Pr. 16, Yr. B

August 23, 2009

G. Hendree Harrison, Jr.

St. Paul's Episcopal Church

Altar call

This morning we are going to come as close   as Episcopalians come to having an altar call.

Don’t leave yet.  Give me a few minutes.

            What if we did actually have an altar call?  You know, where we all presented ourselves at the altar for commitment and re-commitment to Christ.

I bet most all of us would have one of those stuck in a moment feelings where time sort of barely stops, and we look all around, and up and down, and we look at who all is in the room with us, and we think to ourselves, How in the world did I get here?  This is not where I intended to come, or this is not where I thought I would end up when I left the house this morning….an altar call at St. Paul’s Church?… How did I land here?

            Do you know the sort of moment I am talking about?

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I can remember a couple of parties that ran too late in college, and at the end of the night, a bit after things turned weird, a collection of us looked at each other and said, “How did we end up here?  It’s time to go.”

*

I can remember all too well when I was a kid, telling my parents a lie, and then discovering that lies seldom come one at a time, rather, one lie most often leads to another lie, leads to another lie, and eventually the pile of lies is stacked and tangled like a pile of coat hangers that cannot be undone.

            I remember feeling like I was buried underneath the stack of lies, stuck in a moment, thinking, How did I get here, how did I get myself into this mess?

*

Sometimes we find ourselves in uncharted and unhappy territory in our relationships.

Have you ever been in an argument, maybe with a family member, a parent, a spouse, or a sibling, that just got out of hand?  What started out a simple disagreement or even just a misunderstanding, mutated into something big and awful, and before you know it, time sort of stops just for a moment, all is quiet and you look around, look at all the people involved, and you think, How did we get here?  How did this thing get so sideways?  A few minutes ago we were just talking, and now we’re in this heated battle?

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Of course, there are peaceful, “How did we get here moments” too. 

            Sometimes I sit on my screened-in porch in the evening after work.  The sun is started down and thus the light is just right.  Grace swings on her swing set, Kristin tends to the dogs and I read the paper, and then I stop, sort of stuck in a moment, and I brim with gratitude, and I think to myself, This is too good.  How did we land here?

*

Have you ever looked in on a child while she sleeps and wondered how did we ever deserve to live in the same universe, much less the same house, as that peaceful little creature?

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Sometimes in the middle of the week I come in here and sit in the empty quiet of this holy space.  I think, read, and pray, and I wonder at how fortunate we are to have such a wonderful place to worship, and, sort of stuck in a moment, I marvel at how immensely blessed I feel to serve as the priest here, and I wonder, how did I end up here?

*

In the Old Testament lesson we heard this morning we find Joshua speaking with the Israelites, God’s chosen children, in a town called Shechem, which is kind of a figurative peak overlooking the Promised Land.

            You know the story of the Israelites.  Moses led the people of God out of slavery in Egypt.  They escaped into the wilderness were they received the commandments and began to live under the law.  God provided for their safety and their sustenance all along the way.

            They were delivered from their pursuers, and manna rained down from heaven for them to eat -- all the while they were headed to the Promised Land. 

Moses led them right up to the edge of their God promised home, and God told him he had done enough, his time had come to go to a different home and he died, leaving Joshua to lead the people into the Promised Land.

            The book of Joshua is the story how the people conquered and came to possess the Promised Land and this morning’s Joshua passage is from the end of that story.

            The Israelites have new homes in a new promised land, and Joshua stands up before them to make a speech.  And he says, How did we get here?  How do you think we found ourselves so fortunate, and how do you suppose we became a people so mightily blessed?

            “The Lord our God has done this,” said Joshua. “We are here because wherever we have wandered, God has gone with us, before us and behind us.  God’s presence and prodding has pushed us into this promised place.”

            And then Joshua has an altar call.

            He says, “Who wants to forsake all other gods and pledge themselves to the one true living God?  Who wants to…, come forward now, don’t be shy, who wants to give themselves to God and from this day forward worship and love God alone?”

            The Israelites didn’t exactly stampede to the altar, so Joshua went first to ease the tension.  He stepped forward and said, “As for me and my family we will serve the Lord!”

*

Many, many years later Jesus Christ issued an altar call of his own.  He’s just fed the 5000, and walked on water.  Crowds gather around him, and they follow him wherever he goes.

            At a point just before our gospel piece for this morning, Jesus tries to sneak away from the crowd so that he can get a break by himself.  But they track him down.  He is found and he turns to speak to the crowd.

            It’s an altar call.

            “Okay, says Jesus, “you want to know who I am?”

            “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” 

Surely some in the crowd thought to themselves, wow, this has turned kind of weird.  Time stood still for a moment, they looked around, looked back up to Jesus and thought, how did we get here?

            Did he just say that he was the “bread that came down from heaven?”

            Indeed, he did say that, but remember what we talked about last week?  Boiled down to its essence, and put another way, in all of this bread and wine discourse of Jesus, might just as well have said, I am God among you, God incarnate and living right here at your eye level, now believe in me, take me in (communion), and you will live.

            “This is an altar call, who wants to come forward and pledge to focus on and follow after me?” says Jesus.

            Well, as the story goes a bunch of them thought the whole “eat my flesh and drink my blood” bit was too much and they took off.  So Jesus issued the altar call again, this time he used reverse psychology on the remaining few.

            He said, “do you want to go away too?”  Nobody moved, not forward to heed the call, nor backward in retreat.

            Then Peter, like Joshua, put on his brave face and stepped forward saying, “Lord to whom can we go?  You’re the one, you’re it.  You are the Holy One of God.”

            And like the Israelites before them, the early group of Jesus disciples committed themselves to a lifelong pursuit of God, that is, they started following after Jesus.

*

Now it’s our turn.

            The altar call rings down through the centuries and reaches our ears and I think it sounds something like this,

“Dear people of God, life is a gift, full of hope and promise. 

Life is also an altar upon which we may lay ourselves in service to God. 

Life is a million tiny moments, each of which is an opportunity for us to commit ourselves to following after Jesus.

            So, will we follow Jesus?  Will we commit ourselves so fully to God that every step we take, I mean every step, no matter whether we’re at work, at school, at play, or making one of the hundreds of ordinary steps, we make in any ordinary day….will we commit to make every last step we take…a step following after Jesus Christ?

            So that no matter where we land or end up, when we ask ourselves or others ask of us, How did you get here? We may answer in all honesty….Well, we followed Jesus here.”

            If we will step forward and answer the altar call invitation to focus on following Jesus, (Which means, at least, to let our lives be led by love) I wonder if a whole bunch of those uncomfortable, how did we end up here?, moments will be displaced and replaced by those peaceful, deep breath, awe soaked, positive moments, where time just sort of barely stops and we look around and wonder…“how did we get here?, life is good and peaceful and even when life is difficult and sad we feel like we’re loved and we’re gonna make it-how did we get here?” we’ll ask out loud, and then we’ll remember, “oh yeah, we followed Jesus into this place.”  Amen.