Discipleship outside the Box
January 18, 2009
Rev. Susan Gilbert Zencka
Frame Memorial Presbyterian Church
Texts: 1 Samuel 3:1-10, John 1:43-51, Psalm 139:1-18
He said, “Give me a long enough lever and a place to stand, and I will move the earth,” but Archimedes is not so much known for moving the earth as he is for taking a bath. “Eureka!” is what he is supposed to have cried as he ran into the street, naked and dripping wet, eureka being Greek for “I found it!” Archimedes lived in the 3rd century BCE, and was an advisor to King Hiero of Syracuse. The king was having a new gold crown made for him and was concerned that the maker of the crown might make the crown out of a combination of less valuable metals instead. The king had asked Archimedes to develop a method to determine whether or not the crown was pure gold. Archimedes had realized, as he got into the bathtub, and the volume of his body displaced water that spilled onto the floor that the key was in the relationship between the weight of the crown and its volume – gold being heavier than silver. He filled a jar of water to the brim, dropped the crown into it, and measured the amount of water that was displaced. Then, he refilled the jar to the brim, and dropped a piece of gold the same weight as the crown into the jar, reasoning that if the crown were pure gold, the same amount of water should overflow again. It did not, and the king was able to determine that he had been cheated.
The Greek verb that Archimedes shouted – Eureka – is the same verb that is used 3 times in the passage from John that Diane read (and twice in the passage just before this). We usually translate this as “find” – Jesus finds Philip and says follow me, Philip finds Nathanael and says, the one of whom the prophets wrote, we have found him: Jesus from Nazareth. To translate this as “find” doesn’t quite capture the sense of the original Greek. The most common definitions for this verb are: (1) "to learn the location of something, either by intentional searching or by unexpected discovery;" and (2) "to learn something previously not known, frequently involving an element of surprise". It might be more apt to think of Archimedes having said, “I realized” or “I discovered” – there is that sense of having happened upon something, of surprise and discovery.
As the passage unfolds, the sense of surprise continues, first when Nathanael says, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Remember last week, when we discussed that Nazareth was an unremarkable small town out in the boonies? As we think back on political campaigns that some of us remember, it is similar to saying, “What? From Hope, Arkansas? From Wasilla, Alaska?” And then Jesus surprises Nathanael by saying he was aware of Nathanael’s candid skepticism about Jesus, by saying he had seen him under the fig tree (presumably meaning that he had heard the whole conversation with Philip). And in discovering that Jesus knows this about him, Nathanael realizes that Jesus is the Messiah.
There is a more literal awakening in the story of Samuel. The boy is sleeping when God calls him, “Samuel, Samuel!” Samuel is a boy, who is essentially apprenticed to the prophet Eli, living in the temple with him, and learning how to serve God. Can’t you relate to the era that is described? The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread. His era is like ours in this way – we don’t have a lot of visions either. The text is telling us that it’s not surprising that Samuel didn’t get it that he was being called by God. But the older man, Eli, is able to realize what’s going on, and help Samuel to know how to respond. There’s a parallel in this to our own Presbyterian understanding – we discern best in conversation with others. We may not correctly understand God on our own. People often say, “Why do I need a church? I can follow God perfectly well on my own.” Certainly much of discipleship is on an individual level – the choices and commitments we make are personal. But we grow to a better understanding in community, where our own observations and perceptions can be honed in conversation with others who might notice or understand something that we’ve missed. There is a verse in Proverbs which says this well: Iron sharpens iron, and one person sharpens the wits of another. There can be some discoveries as we share our ideas with one another. We can grow in our understanding of God as we share our ideas, and we can grow in our understanding of ourselves as well – others may see things in us that we have missed, can help us claim gifts that we might not have acknowledged, can help us know ourselves more.
The psalm speaks very thoroughly about being known. It speaks of how God knows us, inside and out – even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely. This isn’t speaking of knowing the future, it’s about knowing us – just as we might, when we know someone very well, be able to predict what they might say or do in a given situation. The psalmist understands that God is always with us, always near, knowing us better than we know ourselves.
We often think that God’s call to us might be some kind of burden, something we don’t want to do – but writer Frederick Buechner, in Wishful Thinking: A Seeker’s ABC, describes vocation in this way: “There are all different kinds of voices calling you to all different kinds of work, and the problem is to find out which is the voice of God rather than of society, say, or the superego, or self interest.
“The kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work (a) that you need to do and (b) that the world needs to have done. If you find your work rewarding, you have presumably met requirement (a), but if your work does not benefit others, the chances are you have missed requirement (b). On the other hand, if your work does benefit others, you have probably met requirement (b), but if most of the time you are unhappy with it, the chances are you have not only bypassed (a) but probably aren’t helping [other people] much either.
“Neither the hair shirt nor the soft berth will do. The place where God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” The word vocation comes from vocare the Latin word meaning “to call”. By the way, a hair shirt was a rough garment worn close to the skin which kept the wearer in a constant state of discomfort – early religious orders used these as part of penance rituals. The soft berth – berth with an “e” not an “i” – is describing a soft place to lie. So our vocation is neither an exercise in discomfort nor is it a resting place. God calls us to our best and truest self through our discipleship – we may be called to stretch and grow, and our vocation will benefit both the world and us.
Parker Palmer in Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation, speaks of vocation in a way that speaks of discovery and awakening: “Today I understand vocation quite differently – not as a goal to be achieved but as a gift to be received. Discovering vocation does not mean scrambling toward some prize just beyond my reach but accepting the treasure of true self I already possess. Vocation does not come from a voice ‘out there’ calling me to become something I am not. It comes from a voice ‘in here’ calling me to be the person I was born to be, to fulfill the original selfhood given me at birth by God.” (10)
“… The deepest vocational question is not ‘What ought I to do with my life?’ It is the more elemental and demanding ‘Who am I? What is my nature?’” (15)
So our discipleship, our following God, is not only following God out into the world – although it is certainly that – it is also following God more deeply into ourselves. Our following God will leave the world a better place, and we will be the better, and more joyous, for it ourselves. This does not mean that following God won’t call us to do things that are hard – it merely means that those challenges are also part of the hard work of becoming ourselves.
Following the call of God will be a journey of surprise and discovery. And knowing this gives us the opportunity to look at obstacles or setbacks in a different light. As Parker continues, “Seasons are a wise metaphor for the movement of life, I think. It suggests that life is neither a battlefield nor a game of chance but something infinitely richer, more promising, more real. The notion that our lives are like the eternal cycle of the seasons does not deny the struggle or the joy, the loss or the gain, the darkness or the light, but encourages us to embrace it all – and to find in all of it opportunities for growth.” (96)
Certainly as a nation we can count some of the challenges and conflicts we’ve had over the years as important opportunities for growth. Two hundred years ago, our nation lived under the shadow of slavery. The same year Frame was founded, the Civil War ended, beginning a new era. But it wasn’t enough. Many steps followed, from lynchings and the KKK, to segregation, before Brown vs. the Board of Education, followed by the Civil Rights gains of the 60’s. And it still wasn’t enough. Many of us here remember the hope that most of the nation, and much of the world felt 45 years ago, hearing a man of God speak of the vision he had, saying “I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.’
“I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
“I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
“I have a dream today.” He continued, a little further: “I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
“This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.”
When King was killed, less than 5 years later, hope turned to grief. Today most of America, including those who voted for Obama and those who didn’t, recognize that we are in a new place of hope as we stand at the edge of inaugurating our first African-American president. It still isn’t enough. There is more, much more, to do – in our denomination, in our country and in our world – before all people are free to become the people God created us all to be.
Doug Schuurman, professor of religion at St. Olaf College, has written of vocation: “… Put in general terms, the purpose of God’s call is for the people of God to worship God, and to participate in God’s creative and redemptive purposes for the world, to enjoy, hope for, pray for, and work toward God’s shalom. This is what it means for Christians to be in Christ and to follow Christ.” [Vocation: Discerning Our Callings in Life, 2004, Wm B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.]
The more we follow Jesus, the more discoveries and surprises we find along the way, because the Way of Jesus is not the Way of conventional wisdom. One last quote from Buechner says it quite well: “If the world is sane, then Jesus is mad as a hatter and the Last Supper is the Mad Tea Party. The world says, Mind your own business, and Jesus says, There is no such thing as your own business. The world says, Follow the wisest course and be a success, and Jesus says, Follow me and be crucified. The world says, Drive carefully – the life you save may be your own – and Jesus says, Whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. The world says, Law and order, and Jesus says, Love. The world says, Get and Jesus says, Give. In terms of the world’s sanity, Jesus is as crazy as a coot, and anybody who thinks he can follow him without being a little bit crazy too is laboring less under a cross than under a delusion.” [Listening to Your Life: Daily Meditations with Frederick Buechner]
Let us worship God, and let us work and pray for the peace and justice of God’s shalom. Let us enjoy God’s world. Let us be willing to be surprised by God. Let us follow Jesus, and discover ourselves along the Way. Amen.
Frame Memorial Presbyterian Church
Texts: 1 Samuel 3:1-10, John 1:43-51, Psalm 139:1-18
He said, “Give me a long enough lever and a place to stand, and I will move the earth,” but Archimedes is not so much known for moving the earth as he is for taking a bath. “Eureka!” is what he is supposed to have cried as he ran into the street, naked and dripping wet, eureka being Greek for “I found it!” Archimedes lived in the 3rd century BCE, and was an advisor to King Hiero of Syracuse. The king was having a new gold crown made for him and was concerned that the maker of the crown might make the crown out of a combination of less valuable metals instead. The king had asked Archimedes to develop a method to determine whether or not the crown was pure gold. Archimedes had realized, as he got into the bathtub, and the volume of his body displaced water that spilled onto the floor that the key was in the relationship between the weight of the crown and its volume – gold being heavier than silver. He filled a jar of water to the brim, dropped the crown into it, and measured the amount of water that was displaced. Then, he refilled the jar to the brim, and dropped a piece of gold the same weight as the crown into the jar, reasoning that if the crown were pure gold, the same amount of water should overflow again. It did not, and the king was able to determine that he had been cheated.
The Greek verb that Archimedes shouted – Eureka – is the same verb that is used 3 times in the passage from John that Diane read (and twice in the passage just before this). We usually translate this as “find” – Jesus finds Philip and says follow me, Philip finds Nathanael and says, the one of whom the prophets wrote, we have found him: Jesus from Nazareth. To translate this as “find” doesn’t quite capture the sense of the original Greek. The most common definitions for this verb are: (1) "to learn the location of something, either by intentional searching or by unexpected discovery;" and (2) "to learn something previously not known, frequently involving an element of surprise". It might be more apt to think of Archimedes having said, “I realized” or “I discovered” – there is that sense of having happened upon something, of surprise and discovery.
As the passage unfolds, the sense of surprise continues, first when Nathanael says, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Remember last week, when we discussed that Nazareth was an unremarkable small town out in the boonies? As we think back on political campaigns that some of us remember, it is similar to saying, “What? From Hope, Arkansas? From Wasilla, Alaska?” And then Jesus surprises Nathanael by saying he was aware of Nathanael’s candid skepticism about Jesus, by saying he had seen him under the fig tree (presumably meaning that he had heard the whole conversation with Philip). And in discovering that Jesus knows this about him, Nathanael realizes that Jesus is the Messiah.
There is a more literal awakening in the story of Samuel. The boy is sleeping when God calls him, “Samuel, Samuel!” Samuel is a boy, who is essentially apprenticed to the prophet Eli, living in the temple with him, and learning how to serve God. Can’t you relate to the era that is described? The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread. His era is like ours in this way – we don’t have a lot of visions either. The text is telling us that it’s not surprising that Samuel didn’t get it that he was being called by God. But the older man, Eli, is able to realize what’s going on, and help Samuel to know how to respond. There’s a parallel in this to our own Presbyterian understanding – we discern best in conversation with others. We may not correctly understand God on our own. People often say, “Why do I need a church? I can follow God perfectly well on my own.” Certainly much of discipleship is on an individual level – the choices and commitments we make are personal. But we grow to a better understanding in community, where our own observations and perceptions can be honed in conversation with others who might notice or understand something that we’ve missed. There is a verse in Proverbs which says this well: Iron sharpens iron, and one person sharpens the wits of another. There can be some discoveries as we share our ideas with one another. We can grow in our understanding of God as we share our ideas, and we can grow in our understanding of ourselves as well – others may see things in us that we have missed, can help us claim gifts that we might not have acknowledged, can help us know ourselves more.
The psalm speaks very thoroughly about being known. It speaks of how God knows us, inside and out – even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely. This isn’t speaking of knowing the future, it’s about knowing us – just as we might, when we know someone very well, be able to predict what they might say or do in a given situation. The psalmist understands that God is always with us, always near, knowing us better than we know ourselves.
We often think that God’s call to us might be some kind of burden, something we don’t want to do – but writer Frederick Buechner, in Wishful Thinking: A Seeker’s ABC, describes vocation in this way: “There are all different kinds of voices calling you to all different kinds of work, and the problem is to find out which is the voice of God rather than of society, say, or the superego, or self interest.
“The kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work (a) that you need to do and (b) that the world needs to have done. If you find your work rewarding, you have presumably met requirement (a), but if your work does not benefit others, the chances are you have missed requirement (b). On the other hand, if your work does benefit others, you have probably met requirement (b), but if most of the time you are unhappy with it, the chances are you have not only bypassed (a) but probably aren’t helping [other people] much either.
“Neither the hair shirt nor the soft berth will do. The place where God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” The word vocation comes from vocare the Latin word meaning “to call”. By the way, a hair shirt was a rough garment worn close to the skin which kept the wearer in a constant state of discomfort – early religious orders used these as part of penance rituals. The soft berth – berth with an “e” not an “i” – is describing a soft place to lie. So our vocation is neither an exercise in discomfort nor is it a resting place. God calls us to our best and truest self through our discipleship – we may be called to stretch and grow, and our vocation will benefit both the world and us.
Parker Palmer in Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation, speaks of vocation in a way that speaks of discovery and awakening: “Today I understand vocation quite differently – not as a goal to be achieved but as a gift to be received. Discovering vocation does not mean scrambling toward some prize just beyond my reach but accepting the treasure of true self I already possess. Vocation does not come from a voice ‘out there’ calling me to become something I am not. It comes from a voice ‘in here’ calling me to be the person I was born to be, to fulfill the original selfhood given me at birth by God.” (10)
“… The deepest vocational question is not ‘What ought I to do with my life?’ It is the more elemental and demanding ‘Who am I? What is my nature?’” (15)
So our discipleship, our following God, is not only following God out into the world – although it is certainly that – it is also following God more deeply into ourselves. Our following God will leave the world a better place, and we will be the better, and more joyous, for it ourselves. This does not mean that following God won’t call us to do things that are hard – it merely means that those challenges are also part of the hard work of becoming ourselves.
Following the call of God will be a journey of surprise and discovery. And knowing this gives us the opportunity to look at obstacles or setbacks in a different light. As Parker continues, “Seasons are a wise metaphor for the movement of life, I think. It suggests that life is neither a battlefield nor a game of chance but something infinitely richer, more promising, more real. The notion that our lives are like the eternal cycle of the seasons does not deny the struggle or the joy, the loss or the gain, the darkness or the light, but encourages us to embrace it all – and to find in all of it opportunities for growth.” (96)
Certainly as a nation we can count some of the challenges and conflicts we’ve had over the years as important opportunities for growth. Two hundred years ago, our nation lived under the shadow of slavery. The same year Frame was founded, the Civil War ended, beginning a new era. But it wasn’t enough. Many steps followed, from lynchings and the KKK, to segregation, before Brown vs. the Board of Education, followed by the Civil Rights gains of the 60’s. And it still wasn’t enough. Many of us here remember the hope that most of the nation, and much of the world felt 45 years ago, hearing a man of God speak of the vision he had, saying “I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.’
“I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
“I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
“I have a dream today.” He continued, a little further: “I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
“This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.”
When King was killed, less than 5 years later, hope turned to grief. Today most of America, including those who voted for Obama and those who didn’t, recognize that we are in a new place of hope as we stand at the edge of inaugurating our first African-American president. It still isn’t enough. There is more, much more, to do – in our denomination, in our country and in our world – before all people are free to become the people God created us all to be.
Doug Schuurman, professor of religion at St. Olaf College, has written of vocation: “… Put in general terms, the purpose of God’s call is for the people of God to worship God, and to participate in God’s creative and redemptive purposes for the world, to enjoy, hope for, pray for, and work toward God’s shalom. This is what it means for Christians to be in Christ and to follow Christ.” [Vocation: Discerning Our Callings in Life, 2004, Wm B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.]
The more we follow Jesus, the more discoveries and surprises we find along the way, because the Way of Jesus is not the Way of conventional wisdom. One last quote from Buechner says it quite well: “If the world is sane, then Jesus is mad as a hatter and the Last Supper is the Mad Tea Party. The world says, Mind your own business, and Jesus says, There is no such thing as your own business. The world says, Follow the wisest course and be a success, and Jesus says, Follow me and be crucified. The world says, Drive carefully – the life you save may be your own – and Jesus says, Whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. The world says, Law and order, and Jesus says, Love. The world says, Get and Jesus says, Give. In terms of the world’s sanity, Jesus is as crazy as a coot, and anybody who thinks he can follow him without being a little bit crazy too is laboring less under a cross than under a delusion.” [Listening to Your Life: Daily Meditations with Frederick Buechner]
Let us worship God, and let us work and pray for the peace and justice of God’s shalom. Let us enjoy God’s world. Let us be willing to be surprised by God. Let us follow Jesus, and discover ourselves along the Way. Amen.