Easter Year C April 10, 2016 Trinity Church Hartford
Let’s think today about the word “occupations.”
“Occupy” comes to us through French and Middle English the Latin verb occupo, occupare (I looked this up), whose root meaning is to seize or take control of something or somewhere.
Think: Occupy Wall Street, the Occupied Territories,
Variations include Occupant: someone who has taken (maybe not seized, but taken) a place and is in it: a seat for instance, or a public office, an apartment or house.
Another variation: the word we’re interested in this morning: Occupation, which denotes a position one has “taken” and which one “fills” — usually in the sense of doing something which is productive and provides income and/or meaning for one’s own life. My occupation is as bus driver, and what I do is move people from one destination to another and I earn wages and benefits to support my family. Occupation = Sense of place, work, focus, and one would hope, significance.
Look at two of this morning’s Scripture readings, one, earlier in time, from the Gospel of John, the second, later, from the Book of Acts: they are about two men who are engaged in their occupations — what they do — and how that got changed.
Story One, the Gospel of John. It’s strange to me: Lots of the story after the Resurrection is missing At some point the disciples returned to Galilee, and at some point, they went back to their day jobs, back to work. Peter: “I am going fishing.” The other six said, “We will go with you.” It seems as if they were unoccupied; was the Jesus moment is over? We don’t know, in any event they returned to what their occupation had been before Jesus recruited them at the beginning of his earthly ministry: they were commercial fishermen, and so they set out to fish during the night.
Here the gospel picks up. Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, ‘Children, you have no fish, have you?’ They answered him, ‘No.’ He said to them, ‘Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some.’ So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish. That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, ‘It is the Lord!’ When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the lake.
Jesus was cooking breakfast — (he had fish and bread — it reminds us of the feeding of the 5000) — and, as before, he fed them bread and fish.
Then he fixed on Peter. He put to him three direct questions: (notice Jesus used Peter’s original given name, not the nickname Jesus later had given him), “Simon son of John, do you love me?” “Simon son of John, do you love me?” “Simon son of John, do you love me?” (which reminds us of his three denials in the high priest’s courtyard) And Peter’s hurt and exasperation: “Yes, yes, yes, you know I love you.”
And then Jesus gave him a new occupation: tend my lambs, feed my sheep. When you were young you could come and go and occupy yourself as you chose, but now, follow me, and I tell you, when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.’ (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would die.) Just, he said, ‘Follow me.’
Fisherman no longer, but now follower of Jesus.
Story Two, the Book of Acts: Some time later, there is the account of Paul and Jesus.
Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest 2and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.’
Saul was doing his job: he was a pharisee and his occupation was as a professional heretic hunter; his work was to root out wrong religion, and he was on his way to Damascus to round up heretics, arrest them and bring them to Jerusalem for trial.
And then Jesus got him. Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you doing this?’ He asked, ‘Who are you?’ The reply came, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.
As Peter threw himself out of the boat at seeing Jesus, so Saul was thrown off his horse. As Peter lost control of what he wanted to do, so did Paul. “Get up.” said Jesus, “and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.”
Both men, engaged in their regular occupations, both men encountered by the living Christ face to face — in very different ways — both men moved by God into new occupations — to be bearers of the good news of the risen Jesus, leaders of the believers, nurturers of the faith.
All through our history, God’s has had a habit of moving in on people, and changing their occupations, what they do.
Moses from fugitive sheepherder to leader of the Hebrews. Samuel from boy servant to Eli to a major prophet, David from child shepherd to king, Mary from a girl in a backwater village to the Mother of God.
These stories, like those of Peter and Paul we read today, are striking. Burning bush, voice in the night, angelic annunciation, Breakfast in Galilee, blinding flash on the road, are dramatic, sudden, undeniable overwhelming flashes of God’s presence and power.
Often, though, God calls us more quietly to move into a new place, sometimes subtly that we might miss the message, the invitation, the push to change our occupation — what most occupies us — altogether.
Sometimes there is a voice that arises from within. Or an urge, a nagging inside us, a sense that something is amiss from the love of God, and that we might be — are — the ones to be the presence, do the work, of God right now. Maybe not the kind of Christ-encounter to make us jump out of the boat into the water, or to knock us off our horse onto the road, but God’s call always is there, if we but keep our eyes, minds, hearts open to Christ’s cal to change what we are doing.
Some of us here in this church which is running out of resources with which others have endowed it — are responding to new calls to engagement and leadership. Maybe for you it is here in our City of Hartford, itself also facing fiscal cataclysm; you could be the one to respond to residents caught in systemic poverty, families in hunger, kids needing mature adult engagement, gun violence, the crying need for regional co-operation.
Perhaps you are moved by the reality of refugees and feel nudged to join others among us and become occupied with helping refugee immigrants create new homes and lives here in the Hartford area. Or it could be some special occasion you’re facing in your own family — helping raise children, responding to a sibling’s addiction — “I didn’t expect to be spending my time doing this.” These of course are only local issues.
Changing your occupation — the place where you are and the things that you do — what occupies you — whether from outside or from within — is a hallmark of knowing God in Christ Jesus. For God does call us always, to occupy ourselves in new ways, often moving us out of our comfort areas, sometimes like Peter having us go where we do not want to go. And like Paul, some may ask us, “What are you doing here?” But to go where the love of God is needed.
So, then from all this, three questions:
Think back: Has it ever happened to you — the call of God to change how you are occupied, where you are, how you spend your time?
And: Is there somewhere now you are feeling that gentle push of the Word and Spirit within, in response to something or someone you have read of or heard or seen or know who needs you, that would be a new occupation in Christ?
And in the future, will you look for, and seize the call, get occupied in new ways, to bring Christ into the world?
O God, whose blessed Son made himself known in so many ways to his disciples, Open the eyes of our faith, that we may see him in all his redeeming work, and follow where he leads; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.