…Look Inside and See All the People – Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Matthew 4:18-22)

Alright, since I’ve teased it in the sermon titles the last couple of weeks, let’s go ahead and say that old church rhyme together. If you know them and want to do the hand movements let’s do that too. Ready? “Here is the church, here is the steeple, look inside and see all the people.” I understand that may have been difficult for some of us. I remember when I had the hands of a child it was easier. My fingers interlocked easily, and my wrists were more flexible, and the fingers were a lot wigglier when the door was opened, and we saw all the people. That’s okay. Now, look up from your hands and take a look around you. Look at the people in this room with you. You are looking at people who are wonderfully and lovingly made by God, our creator. You are looking at people who have lived lives, who have learned things. You are looking at people who were born with gifts, who have honed skills over the years, who have gained knowledge and unique insight. You are looking at any church’s most important assets – its people.

Last week, we talked about the gift of our church building. The church’s most commonly recognized physical asset from our asset mapping worksheet. As the nursery rhyme reminds us though, inside is where we find all the people, and as our scripture reading last week reminded us, each of us can be a dwelling place for the spirit of the Lord. So, the story of any church is, first and foremost, the story of its people – the hands and feet…and fingers, of Christ. People bring gifts and experiences to the work of the church, that make each church’s story unique. This was the focus of the second part of the asset mapping worksheet; identifying the skills, talents, and knowledge that each of you brings to the life of the church. So, this sermon is about how we might look at those as gifts from God, that we can harvest right here in this community of faith.

In our asset mapping survey, you all listed many gifts, both of skills and knowledge, that are possessed by members of this congregation. Things like art, crafts, music, technology, organizing, communication, listening, leadership, prayer, and more! From this, we can see that our gifts are bountiful and varied. The possibilities with such gifts are many. We do not need to feel limited in what we can do together. Certainly, we should not feel limited by doubts about our ability to serve. God has given us much to work with. The hand motions of the rhyme we started the sermon with is not only familiar, but also a good reminder that the church is a physical incarnation of Christ’s teachings, as Christ himself was the incarnation of God’s love here on Earth. To follow Jesus is to put our gifts at his disposal, to consider how they might be useful to God’s people.

The church can then be a place of welcome where the spirit dwells, and also, a place where personal gifts are revealed and put into action for Jesus. The beautiful thing about communities like the church is that we can come to them and be received with love and with grace. That sort of environment is conducive to identifying and harvesting the gifts from God and the fruits of the spirit. In a loving community of faith, people have room to share their gifts, and experiment with them, and to practice new skills, people can try things without fear of failure or judgement. We can show each other the grace and love that Jesus teaches by making space for each person in their own way to offer their gift before the community. Giving each other the space and the opportunity to discover and use our gifts, as best as we can, is a way to more fully live into the incarnational and communal nature of Christ’s ministry.

The old Sunday school rhyme may begin with the church and the steeple, but the story of the church begins once we have seen all the people. As we read in the Gospel of Matthew this morning, the story begins with these four people who followed Jesus out of their fishing boats and out into the world. We know this Bible story well, also. Jesus comes to town and finds Simon and Andrew going about their work as fishermen. He tells them to drop what they’re doing and follow him. They do. Then he comes upon James and John fishing with their father. He tells them to come as well. They do, and their father apparently doesn’t try to stop them. So, Jesus’s ministry with his disciples begins, these same disciples that will go on to start Christ’s church.

So, what was it about these men that led Jesus to call on them? What gifts did they possess that made Jesus decide that they would be well suited to the life to which he was calling them? Now, he does invite them to come and be fishers of people, suggesting that maybe their skill as fishermen was what he required. However, seeing as we have no stories in the gospels about the disciples throwing a big net on people and dragging them to one of Jesus’ lessons, that might not be it. Jesus was probably using that phrase as a metaphor to help the men realize what their new work would be like. Surely, there was something else about these guys.

In the First Nations Indigenous translation of the New Testament, they translate the first disciples’ names in the following way; Andrew is Stands with Courage, James is He Takes Over, John is He Shows Goodwill, and Simon Peter had two names, Simon is One Who Hears, and Peter is One Who Stands on Rock. These translations might give us a small hint about who these men were, and what aspects of their personalities made them good disciples and later good leaders. It is also a reminder of their unique personhood. They each had skills and qualities that they brought to the life of discipleship. Likewise, God has made all of us unique in our personhood. We all have something that we bring to the table. We all have something that makes us good disciples, should we be open to using that as we follow Jesus.

Maybe, all that being said, it’s as simple as this, though. All we know for sure is that these first disciples dropped what they were doing to follow Jesus. They were willing to do that. So maybe, for Jesus and the disciples, the old saying was true; the best ability was availability. Can this be true for us as well? Can we make ourselves available to God and God’s people? Do we have that gift? I hope so, but I should also say, it is okay if we have to wrestle with that question. Life can get hard, and life can get busy. Things come up. Responsibilities find their way on to our plate. So, don’t beat yourself up about availability. We have lives. The disciples did too. It was no small or easy thing that they left them behind. By leaving behind their fishing boats, Jesus asks these men to abandon a dependable way to make a living in a difficult world.

So, Jesus asks a lot of these men. He asks them for commitment and availability. He does not ask them for their boats and their nets. He does not ask them for the skill they have that is useful for making a living, or as we might call it today, their “marketable skill.” And I think that is important to note, because I think this is where we can get tripped up sometime. Maybe this is just me speaking as someone who has been out looking for jobs in the recent past, always being asked, “What skills do you have that we can use?” This can be frustrating, and it is just one of the ways in which we learn to judge our skills or question our gifts. Judge them as maybe not useful, or not good enough, or too obscure, or embarrassing. None of that is true, and none of that matters to Christ who calls us to bring ourselves to the work of the kindom on Earth.

Jesus does not require us to use our gifts to make money. Or to use them in a way that is impressive, or perfect, or even useful. That, especially the money part, is a requirement of the world we live in. However,if we only look to the skills we have that are “marketable” then we limit our view of what God has given and what God is already doing in our lives. After all, the disciples do not search out Jesus. They do not work up a CV or a resume and hand it to him as a way of applying to be a disciple. No, he seeks them out. They already have useful and productive ‘jobs,’ but Jesus offers them something more. He wants them for something more. Jesus wants you for something more.

In the letter 1 Peter 4:10 it says, “Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received.” This verse certainly gets right to the point of the theme of this sermon series, and today’s sermon in particular. While that verse is a good reminder that stewardship of our gifts is an important responsibility of the Christian life, our reading from Matthew, the story of the call of the disciples, reminds us of something else. That Jesus does not call us, necessarily, because of our gifts. Jesus tells us to follow him, and we are called to respond. Using our gifts for God, putting them to use in community, is one way in which we can respond to the call to follow Jesus. It is a way for us to show that commitment to this new way of life. Jesus calls, we respond. The church with the steeple becomes full first and foremost by people responding to this call even if they are not sure of the specifics.

The disciples did not know any specifics when Jesus told them to follow him. The way that Matthew tells the story it seems that they did not know who Jesus was. They did not know what he wanted them to do, outside of a vague metaphor about becoming fishers of humankind. They did not know what would happen to their families if they left. Still, they followed, as Jesus knew and expected they would. Jesus is the primary actor and speaker in this story. The four fisherman who become disciples are only expected to listen and respond with action. So, we learn that Jesus can see our gifts, and our worth, even when we do not.

So, if you filled out a survey and wrote down your gifts, or if you didn’t but you’re thinking now about what gifts of skill and talent and knowledge that you might be able to offer, I’m glad. And I don’t want you to worry about judging that gift, or not knowing how you might best use it in the church’s context. Do not worry, because Jesus knows where it fits. There is a place for it. Someone can benefit from it, and sometimes the person who benefits the most from the sharing of our gift is us, whether we realize it or not.

And if you are still unsure of your gift, or you don’t know where to start, try this, “Here is the church, here is the steeple, look inside and see all the people.” Even if your fingers don’t wiggle like they used to, or it takes a bit longer to get them in and out of that interlocked position. It’s a little gift to someone, because someone taught that little rhyme to me, and someone taught it to you. So, if nothing else, the asset we can harvest is this; little acts like this, little acts of kindness, can help us to share the story of the church with other people. People who may not have heard it before. The story of the church is the story of the people, people who are made and loved by God, and who love and care for one another. People who follow Jesus when he calls, bringing along whatever God has blessed them with. So, let us invite each other to be part of the story and our gifts will reveal themselves in time. Amen.