Wrap Your Mind Around This?
I was sitting alone in my office. It was one of the windowless offices, and I despised it. I felt claustrophobic. Even though it was a brand new building – a new addition to Saint Luke’s Hospital in Kansas City where I worked – I got the short end of the stick when it came to office options. I had been working as a chaplain at Saint Luke’s for about 10 years while also serving as a pastor of a nearby church, and I was still smarting from a bitter disappointment. I had been turned down for the position of Director of the Spiritual Care Department. (You see, it was an Episcopal hospital and the board chose an Episcopal priest for the position rather than me, a Lutheran. Makes sense, I suppose, but it didn’t curb my disappointment.)
So I was sitting in my miserable little office feeling miserable about myself, and what was I doing? Looking on-line for a new job! I was on the website for chaplains on the page featuring the job market across the country, and lo and behold, something caught my attention! I saw this ad that said, “Director of Chaplaincy, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, and the moment I saw that ad I literally let out a loud cry, “Oh my God!” I realized my door was open. I closed the door quickly, got up and did a little dance around my window-less, claustrophobic office. Wrap your mind around this!
I thought, “I’m going to go for it!” I’m sure there’s about a zero percent chance I’ll get it. I mean this is one of the best hospitals in the world with a chaplaincy staff of 32. I’ve never been an administrator at that level in that kind of organization, but it’s in Boston – in the state I grew up in and haven’t lived in since I was a kid. I want to go for it. There were no boundaries to my imagination that was going wild at the exciting prospect.
Do you remember when something caught your imagination like that and you just let out an “Oh my God!” and you did a little dance and decided to go for it? Wrap your mind around this! Maybe it was a situation similar to mine when you saw a new job opportunity that you just had to go for. Maybe it was the reason you packed everything and moved across the country or maybe it was the excitement of going off to college or maybe it was the thrill of going to summer camp for the first time.
Or maybe as it was for Simon Peter and Andrew and for James and John it was a person that caught your imagination – that lit a spark – that made your heart jump for joy! Do you remember that feeling of first moment you knew you were falling in love? Do you remember the first date, the first kiss, maybe the proposal? Do you remember what it felt like to drop everything, to change the course of your life forever by the spark ignited by this other person? Wrap your mind around this! And maybe, like a new job, you dropped everything and moved across the country to be with that person.
That must have been what it was like for those two sets of brothers, those two sets of fishermen when they met Jesus for the first time. Here they were minding their own business. Here they were in their own windowless office, doing what they had been trained to do when they saw an ad or they heard a voice that said to them, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” Wrap your mind around this possibility. And it must be said that they had no idea what Jesus was talking about. Fish for people? What’s that about? All I know is how to fish – for fish! But yet, at that moment, a spark ignited in them. Something lit up their imagination. It was like me trying to imagine what it would be like to run a chaplains’ department at Massachusetts General Hospital. Wrap your mind around this!
But I do know for sure what it was like to drop everything. When I saw that ad in my windowless office and let out a yell and did a little dance in my office, I had lived in Kansas City for 21 years. I was just coming out of a painful divorce after a 27-year marriage. My younger son lived in Kansas City as did all of my friends and colleagues that made those decades in Kansas City so meaningful. After I got the job in Boston at Mass General, I knew I was leaving everyone and everything I knew so well behind, and literally starting all over. And despite the thrill of a brand new beginning it was difficult to leave behind everyone I knew and loved.
Do you remember what that was like as well? Yes, first is that spark of joy at a new adventure, that kindling of the imagination that you haven’t felt like that before. Real joy at what is ahead, but then in starting something new, something needs to be left behind. For James and John, it was their own father. When Jesus stopped by their boat, they were sitting in it with their father, Zebedee. Jesus did not call Zebedee, but rather Jesus called his two sons to leave their father, to leave their family and everything that was familiar behind and that must have been painful. Yet still, the two brothers got up out of the boat and left behind their father to follow Jesus. Jesus seems to be saying, “Wrap your mind around my call, James and John! Jesus seems to be saying to Simon Peter and Andrew, “Wrap your mind around my call, and follow me!”
And notice that Jesus pre-empted this call to follow with these ominous sounding words: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” Now usually we when we hear the word, “Repent” especially from Jesus we think of confession. We think of sin. We think of righting a wrong. We think of how we are morally bankrupt. The truth is when we hear Jesus in the gospel calling us to repent we hear Jesus suggesting that there is something wrong with us. The word repent usually makes us feel badly about ourselves.
However, a more accurate translation of this Greek word “metanoeite” is exactly what you’ve heard this morning already a number of times. It more accurately means, “Be of a new mind!” or “Change your way of thinking.” Or “Wrap your mind around this!” Or simply, turn towards me. When Jesus calls us to repent, to follow him, he is saying in a loving and uplifting way, “Wrap your mind around this – which is that I simply invite you to turn towards me!”
Turn towards me and I will make all things possible! Take a risk with that new job and I will guide you! Make a change with the new love of your life, and I will be with you every step of the way. Drop your old way of doing things, and I will pave the way for all new things.
In every change we make, somewhere in the midst of that change, that decision, Jesus is calling, and Jesus is reminding us that whatever choice we make, he will be with us to guide us and to pick us up when we stumble and fall, and stumble and fall and fail we will – just as the disciples did. Never forget the church was built on the faith of Peter, the rock of the church and it was Peter who denied Jesus three times.
The same invitation, the same call is made to the church. Jesus walks by the boats where the two sets of brothers were fishing, and Jesus stops by this boat called Holy Trinity. (The sanctuary of the church is often referred to as the nave of a ship.) And Jesus says to us who are sitting comfortably in our beautiful boat. He says, “Get out of that boat. Leave behind what is familiar. Take a risk. Take a bunch of risks. Follow me, and I will be with your every stop of the way. In fact, I will love you and care for you especially when things get rough, but I will never leave you.
When you stumble I will pick you up. When you at Holy Trinity try new things to reach out to a doubting and skeptical world, and when those new things work, I will rejoice with you. When you at Holy Trinity try new things to a community that doesn’t seem interested and those new things fail, when they don’t work, pick yourself up, brush off the dust and move one.”
I was thrilled that there were a good number of folks at the adult study I’m leading on Wednesdays called, ‘What is the Gospel?” What sparked my imagination – what brought me joy – is that each of the people around the table responded to an invitation – not from me, but from Jesus and they left behind what they could have been doing and answered a call to explore their faith, to ask tough questions, to share stories, and to take together some steps to figure out what Jesus is up to in these difficult times for the church.
That invitation to the adult study is the same invitation each of you received to come here this morning. You chose to step inside this boat, this nave this morning for renewal, refreshment, confession – perhaps to spark your imagination with the gospel. You chose to step inside this boat to hear once again an invitation from Jesus, an invitation that sounds like this:
“Now get on out of this boat. Step out and step into the world that needs you and your love and kindness so desperately. Step out of this boat and step into the world where there’s no limit to the imagination of how you – and all of us together – will make a difference in the name of Christ crucified and risen. Amen.