Steadfast Love is yours O Lord

don't preach alot these days, but this was from last sunday. the most amazing blessed thing happened. father john had to explain to all the new faces why i was preaching-they didn't know me. h


“Steadfast love is yours O Lord, for you repay everyone according to his deeds.” For some of us, this election is payment for our deeds. For some of us who have worked towards civil rights, for a few years, for a few decades, since our birth, we feel as though God has blessed that work. Not because Democrins or Republicats have come into power, but because that which could never happen, a black man named Hussein, got elected and sworn into the White House.

Now I’ve been in the Bay Area, so I am sure that they are a little more crazy there than the rest of the country, but what I have seen there I have also seen on the television. A lot of people are acting like everything is going to be back to normal in no time flat. But that is too much hope and not enough reality talking. The truth is, no stimulus bailout tax-cut tax-hike cut across party lines is going to save us from the next few years. We will yet be repaid for our deeds. We will be repaid for our unchecked desire to make money and our collective illusion that Jay Leno is living a middle class lifestyle and I can too.

“Steadfast love is yours O Lord, for you repay everyone according to his deeds.”
Administrations come and go.
And yet, the Lord is still with us.
Christ is still with us.
The work is still with us. There is a lot of work to do.

We read a passage from Jonah today. And while it wasn’t my favorite part of Jonah’s tale, it is nevertheless, and entirely appropriate passage for us today. God sends Jonah across the face of the city crying “Repent! Turn back! Look what you are doing! This city is going to be undone!” Jonah may well be walking across our city, our country, even now. We see Jonah in situations where homes have been lost, jobs have been lost, savings have been lost. We hear Jonah in our own fear and uncertainty about our own security. None of us are exempt from either the fear or the blame. We have all benefited in the economic ponzi scheme of the last few decades. We have taken advantage of the unstable mortgages, either to buy our own homes or to build our retirement accounts from the bundling schemes. We have put our personal money into them, we have put our company’s money into them, we have put our government’s money into them and we have put our church’s money into them. We are in Ninevah, right now. Jonah is walking through the city.

So what can we do about it? Our story says that Ninevah repented and God relented. Now, the Scripture implies that the entire town of Ninevah repented. But I doubt it. God is a complete softie where we are concerned. Look at Noah. Look at Sodom. God turns his wrath for even the one. Does that mean that we here at St. David’s can pull out some sackcloth and ashes and this little band of the faithful can turn around the entire world economy? No. When we face the consequences of our actions, we get what God needs for us, not what we want for ourselves.

“Steadfast love is yours O Lord, for you repay everyone according to his deeds.”
We here at St. David’s have access to that steadfast love. We have faith in it. It gives us peace. We are no different than anyone else in the country right now. We worry about our jobs, our homes, our savings and retirement income. We worry about our children and their future. But in the midst of that fear, we also have release.

There are many who do not have that release. As we live out the next few years, people we know are going to see that release and they are going to ask why we are not afraid. We need to be ready to tell them. We need to be ready to help them.

Because when the hope is gone, when the change is imperfect, people will be in need, both in their physical lives and their spiritual lives. We have much work to do to be ready for them.

The present form of this world is passing away, Paul tells us. We don’t have the secret answers to what the new form will be, but we know that Christ is with us no matter what. When our deed is faith, and some days that is the hardest thing to do, we are repayed with Christ.

“Steadfast love is yours O Lord, for you repay everyone according to his deeds.”
So what does Christ have to offer us in today’s Gospel?

“As Jesus passed along the sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew casting nets in the sea-for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, Come follow me, I will make you fishers of men. And they went. A little ways off they say James and John, mending nets, for they too were fishermen. And Jesus called to them, Come follow me, and they did.”

We are all fishermen, from the highest to the lowest, we are all trying to feel safe in a large complicated world and we are all trying to keep our families safe. That fear made us greedy for security the sea does not offer. We are all in the same boat. Christian and non-Christian. Securities brokers and farm laborers. We are all in the same boat. We are all floating in the same sea.

What does Christ call us to do? Get out of the boat.

Christ invites us to stop trying to build our foundations on the sea, to stop trying to create safety in the ebb and flow of the tide, the chaos of life. When our safely is in God, even though financial markets will rise and fall, even though our lives will be easier some days, harder others, our emotions do not have to answer all of life’s difficult questions. We do not have to be the prime mover, the God, of our own lives, he can do the worrying and we can rest in the surety that whatever it is, it shall pass, however good it is, it is a gift. We can get out of the boat and stand on the land.

When Jesus called out, he did not say, The kingdom of God draws near-stand close to me. He said repent and believe in the Good News. He said, Come, I will make you fishers of men. What he did, was teach some people how to get onshore and immediately ask of them to turn around – do not head upland to safety- turn around and help someone else off the boat. We have the same responsibility to help people off the boat of uncertainty and fear as James and Simon. Sometimes that boat feels like a floaty ring in swimming pool and sometimes it feels like the Titanic, but the responsibility is the same.

We too have lost jobs and houses and savings. But we have our hope in Christ, not in the sea, not in ourselves. We were given to gift of safety, of peace. We have been led off the boat and we can, we must, give that gift to others. Amen.