Pastoral Ponderings . . .

“Immediately they left their nets and followed him.”What was it that made them so ready and willing to hear Jesus’ invitation, drop everything, and go?What would it take for us,to just suddenly drop everything you were doing; everything that was familiar; and start going in a new direction?It would have to be really extreme wouldn’t it?  It would for me:I love my home.  I love my family.  Most days I love being a parish pastor!I think it would have to be some kind of deep, pre-existing dissatisfaction.Some longing for a different kind of life.That’swhat I think made those fishing folk immediately drop their nets that day, and go.A conviction that it was time for something new. A new way of being.I wonder too if there was some kind of deep recognition in that moment:  The voice, The person?   We don’t know. There’s a wonderful saying in Buddhism:  “When the Student is ready, the Teacher will come.”What that moment of readiness will feel like, we ourselves can only know.What’s that moment been like for you?When you knew you had no other choice than a different path?

The students were ready on the beach that day.When the Teacher arrived and said “this way.”Both Isaiah and Matthew call Him the Great Light. The Light of a New Dawn.Great Teachers enlighten us, don’t they?Suddenly something just clicks, between our life experience, and what’s being said.And it’s like we’ve known that truth all along, and now it’s really resonating like it never has before.It must have been one of those “Wow” moments for them.I often get those when the sun first breaks over the Wasatch mountainson these winter mornings. Wow.  It’s always a new experience for me.

Logic tells me that no one “drops their nets” and walks away from everything they know,  without being good and ready first.They’re ready.  And they know it.For many it’s like they had no other choice.I think of refugees from war.I remember the horrific scenes of Ukranian children and families fleeing the Russian invasion a year ago.I think of people fleeing in the night, from intimate partner violence, like some of the families I met in December at the Family Promise house in Sandy.And I shudder to think whatTausha Haight was fleeing from:  the awful picture on the Trib’s front page of the cemetery in Enoch.  All those caskets.And the caption under it:  “How did this happen here?”Her spouse was far more dangerous than anyone in their communityexcept Tausha and her mother and their kids no doubt knew.She couldn’t take it anymore.  She was trying to protect her family.She finally had no other choice.

“Follow me,” Christ says to the refugees, the hopeless, the unsheltered.“Follow me.  The kingdom of heaven has come near. . . . For you.”

I think when we friends of Jesus are leaving our routineto serve at Vinny’s, or Family Promise, or sort cans at the Utah Food Bank, or be advocates for the vulnerable in the Utah Legislative session, we’re answering God’s call ourselves, to live that new kingdom Christ is making:“Safety.  Shelter.  Justice,and food for all.”That’s the call I hear.There’s so much to be done.And there’s really something about showing up in person.Witnessing others who’ve had no other choice.  Seeing their faces.There are so many who have no choice but to drop everything and go:many today who discover themselves stuck in an unplanned pregnancy, have no choice in the matter in their own State.They have no other choice but drop everything and leave family, work, school, so many obligations behind, and travel to another State just to get their lives back again.

Tabor is showing up for them too in 2023.  On MLK Day, with gratitude for Christ’s call to do justice, I signed the amicus brief endorsed by our church council, that was sent January 27 to the Utah Supreme Court for our church to join our voice with that of 6 other faith communities in Utah,saying that “Yes; there can be morally justifiable reasons for ending pregnancy” and that not all religious people think abortion is immoral. And that instead, many religious people believe that abortion is the moral choice in many cases.As representatives of the ELCA in Utah, we’re answering the call to follow Christ from beyond our walls, into the world.

I want to thank those of you who’ve answered the call yourselves,to serve “Dinner at Vinny’s” in the downtown. For me, serving there, even just mopping the floor, keeps it all real:this effort to feed over 250 unsheltered people in just one part of the Valleythree times a day, 365 days a year.

What makes us willing to drop everything and go?It can be different for everyone.But the call to follow comes not just once, but throughout our lives.Christ, the Light of a New Dawn, suddenly shines and a new path is revealed.It takes courage to leave the familiar behind, doesn’t it?It takes faith to trust that God in Christ is the one leading the way.And I think it helps to have the conviction that what has been before, will no longer be in the same way again.That instead, it’s the Light of a New Dawn that’s rising for us.“Follow me” Jesus our Light says, “for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”                  Pastor David