Epiphany: Turn

Welcome to the Fifth Sunday after Epiphany and our sixth step on the Way of Love journey. There are only a couple of weeks left of the liturgical season of Epiphany. Then comes Ash Wednesday on March 6, and Lent.

Today’s discipline on the Way of Love might seem more suited to Lent. We are called to Turn. What does it mean to Turn? The 1972 pop song by Pete Seger Turn, Turn, Turn, based on Ecclesiastes 3 suggests that “To everything/Turn, turn, turn/There is a season/Turn, turn, turn.” The song and Ecclesiastes chapter 3 both insist, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.” They would suggest that everything that goes around comes around, and around, and around.

But is that what the Way of Love means by Turn? In the Gospel for the Fifth Sunday after Epiphany (Luke 15:1-11) we hear of Simon Peter’s encounter with Jesus. Because of the crowd, Jesus “got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat.”

This seems like the normal activity for a traveling rabbi. Teaching is, after all, his job. However, after “he had finished speaking, [Jesus] said to Simon, ‘Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.’"

This is not in a rabbi's job description, and Simon (Peter) argues, before agreeing. "Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets." Then something amazing, or even miraculous, happens. “They caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break…and [they] filled both boats, so that they began to sink.”

Imagine for just a moment that you are in one of the boats. Just a few hours earlier, when the fish should have been present, there was nothing. Now in the heat of the day, when the fish normally aren’t near the surface, there are so many that the boats and nets are overwhelmed. It is no wonder “Simon Peter...fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, ‘Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!’”

This is the type of Turn that Jesus calls us to. When we realize that we are unworthy, immediately we hear, “Do not be afraid.” We Turn, we are reassured, then we are given a job to do for the Kingdom-for the Way of Love. We make a U-turn from our old self and follow the new way. And, for most of us, we do it many times a day, day after day. As the song says "Turn, Turn, Turn". 

Peter, James, and John were told, “’from now on you will be catching people.’ When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.” Each of us is also called to ‘catch people’ in a variety of ways. We can only do that after we Turn to God.

In her book True You: Letting Go of your False Self to Uncover the Person God Created, Michelle DeRusha is quoted in Life for Leaders as saying, “How can I know where I’m going or what I should do if I don’t know who I am? And how do I know who I am if I don’t know who God is? The reason I’m not clear on what to do (my calling) is because I don’t truly know who I am—my authentic self—and the reason I don’t know who I am is because I don’t truly know God in a deep and intimate way. In fact, I don’t know if I know God at all. I don’t know ‘the hope he has called me to’ [Eph. 1:18] because I don’t know him.”  

Until we Turn, look at ourselves, and esp. at our relationship with God, we cannot truly follow. There is indeed, as Ecclesiastes says, “A time for every purpose under heaven”. We each have a part of that purpose to live out. 

The Rev. George A. Studdart-Kennedy, a WWI chaplain, wrote the poem Well, in which soldier dreams of having died and meeting God. After being confronted with images of his life, the soldier realizes:

“It seemed to me as though 'Is face, Were millions rolled in one.
…'Twere all men's face yet no man's face, And a face no man can see,
And it seemed to say in silent speech, 'Ye did 'em all to me.
…'For all their souls were mine…'
And then at last 'E said one word,…'Well?'
And I said in a funny voice, 'Please can I go to 'Ell?'
And 'E stood there and looked at me,…And then 'E answered 'No
'You can't…'You know that you 'ave earned it, lad, 'So you must follow me.
'Follow me on by the paths o' pain, 'Seeking what you 'ave seen,
'Until at last you can build the "Is," 'Wi' the bricks o' the "Might 'ave been."'

The soldier recognizes his failure, and then is called to ‘build the ‘IS’”. We are also called to Turn and build the ‘Is’, the ‘Now’, the Kingdom of God!

God allows U-turns. Do you need to make one?

Have you felt God’s tell you to ‘do not be afraid’ and allow you to Turn and start again?

Is there a purpose you think you need to Turn to do?

Go Tell it: Seeker

For the past 3 weeks we’ve been following the shepherds as they watch their flocks, experience the touch of angel wings, and visit the ‘lowly manger’. Now, the carol Go Tell it on the Mountain invites us to personally come close and look for God in our lives.

The song says, “When I was a seeker,/I sought both night and day;/I asked the Lord to help me,/And He showed me the way.” What do we seek? How do we know when we find it?

The word ‘seek’ has been around a long time, and traces back to a Latin word sāgīre, which is to perceive by scent. We, in fact, ‘sniff out’ the answer to our quest or quandary.

Most fables and fantasy stories have at their core the idea of someone seeking. The hero or heroine is looking for a solution, or the way home, or just the answer to a quest. Those who sought the Holy Grail were seekers wanting to find the Grail and enlightenment. Dorothy in Oz is seeking a way home. Frodo and Sam in Lord of the Rings are seeking the way to destroy the Ring and thereby destroy the evil Sauron.

There are religious ‘seekers’ too. In the 1960’s and ‘70’s many young men and women sought ‘enlightenment’ in Eastern religious practices. Throughout the centuries, people have gone into the desert, or joined monasteries, or made pilgrimages as they seek to be more holy and to find union with God.

As Christians, we may be seeking a closer relationship with God. It may be that we are seeking the answer to what we are called to do with our life. Perhaps we seek to ‘understand all mysteries and all knowledge’ (I Corinthians 13:2) Maybe we are seeking in the wrong direction. Knowledge is not what we really should be seeking. First Corinthians 13 reminds us, “as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.” (I Corinthians 13:8-13)

The song says, “I asked the Lord to help me,/And He showed me the way.” What we need to seek is Love. The way is shown by Jesus. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself,” (Luke 10:27, Matthew 22:37). Jesus was quoting, and expanding, the Deuteronomy 6:4-5 law “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” He was reminding his listeners that God is sovereign. From our loving service to God flows the ability to love and serve one another.

It is too easy for me to get caught up in words, and trying to find the knowledge and truth in them rather than the spirit of these statements. As Paul reminds us in I Corinthians “prophecies…will…end…tongues…will cease…knowledge…will come to an end.” All the ways we try to define and outline God are going to stop, leaving only us face to face with God.

George Studdard Kennedy’s poem Well tells of a soldier who dreams of coming to the ‘great white throne’. He looks into the eyes of God, which are the eyes of everyone he has known. He sees the eyes of “My wife's and a million more. And once I thought as those two eyes were the eyes of the London whore.” He is self-convicted at his callous actions and God says, “Ye did 'em all to me…For all their souls were mine.” The soldier has seen the eyes of Love and through the eyes of Love sees his life and how he has fallen short of loving his neighbor.

That’s not the end of the story. In despair, the soldier asks to go to Hell, and is told that instead he is to “Follow me on by the paths o' pain, Seeking what you 'ave seen, Until at last you can build the "Is," Wi' the bricks o' the "Might 'ave been.”

The song says, “When I was a seeker,/I sought both night and day;/I asked the Lord to help me,/And He showed me the way.” We are each called to build Now with ‘bricks of the might have been’. We are called to see the world through the eyes of Love. We are to seek to love our neighbor as ourselves.