Sermon -- May 10, 2009

Monologue – This ‘John’ Fellow

(note: being challenged to do something different, I invite you to take a step back with me into the city of Capernaum, on the shores of the sea of Galilee, where we meet an old fisherman tending his nets….)

Oh, I’m sorry…..I didn’t see you there…eyes aren’t what they used to be…used to be able to see all the fish in this here sea, clear on down to the bottom on a good day, I did!...Oh! oh, I’m sorry. Forgot for a minute what we was talkin’ about…ah yes..you asked me about John.

Well, let me tell you, John was somethin’ else growing up….Zebedee – their dad – couldn’t ever get him an’ his brother James to behave. They was always fighting. I mean, I remember back when their little sister got in some trouble some years back – messed up with that Samaritan feller? Well…if you remember what Simeon and Levi did when Shechem messed with their sister – you know, convinced the group of them to get circumcised and them, when they couldn’t even walk, went and kilt ‘em? Well, let me tell you….tch…well, at least Shechem got to die at the end of it…John and James…well, they weren’t so kind, if you take my meaning.

Yet those boys were hard workers – had to be, with a big fishing business like their dad run – hired men and everything! Tell you what; those boys had it made for them, but their dad was a hard taskmaster; made them do just as much if not more as thems that got paid for it.

And their mother…oy…now that lady had some serious expectations for those boys…tried school, but got kicked out for fighting. Tried to apprentice them to the Romans, but they’d already gotten in trouble for fighting with the Romans! That blessed woman – every idea she had, they had already beat her to it, if you pardon a pun. Nowhere in the city could you find any two tougher men – tougher family, really. There was their father, who the officials had to deal with when the boys got into trouble...but if the officials were really unlucky, they had to deal with their mother! More than one proconsul experienced the rough edge of Mrs Zebedee’s tongue, let me tell you! Wild family.

Of course, it didn’t get any better when Jesus showed up. Nope, not one bit. He showed up and took the boys with him, left their blessed father sittin’ in the boats with naught but his nets and hired men! Now that’s family obligation for you….just run right away. The next time we seen ‘em, we could hardly recognize ‘em! Hardly any calluses on their hands. Kids running round their feet – that would never have happened back when they was young, they knew kids belonged with the women…wasn’t necessarily a change for the better.

Of course, they even went by a different name, by then…Jesus had watched ‘em, and paid attention as they went about their ways, an’ he went and named ‘em ‘Boanerges’ – that ‘sons of thunder’ in the old tongue, don’t ya know – on account a’ them always being ready to fight. But even then, I could sees that they was doing something different, already. Before when they’d fight, now they was ready to listen – but still, you could see in John’s eyes when the old temper was comin’ to bear – even those other ‘postles could see it, and backed off a little bit when they seen it coming.

And I was there, one day, when their mother got it into her head that Jesus was a pretty good place for the boys to be…he was popular, always lots a’ people hanging around him…so one day, she grabs her boys by their collars and drags them over – picture that, them two big boys and herself, no taller than a child – marchin’ right over to Jesus. Well, she pulled herself up to her full height, and started telling Jesus just how good her boys were – how big, and strong, and how good they were at obeyin’ orders and such – no choice, with that mother – and how, when Jesus ‘had his kingdom,’ that she done wanted them to sits on either of him – his counsellers, can you imagine it?

Well, Jesus looked at her the way nobody ever did, not even the big Roman proconsuls when they come, and told her that if her boys were going to rule anyone they had to be a servant first! Her boys! Servants! Tor, her jaw dropped so much I thought she was gonna have to tie it shut again!

But John and James stayed with Jesus, and you know they did good. Then that whole business happened in Jerusalem and we didn’t see them again for a while, but then a few days ago I run into John when I was down for the Passover. He was sittin’ and teaching in the Temple, but not teaching what the Pharisees had said – he was teachin’ ‘bout Jesus! Couldn’t hardly believe it, myself!

While I was sittin’ on the edge of the crowd and listening, I watched as one of them young priests came up to him and asked him what he was doing – and John just looked at him and kept right on talkin’ as if he wasn’t even there! That young man, then, he spat on John and hit him so hard he fell over, right there on the Temple floor. I started lookin’ around for a suitable place to bury the boy – ‘cause I figured that if Elijah wasn’t going to come down for the boy hisself John was gonna send him up to meet ‘im – but John just got up, shook himself off, and went off with his students, leaving that young man standing there all alone.

Now, I just about figured that this wasn’t really John, so I went to introduce myself and tell him about some cousin he might have. But lo and behold, he called me by name! It was him! I didn’t waste any time asking him ‘bout the old days and pretty soon we was catchin’ up pretty good.

So I asked him pretty straight, ‘why’re you not fighting any more? Lost your nerve?’

And John looked at me and that thunder flashed in his eyes just like when he was younger and I took to quakin’ ‘cause I figured the beatin’ that priest had missed was a’comin’ to me. But instead he took my hand – my own hand, with all its calluses and scars from hauling fishnets – in his own, which was soft on account a’ him teaching all the time – told me ‘bout what he’d found in Jesus.

“Gaius,” he said, like he’d just seen me yesterday, ‘I received the Holy Spirit.”

Well, I just ‘bout died right there ‘cause my friend was possessed. But then he told me something else:

“There are two ways of being in relationship with people. One is with closed fists, like I used to. (make two fists). It works, and people do what you want. But other people meet you with fists, too. And you can’t ever meet more than halfways (bang fists together). And that hurts after a while, and neither you nor they want to do it anymore. So you fear the hurt, and fear that the other person might be stronger than you. So either keep hitting harder (hit harder) or stop altogether.

“But if God abides in us, then we find, just like Jesus on the cross, that an open hand lets you hold onto things better (open hands), and means that you don’t have to be afraid that the other person is stronger than you. You can overlap with them, and because you both love God you can love each other and trust each other.

“But you can’t be like that if your soul is angry, or if you hate. Jesus showed me what can be accomplished when our hands are open, even if they’re nailed open – because when we can see God who loves us that much – clear through from one hand to the other – we can love our brothers and sisters – this means you – even more than we ever thought possible.

“To love that much means that you’re willing to be vulnerable, and to be that vulnerable you must trust that God loves you more – so even you can love more than you can feel hate.

“Look at the way a tree goes – you can’t break a branch clear off a tree, because the wood won’t let go that way. It’s fibers are so tied in together – just like we’re tied together when we abide in Jesus – that you have to tear mightily to separate it. But if it withdraws – if the branches gets sick – then it can fall off itself, because the tree can’t support that kind of drain. So it breaks.

“The fruit that we bear as disciples is that kind of relationship – when we love God so much that it’s easier to love each other because we’re not afraid. And we can love God that much because God first loved us even more.”

And let me tell you, those words burned clear through my brain and stuck there like mud.

(sit back down). So I’m just putting some things together, ‘cause I hear there’s some believers goin’ through to Ephesus in the mornin’. I’m going with them, ‘cause this kind of words, they’ve got to spread. It won’t be easy, oh, I know – because I’ve got struggles and stuff of my own that I’m carryin’ along.

But John tells me that if I can lay them down, Jesus will pick them up.

After all, his hands is always open.