(Author's Note: I will be using an old metal pedal car that I had when I was 3 years old..... I am afraid that you will have to find your own.)
I was cleaning up yesterday. Closets, basements… that kind of stuff. Trying to thin out the mess. You see, I’m something of a pack rat… but if you’ve seen my office you know that. I don’t travel light. I found of couple of things…. This t-shirt for instance. My old highschool jazz band. I should throw it out. But I like it…. I like lots of things. My basement is full… now. It’s not like a have a barn full of old junk – but I have a lot of it. Less today – it was a hard day yesterday. But I do have my shirt and I am keeping it.
I also found a picture of me as a young boy in my fire car. It’s a black and white picture but the car was red and it had a bell and you could sit in it. It was a big, all metal, pedal car. I raced up and down the street in it….. my mom walked beside me when I drove my car. My dad pushed me in it. I was so proud of my car…. Nobody had one like it. It was, in my neighbour hood, entirely unique. Once, Johnny Black (an older mean kid) put a fire cracker in my car when I was driving it. I wasn’t hurt - but I had terrible night mares for nights after that.
It was there in the good times and the bad… it was the greatest toy, I ever had. Of all my childhood memories, it remains my most vivid. I don’t know what happened to that car. Lost it, I guess. My parents can’t recall either. It just didn’t get packed when we moved houses, I suppose. I out grew it - maybe.
I wish I was better at getting rid of things. I really do wish that I could travel light…. but, alas.
I would like you to meet some fellas who knew how to travel light. Andrew and Peter, James and John. We met them in the gospel today. Young fellas, but already men in their community. Fishermen. The worked the nets out on the sea of Galilee. Andrew seemed to belong to something a church - he was a follower of John the Baptist. The others would have known the Baptist as well, I’m sure. But they were working men. James and John worked for their father - Andrew and Peter might have worked for Mr. Zebedee as well.
And Jesus called them to be his first Apostles. They were the first four to be called. I wonder why? Was it their good looks? Doesn’t say. Their way with words? Not likely. Their education? They had very little. Their interest in religious matters? Again, they seemed to have had very little…. So what was it?
Why did Jesus call these young men? Young men who would bicker about who got to be first in Heaven, young men who would fall asleep when asked to stay on watch, a young man who would deny Jesus at the most crucial of times….. Why would the all knowing, all seeing, Jesus the Christ, call these fellows to be his Apostles……? There were lots of young, uneducated, childish, fishermen around.
I think that Jesus called them - because they were prepared to travel light. “Follow me” Jesus said - and they did. Immediately. They left their jobs. James and John left their father. And they followed Jesus. That they were able to come immediately is the only remarkable thing that I find as I look at these young men. I wonder what all they had to leave behind?
I wonder if there was a rivalry between strong-willed Simon and his dreamer brother Andrew - always so full of ideas about the nature of life and God… they must have had some serious arguments. Maybe they wouldn’t even speak to each other….. Andrew spending so much time with John the Baptist, just listening to him talk while Peter was often left to work the nets alone. I’ve seen families fractured by less. I’m just making this up - but whatever differences they had, they had to leave them behind to go and follow Jesus.
James and John working with their father. I wonder if they minded giving up the chance to prove that Dad didn’t know everything about fishing. Now that they were working the nets, they could show the old man a thing or two about new ways to do things, new ways to increase the yield; maybe even have enough time to have a life other than just fishing. Fishing wasn’t the be all and end all - you know. I don’t know that they had any desire to prove such a thing to Mr. Zebedee - but if they did they would have had to leave it behind to go and follow Jesus. And you thought it was just the nets that they left behind…
The truth is, we have no idea what had to be left behind- but common sense tells us that some things had to be left behind. Old Arguments, Grudges, Opinions, Ways of doing things; anger, blame, rivalry…. These things have no place when you are looking ahead, moving toward the future.
We also know that the boys didn’t quite manage to leave them all behind…. in the Gospel stories, we will hear about arguments and rivalry - but for the most part, it would seem that they were prepared to give these things up to follow Jesus.
What are you prepared to give up?
In my life with my wife, I have two great moments of shame. The first was the proposal. I walked into her work (she was managing the Lady Footlocker store in the Oshawa Centre) and threw the ring across the room to her and said, “Let’s get married” Not quite the aura of romance that she might have hoped for. I am reminded often.
The second was her 40th birthday. The youth group I was leading was invited to spend a weekend up north at an exclusive ski resort. They wanted to go. My kids wanted to go. My wife didn’t. But she insisted that we should go without her…. She insisted. I foolishly believed her… I knew better, but I’m not too bright some days. My wife spent her 40th birthday alone. I am reminded of this frequently.
Now, these are two things that I am prepared to leave behind…. And I think that she should too. So that we can follow the example of the Gospel and move forward, traveling light. It’s easier figuring out what others need to leave behind, isn’t it?
Can we really be following Jesus, really be living a life of faith, if we harbor resentment for our neighbours? If we only want to live in the past? What do we have in our lives that keeps us looking back and prevents us from looking forward? Bad childhood? Good childhood? Broken relationships?
I think that the message for us, in this Gospel, is that we have to be prepared to let go of the past and be ready for the future. That’s what faith is about.
As comfortable as the past may be…. as golden as the years behind may seem….. as familiar as yesterday feels - faith is about looking ahead into the future.
We know that we can deal with the past - we have. As hard as it may have been, at least we know that we survived and so some of us never let go of it - even when it’s bad. Because we know it. There are not surprises in the past….
Faith says that even though we don’t know what tomorrow may bring - we can survive it too. We can even thrive in it.
For some, the past just feels so good. We were happy and safe, loved and comforted. Sometimes, I think that shrinks will tell us, that we hold on to the past because we are afraid that we won’t fit into the future, we won’t be happy or feel safe… we won’t be loved.
Faith says, let go of the past and be assured that in the future there is a place for us; there is love for us; we can be happy and comforted. Indeed, the future is fraught with pit-falls - bad things do and will happen; we will get hurt - but we will also be comforted, we will survive and we will love and be loved. And it is all so much easier when we let go of the past…..
I think that the Gospel tells us exactly that. “Follow Me and I will make you fishers of people” And, without hesitation, they did. They followed Jesus and left their pasts behind. I hope that I can do that too.
But…. Well, some of you will recognize the reference to my little fire car. I’ve mentioned it before. (It’s hard to let go of the past) Those of you who have been in my office will know how hard it is for me to let go of the past… You see a couple of years ago I was shopping for baby gifts (everyone I know seems to be pregnant) My wife and I were in a baby stuff store, just around the corner from where I grew up in North Toronto. As we looked through the cribs and blankets, mobiles and stuffed animals, I looked up on top of a display shelf and I saw it. I couldn’t believe it - it was right there. My red fire car. My childhood.
My past. My most vivid childhood remembrance. Right there… just around the corner from where I had once lived. I even fantasized that this was the very car I had been given and that it had been left behind when we moved… remained there for better than 30 years and then had just been picked up by these people and put on display in their store. Sure, it doesn’t make any sense, but I liked the idea. I bought it.
So I discovered that I’m maybe not as ready to go on a journey of faith as I would like to be.
But there is something more… Like my old band shirt: I don’t fit in it anymore. I can’t ride it. My kids are too big. My niece or nephew would not likely understand it, it’s hardly safe by 2003 standards. My wife won’t let me keep it at home (I think that it’s revenge for the 40th birthday thing…) So it just sits in my office. The truth is, I have no use for my past, any more. It does bring back warm, wonderful memories, but it also shows me that I’ve changed and I don’t really fit into my past anymore.
This probably applies to some of my old habits, attitude, opinions, grudges, and pains as well. I don’t fit them. I’ve grown. My desire to hang on to them doesn’t really make sense - it only burdens me with finding a place to put them
How about you and all that stuff that you’re holding on to…. Does it fit any more? Is it really of any value?
Are you prepared to let it go and move with faith into the future? If not, maybe you can find a place for me to put this car—because, this time, I really am ready to leave it behind. Thanks be to God.
(Comments to Norm at norman.seli@sympatico.ca.)
Enniskillen & Tyrone United Churches, Ontario Canada