Volunteers

This sermon was delivered at First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday February 4, 2007.

Isaiah 6:1-8
Psalm 138
1Corinthians 15:1-11
Luke 5:1-11

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

My wife got a call from her cousin Cindy last night. I met Cindy once, at our wedding, and as soon as I saw the two of them together I knew they were as thick as thieves, and I am told I don’t know the half of it. They grew up together, spending the night at each other’s houses, playing together, getting in trouble, the stuff that cousins-closer-than-sisters do. Cindy was raised in the Our Lady of Pompeii parish and Marie was raised in St. Clair’s. So as young girls do, and as teen age girls do, they made fun of the old ladies of the Women’s Guild. You know, the old ladies! They have funny blue hair and they were always telling the two of them to behave. Can’t you just hear them now? “We’ll never be like that!”

Well, last night they were talking, and with a sense of foreboding, Cindy told Marie, “I’m getting old.” Marie asked what makes her say that. Cindy said, in a weary voice, “I was cleaning the kitchen at the parish the other day.” Sensing where this was going, Marie began to laugh asking, “So, you did too good of a job, huh?” Cindy asked, in the same drained tones, “Do you remember the Women’s Guild at the church? Do you remember how we used to make fun of them?” Marie roared in laughter. “They have invited me to join them. They have invited me to join the Women’s Guild. They want me to take over the kitchen. I am getting old.”

No good deed ever goes unpunished, does it? Invited to join, you know what that means, don’t you—drafted.

Oh, by the way, the all church clean up is scheduled for Saturday March 3rd, the day before Palm Sunday. We’ll get started about nine in the morning. See you there!

This weekend on AMC, the American Movie Classics cable network, there have been a bunch of John Wayne movies. I’m not sure why. It’s not the Duke’s birthday, that’s in May. Since he died in June it’s not that either. And they’re showing all sorts of movies, too. They’re showing Hellfighters, a story modeled on the life of oil field fire specialist Red Adair. They’re showing Mcq. AMC’s website says “John Wayne breaks from his cowboy image to play a hardened Seattle police officer whose best friend is murdered and accused of being a drug trafficker.”[1] Also breaking his cowboy image is a showing of The Quiet Man where he plays an Irish boxer wooing Maureen O'Hara. And, of course, they’re showing The Green Berets.[2]

Say what you will about this movie and what it represented, and much has been said about it, there is a piece of it that I absolutely love. It’s relationship between Wayne as Colonel Mike Kirby and Jim Hutton as Peterson. Sure, it’s the same relationship seen in every war movie ever made but I still love it: The hard acre Colonel takes on the unit slacker and teaches him what it takes to be a soldier. In this case, Jim Hutton portrays the guy who doesn’t play by the rules. His character is sort of like a quartermaster, the guy in the unit in charge of supplies. And when he is unable to get what he needs through channels, he is willing to get it by hook or by crook. Before becoming a Green Beret, the latest victim of his scrounging is Colonel Kirby’s unit. Well, it doesn’t take long for the Duke to nail the scrounger, so Kirby gives Peterson two choices, the stockade or joining Colonel Kirby’s unit. Peterson quickly accepts the transfer and is promptly promoted to Sergeant.

After shipping out to Vietnam, Colonel Kirby gets tough and teaches Sergeant Peterson to be a Green Beret. Peterson uses his talents for scrounging supplies to get the supplies needed by the unit to do what they had been sent to do. Yes, it’s a rough and tumble time between the two of them. But respect replaces hostility. Soon Peterson becomes Colonel Kirby’s right hand in matters of procurement.

But here’s the thing to remember about their relationship, it began when Colonel Kirby caught then Corporal Peterson red handed. There was no way out and Peterson had two choices, serve the Colonel or become a prisoner. It was an easy choice for Peterson. He chose life outside of the stockade. The movie never says if Peterson volunteered or was drafted into the Marines, but he was definitely drafted into the Green Berets.

In the church, we often talk about making a personal choice, a personal confession to accept the Lord Jesus Christ into our lives and our hearts. This is an important image. We take our sin soaked lives and open them to the one who is so pure we are blinded by the light of his life. We have to take the first step to bring Christ into our lives.

There is one thing about this though; it’s not good reformed theology.

For the new guy on the scene, Jesus is pretty pushy. Simon is in business with his partners, and that night, business was bad. An evening of hard, dangerous work passed with nothing to show for it. So Jesus gets into one of the boats and tells Simon Peter to put out from the shore. Jesus doesn’t ask, he insists, he gets in and tells Peter to put out from the shore.

Jesus commands Simon Peter. Jesus doesn’t ask “who would like to take me out on the lake?” Jesus doesn’t ask for volunteers, he tells people what to do and requires people respond. Jesus uses imperatives while speaking to Peter: “do this, do that.” And he does this when Peter is in the middle of his real job. Peter, James, and John are on their boats. Jesus calls them while they are at what would be considered a really bad time because of what’s going on in “real life.”

This is looking more and more like a conscripted service than it is a volunteer army with every word.

You see, Jesus was not asking for volunteers. John 15:16 says it best, “You did not choose me but I chose you.”

Now tell me, after a hard day or night of work, how many of you would have been ready to put out the boat, or take out the truck, or turn on the computer, or answer the phone, or open the store for someone you don’t know? I won’t speak for you, but I would be leery. As for Peter, I am sure he wanted to get to the market to sell the evening’s catch. Oh yeah, that’s right, there was no evening catch.

So then, after telling Peter to put out into the lake, Jesus tells him to cast his freshly cleaned net for a catch. Again, Jesus doesn’t suggest this, he doesn’t ask him. He tells Simon to put out his net. Peter’s response: “Master, we have worked all night long, and have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets for a catch.”

There are two ways to read this verse; one is the King James way with great confidence, reverence, and honor. But for me, after a long night’s work, my voice would have dripped with sarcasm.

Oh, yes Master, we have worked all night long, and have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets for a catch.

Before enjoying a relationship with the Lord I was a very sarcastic man, so it’s easy for me to put this emphasis on Peter’s words. But I’m much better now.

Of course you know what comes next, we just read it. Peter had so many fish in his nets that they were beginning to break. And when everyone had come out to bring in the catch, there were so many fish in the boats that they had begun to sink.

Simon Peter knows when he is humbled. He falls at Jesus’ knees telling him to go away. “Lord, I am a sinful man, go away from me.”

Here we go again with the commands.

Jesus isn’t to be put off by Peter’s insistence though. He offers two things, first the Old Testament imperative, “Fear not!” Then Jesus tells the fishermen what will become of them, “From now on, you will be catching people.” With this command, they leave their old world behind and enter the new world headed by Jesus, the anointed one who is the Christ.

Returning to the reformed theological view of the Army of the Lord, we believe that there is one Lord, God in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And we believe that in this army, as the Lord is the Commander in Chief, everyone else is a Buck Private. There are no other officers, not even any non-commissioned officers. We are all members of the same corps, or body if you prefer, with equal rank. Yes, we all have different specialties as we have different gifts and the Jesus is the head of the church, Lord of the conscience. We are ordered to follow him.

We have no other bishop but Jesus Christ; we are members of his eternal, universal church. The question is not whether we will accept Jesus into our hearts. We have been called. We have been purchased at a price. We have been drafted by the one who gives us life outside the stockade. Our only choice is whether we will desert or not.

Earlier I used the phrase, “enjoy a relationship with the Lord.” This is when we need to remember that we have two choices, we can serve in the army of the Lord as drafted or we can report to the stockade of the life of sin we build for ourselves. We can choose to enjoy or resent this relationship and our call to serve God. Like Sergeant Peterson in the movie, we can choose to despise and resent our lot in life or we can choose life and develop a relationship with our commanding officer. We are not volunteers, we are all draftees. It is up to us whether we serve the army of the Lord as soldiers or as prisoners of our own demise.

As for me, I say listen for the call. Listen for your marching orders, and respond to them. Peter, James, and John responded when called. What will we do? Listen, and do as we are told by the Lord our God. As the song goes, “I am a soldier/in the Army of the Lord.”[3] Like a soldier reporting to the perfect General, let me do as I am commanded.

[1] http://www.amctv.com/show/detail?CID=5860-1-EST, accessed February 3, 2007.
[2] Movie references taken from my personal recollection of “The Green Berets” and from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Green_Berets_%28film%29, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wayne, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Hutton, and http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063035/ accessed February 3, 2007.
[3] “Soldier,” traditional. I own a copy of this song by The Blind Boys of Alabama on, “Spirit of the Century.” Realworld/Island records, 2001.