Sermon: The Call
Riverside Avenue Christian Church, Jacksonville, Florida
June 11, 2023
Scripture: Genesis 12:1-9, Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26
Our gospel reading from Matthew concludes: “And the report of Jesus spread throughout that district.”
What a story they heard that day and we have heard this day of Jesus. And for Matthew, my namesake, it begins with a call. A simple one. Follow me. And a simple response: he got up and followed.
And immediately, he is pulled into the drama of Jesus’ ministry – in a short span, he arrives at a banquet table, where Jesus spars with leaders about who belongs, and on to offer a healing to the child of the leader of the synagogue, though on his way, a woman is healed by touching him, and then he finds daughter dead or close to it, and he raises her up.
Such dramatic scenes contrasted with the call and response of Matthew. So simple.
Or is it that simple? Is it ever that simple for us?
What must have been going through Matthew’s mind that day when Jesus walked up? Let me ask you. If someone walked up to you on the street, and asked you to follow them, would you do it? It couldn’t be just anyone right? I’d have to have a reason. I’d need to know this person.
Which begs the question: did Matthew already know Jesus? Well, the reports in the district to come later were surely not the first. In fact, by the time Matthew follows him, Jesus has been on a bit of a roll already. He had gained disciples, delivered his lengthy sermon on the mount, gone around Galilee healing people, and perhaps word had spread through whispers that he even calmed a stormy sea. All this before he moseyed up to Matthew at his Tax Collector’s booth.
And what of this Tax Collector’s history? We do not know any details of Matthew’s life, but we do know that tax collectors were not the most popular kids in town. They had traded off allegiance to their people for some wealth, security, and social station with the Roman empire and those who collaborated with them. They were sellouts – but probably comfortable sellouts. That, usually, is the deal, isn’t it? A little privilege goes a long way in blocking out the boos from the peanut gallery. And it didn’t hurt that their money lined his pockets.
But – here’s the thing. On this day, Matthew gets up and follows Jesus. It would appear that the reports from the district got to him. Maybe he heard something about Jesus that made him wonder – am I on the right side? Maybe he realized money should not be his bottom line. Or maybe he realized whatever safety he thought he could get his people by playing nice with the occupying Romans was actually not worth it. Whatever his reason – there’s no doubt about this – Matthew left safety and comfort that day to follow Jesus.
So what about us – what are the reports from our districts? What good news coaxes us to come out of comfort? What stirrings in our own hearts make us doubt the comforts that would keep us complacent? What forms does Jesus’ call take for us in these days?
The report from my district is mixed, but definitely grim. As the Director of the University of North Florida Interfaith Center, I work in Diversity and Inclusion, which if you have not heard, Governor DeSantis has announced as his archnemesis. He and the legislature have passed a law which bans Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs in public universities. This means staff jobs on the line, including mine, and students deprived of support in their diverse religious, racial, gender and LGBTQ identities. I truly cannot tell you what tomorrow holds – though I fear as of July 1, diversity work done by university staff will be squashed. This cloud has hung over us for 6 months and in this time, sadly, many in power have remained silent. I have taken some risks in speaking out, through social media, to reporters, and throughout our community. Now, I could have shored up my security with University administration, or I could have sought a safer perch outside. Essentially, I could have stayed in the tax collector’s booth. But the call I heard was, do not abandon your students, your colleagues in the work, and your work.
But let me give you heart as well, and tell you how beautiful the diversity is at UNF, and how that it will persist in the face of those who mistakenly think they have the power to end it. Its staff whose work may end as we know it now, but whose legacy and continuing relationships with students will continue to bear fruit. It is nationally recognized Interfaith and LGBTQ Centers, which work closely together, and the Intercultural and Women’s Centers which have even longer decades and decades of work on campus and in the community. Its students who will not back down, who will continue their community building with Pride. The Pride Club and Better Together Interfaith student leaders, the Black Student Union, Asian Students in Alliance, and Latin America Student Organization and many others. This is the report from the district that gives me heart. It’s good news. It’s a land of blessing. It can be hurt but it cannot be stopped.
Let me take a brief and more light hearted detour in service of a larger point and tell you that I am a big fan of the Fast and Furious movies. You know these movies that started out as street races and sports cars and turned into espionage thrillers with death defying stunts and cars defying the laws of physics – being parachuted out of cargo planes or launching into space. Or my favorite. Let me set the scene. Our hero Dom Toretto has found a car far up in a skyscraper, and he begins driving it for reasons that will be too hard to explain but its enough to know – he must go fast. So fast that, as his best friend Brian pleads “Cars don’t fly, Dom”, he crashes out this high floor of the skyscraper, accelerating out through the sky fast enough to reach the next skyscraper over and crash safely inside of it. Now, let me ask you: do you think they will only do one? Of course not. They do it again, crashing out and then into another skyscraper, before getting what they need and diving out of the car to safety before it crashes out a last time and finally succumbs to gravity.
So this is a metaphor for my work. I like to say, my job is like Fast and Furious but with religion instead of cars. And boy the 6 months have been that. In the weeks and months to come, my hope is that our local community and our campus community can rally together to support students of diverse identities. That may look something like jumping a car from one skyscraper to another – in other words moving some of the support for students into the community. When we do that, we’ll be asking a lot of our neighbors for help – I hope we can call on you.
It’s a new calling, a new path to follow.
It’s a new land to arrive in together.
Which brings us to Abram. Who you’ll recall is later renamed Abraham. If Matthew is the one who takes stock of the reports in his district and responds, then Abram is the one who faces the stark reality of the call of all he could gain but also what he stands to lose answering God’s call. God says: Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house. Coming out to a new land, where he does not know the language or the politics or have any social standing. Leaving the comfort they have known for an uncertain blessing. It’s a risk to leave his father’s house.
It reminded me of a book I have been revisiting, Outlove: A Queer Christian Survival Story, by Julie Rodgers. In this memoir, Julie tells the story of being a queer kid, a lesbian who realizes her attraction to the same gender early. She is also raised by her mother in the Evangelical church. In a sense, this is her mothers’ house, and when Julie reveals her attractions, her place in both houses is put at risk. She is subjected to conversion therapy and tries to claim all the power she can over her situation, rising in the ranks of the Evangelical world. But the call keeps on coming, to be authentically herself, to bless herself. The risk, of course, was leaving and losing her mother’s house. Eventually, Julie answered the call to come out fully, and accept the blessedness of the LGBTQ people.
And sure enough, it came with a mix of loss and blessing. She had tried to deny herself for her mothers’ sake and could do it no longer: “I let my crack open as I imagine us both reaching out for one another, unable to join hands because we came up in a system that said a parent’s love for God demands they reject their queer child.” But Julie insists there may be hope and blessing yet. She believes they can reconcile. Her mom sent her socks and she sees in those socks a bridge they may someday cross to each other.
And while coming out from her mother’s house of evangelicalism meant friends who texted rejection and takedowns published in print, it also resulted in a new chosen family, her wife among others, and a vision she could hardly believe:
“I do not have visions, I thought to myself. This is not God. The scene moved along anyway despite my disbelief: When I dragged my beaten-down body around the corner and looked up ahead, I saw an old home with a wraparound porch and the outline of a person looking toward me. With determination, I put one foot in front of the other, gaining strength the closer I got, until the figure in the distance started running toward me. Their jog eventually turned into a sprint; they were leaping at times, almost dancing as they drew near. Finally, we met, and I collapsed into their arms. ‘Welcome home!’ they cried, taking a step back to look at me. ‘All these years, I’ve been waiting for you to come to me as you are – not the version of yourself you thought you were supposed to be, but the person beneath the religious facade. And now here you are, all pretense stripped away, in the body I knit together, with a soft and open heart, home at last.” (Outlove, Rodgers, pp. 231-232)
Out, beyond the safe and comfortable ways, God is calling us. To follow. To be a new family of blessing.
So, my siblings in faith, consider: What are the reports in your district which are stirring your heart? And what are we willing to risk to be blessed, to be a blessing? The good news is, God calls us, Christ goes with us, and if we choose each other in the Spirit of love, we can go together.
Matt Hartley 