Like Many Software Engineers These Days, Jeff Hill Works from Home One Or Two Days a Week

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Proper 18C 2016

Luke 14:25-33

Like many software engineers these days, Jeff Hill works from home one or two days a week. Jeff says he needs a professional sounding voicemail greeting so anyone calling him at his home office will know he's hard at work. While he was recording a new personal greeting one morning, Jeff's wife was in the laundry room across from his office folding clothes when their six year old daughter, who had just emerged from the shower, walked in. Jeff's professional message ended up sounding like this: Male voice: “Hi, this is Jeff Hill with IBM.”Faint female voice in the background: “Well, look at you! You have no clothes on!”Male voice: “Sorry. I'm not available right now . . .”

Maybe Jeff's message didn't quite convey what he meant to say, but it brings us to our question for the day: are you available? This is where the rubber meets the road in Christian discipleship. Are you available? In his book, The Clown in the Belfry, Frederick Buechner tells about his wife's great-grandfather, a man named George Shinn. Shinn was a pastor back in the late 1800s. Late one night he was summoned to the bedside of an old woman who lived by herself. She had little money and few friends, and she was now dying. She told Shinn that she wanted another woman to stay with her for such time as she might have left, so Shinn and the old woman's doctor struck out in the darkness to try to find someone to be with her. It sounds like a parable the way it is told. They knocked at doors and threw pebbles at second story windows. One woman said she couldn't come because she had small children. Another said she simply wouldn't know what to do in such a situation. Another was suspicious of two men prowling around at that hour of night and wouldn't even talk to them. But finally, as the memoir of Dr. Shinn puts it in the prose of another age, “They rapped at the humble door of an Irish woman, the mother of a brood of children. She put her head out of the window. ‘Who's there?’ she said. ‘And what can you want at this time of night?’ When they told her the situation, her warm Irish heart could not resist. ‘Will you come?’ ‘Sure, I'll come.’ And she did.” The account ends with the words, “She did the best she could.”

This woman was willing. She was available. Is there a warmer word in our language? Available. It means, I'm here when you call. I'm ready, willing, and able.

Great crowds were following Jesus. He turned around and said to them: “Anyone who wants to be my follower must love me far more than he does his own father, mother, wife, children, brothers, or sisters; yes, more than his own life, otherwise he cannot be my disciple.” Jesus was in effect asking, “Are you available?” Can I count on you? Are you ready to do your part? There are plenty of people who are curious, some who are genuinely interested, but only a few who will make themselves available. Are you among that number? Can he count on you?

Am I available to walk in the footsteps of Jesus? That is the first question we must ask ourselves. In our Gospel Jesus makes the harsh sounding pronouncement that we are to love him more than we love our own family and friends. It seems like too much to ask, but Jesus himself experienced the cost of faithfulness. Recall the time when Jesus was told that his family had come to take him home because they were concerned about his health and wellbeing. He replied, “Who is my mother and who are my brothers?” Then he answered his own question: He pointed to his disciples. “Look!” he said, “these are my mother and brothers.” Then he added, “Anyone who obeys my Father in heaven is my brother, sister and mother!”

Did Jesus not care about his own mother and brothers and sisters? Yes, of course he cared, but he could not let his love for them keep him from his mission. Do you not think that he was tempted as the shadows of the cross grew darker about him to leave it all and go back to the security of hearth and home in Nazareth? Of course he was tempted. But he had a higher calling and he could not let his love for his immediate family stand in the way. That is a choice that courageous people sometimes have to make.

Each summer in Cherokee, N.C. thousands of people come to see the outdoor drama, Unto These Hills. The play tells the tragic story of the Cherokee people of the Eastern region. In 1838, 17,000 Cherokee Indians were forced by General Winfield Scott to journey en masse in awful conditions from western North Carolina to Oklahoma. More than 4,000 perished on that terrible trail of tears. Some 1,000 Indians, however, had hidden in the Great Smoky Mountains. One of these was Tsali. Tsali's wife had been murdered by a drunken U.S. soldier, who, in turn was killed by Tsali and his kinsmen. They thenescaped into the depths of the virgin forest. Scott’s soldiers proved unable to capture Tsali but in the pursuit many other Cherokee were killed. Eventually a friend of Tsali'stransmitted GeneralScott's proposal: If Tsali and his kin would surrender to be shot, the remainder of the tribe could stay in the beautiful land of their birth. After days of anguish, Tsali, with his sons and brother-in-law walked unescorted into a nearby town to face certain death. What brought him? Despite a burning desire to live, love for his people brought him to die. At the last moment, his youngest son was saved from the firing squad by the tears of a woman missionary. No such luck for Tsali. The rifles rang out and three men died, but a thousand Cherokee were free to remain in the Great Smoky Mountains. Tsali was available for his people.

“Greater love hath no one than this,” says John's Gospel, “that a man lay down his life for his friends”. Sometimes we are compelled by a greater love than that for our mothers and brothers and spouses. In the same way that Tsali gave up his life for his people, Christ was available for you and me. He asks us to do no more than he has already done. Are you available to walk in his footsteps?Are you available to suffer the possible consequences of discipleship? Jesus said, “No one can be my disciple who does not carry his own cross and follow me.” We are not generally a people who are willing to make sacrifices. I know there are exceptions, but as a whole we have become a people in love with comfort. We drive comfortable automobiles and we live in comfortable houses and we even belong to comfortable churches. Doesn't it concern you at times that perhaps we have chosen the wide gate and not the narrow one, the easy road and not the road that leads to life?

Many of you are familiar Rodin’s masterpiece The Burgher’s of Calais. During the Hundred Years’ War, after the Battle of Crecy in 1347, the forces of England’s King, Edward III, laidsiege to the port city of Calais. Philip VI of Franceordered the city to hold out at all costs, but Philip failed to lift the siege, and starvation eventually forced the city to surrender. Edward offered to spare the people of the city if six of its top leaders would voluntarily surrender themselves to himto be executed. Edward demanded that they walk out wearing nooses around their necks, and carrying the keys to the city and castle. One of the wealthiest of the town leaders,Eustache de Saint Pierre, volunteered first, and five otherburghersjoined with him in what Rodin called a “slow procession toward death”.Saint Pierre led this envoy of volunteers to the city gates. It was this moment, and this poignant mix of defeat, heroic self-sacrifice, and willingness to face imminent death that Rodin captured in his sculpture.

Being available takes courage. It takes compassion for others. And one thing more: it takes action. Each year during the Christmas season we hear read in church the account of the calling of the Prophet Isaiah, which begins with the familiar words, “In the year that KingUzziah died I saw theLordsitting upon a throne, high and lifted up…” and ends with this question, “I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’ Then said I, ‘Here am I; send me’.”

In May of 1980 I left the doctoral program in history in which I was enrolled, not really knowing what I would do next. Finally in early August I went to see the assistant bishop of Toronto about being appointed to a parish. I mentioned a small but nice church in suburban Toronto. He responded by offering me a parish about 3 hours northwest of the city, a location I considered bordering on the outer regions of hell. He either didn’t know or had forgotten that 2 years earlier I had been a summer intern in that community and knew more about it than he did. I politely declined his offer, and then out of my mouth for some reason that I cannot to this day explain, came the words, “Actually Bishop, I’ve always wanted to be a hospital chaplain”. I can provide witnesses including the present Archbishop of Toronto who will affirm that I said many times I’d rather die a 1000 deaths than be a hospital chaplain, but somehow the words came out of my mouth. To make a long story short, 10 days later I was chaplain intern and exercised that ministry for the next 6 years. It proved to be my spiritual salvation. I was available, and although I don’t understand how it happened, I answered the call: “Here am I; send me”.

It is amazing what God can do with us. It's such a simple thing really – to say when God calls, “Yes, Lord. I’m available; send me”.