(prayer)
According to a 2014 survey
sited on workopolis.com, 73% of Canadians do NOT expect to be in the same profession throughout their lifetime.
I confess that I didn't
bother to look at the details of the research, but I imagine that this is not
talking about the jobs that people have while they ae students or while they
are sorting out what they want to do with
their life.
In my parent's generation,
it was very common for people to work in one area or industry for most of
their adult life.
Born in 1963, I am at the
tail end of the baby boomer genetation. I have tended to look at my life under
the single career expectation model.
At 18, I thought that I
would be a CPA - Chartered Public Accountant (then called CA) - and so I
studied accounting at university after high school. After graduating with a Bachelor of Commerce
degree, I began articling with a big audit firm in Edmonton.
Less than a year later, I
switched gears and went off to Vancouver to study theology.
At the time, I felt that...
if I didn't make the change then
(before I got too far down the path of my accounting career), I would never be
able to do it. I really felt like it was
now or never.
Since I never was never
more than a 'entry level accountant' at the firm (working towards my CA) and only
for nine months at that in total, I really can't call ministry my second
career, not ever really having a career in accounting.
Truth be told, I am still
on that same path, now, that I was when I was 22.
Looking back, accounting was
simply part of what would be my figuring out what to do with my live, pre-ministry training.
I was surprised that when I
got to the Vancouver School of Theology, that I was the youngest person in my
first year class and the second youngest student overall across all three the
three denominations that used VST as a seminary. Most of my classmates were looking at
ministry as second or third careers.
Very few of us were under 30.
But, I lived in a residence my first with
a number of undergraduate UBC students, where I felt like the old man (they
called be sir - at 23 years of
age). But when I went to class, I was
the baby in the room.
//
//
According to most modern
research, genXers and genYers have no such
expectation of a single career - part of this is a recognition that with
technological advances, the nature of work is in constant flux: will a given
job even still exist in 20 years? But it is more than that; it also includes a
desire to have a variety of experiences (even careers) over the course of their
working years. People want more than one
career.
At the other end, in most
vocations, there is no longer any strict expectations for when careers will
end, either.
For my parent's generation,
retiring at 65 was so much the norm, that many jurisdictions and industries had
mandatory retirement rules. In fact,
when I was first ordained 25 years ago, if a United Church minister wanted not
to retire at age 65, s/he had to make a special application to defer retirement. That application even involved meeting with
the pastoral relations committee of presbytery, so that they could assess if
you were still 'fit' for ministry. And
this deferral had to redone annually.
I must say that as I move
closer to 65, that age seems a lot younger to me that it used to appear.
Now, in the UCCan, it is
assumed that ministers are not retiring until they actually apply TO
retire. For actuarial reasons, the only
requirement is that we have to start drawing our pension no later than age 75,
regardless of whether we formally retire or not.
//
As a general assertion I
would say that the further back we go in time, the greater frequency of single
career lives we will observe.
//
//
//
//
In the near east of the
first century, there was almost no opportunity to change careers mid-life. In fact, the work that a person did was
seldom the result of open career planning, but determined by your location and
family circumstance.
If you lived near a lake or
the sea, you probably worked with fish.
If your family owned land, you probably farmed or ranched. If not, you likely worked for a land owner or
apprenticed in a trade. There were some
government service opportunities in certain places, but not everyone had access
to those appointments... and they weren't always held in high esteem by the
locals.
Generally, in Jesus' day,
people tended to only change jobs out of absolute necessity... not out of a desire for a change or a
new personal challenge.
//
//
The gospel of Mark
describes Jesus as a "carpenter" (Mk6:3). In the parallel passage in Matthew, he is
described as "the son of [a] carpenter" (Mt13:55).
It is a fair conclusion to
assume that Jesus was probably a non-land owning peasant who provided for his family by
working as a carpenter and that he
got into this vocation because it is what his father did.
It is most likely that the
carpenter's workshop would have been at home and not at a stand alone
shop. The trades of the ancient near east were not part of an entrepreneurial
middle class (there was no middle class); there were only the rulers, land
owners and peasants. A carpenter was
part of the latter.
For peasant carpenters, it
is likely that the level of work would vary from week to week, depending on the
building needs of the surrounding commuity.
It was far from a lucrative venture.
//
[ASIDE: I love the irony in
the movie, The Last Temptation of Christ,
where Jesus got a contract making wooden execution crosses for the local Roman
authorities. It drives home the point
that you would have had to take what work was available, when it was
available.]
//
We know that Joseph and
Mary were a poor family because they offered two birds as a temple purification
sacrifice (33 days after Jesus was born) rather than the normally expected
offering of a lamb yearling and one bird (see Lk2:24; Lev12:8).
//
//
//
Sometime in his late-20s,
Jesus seems to have been attracted to an eccentric judean teacher named who
preached a baptism of repentance.
Luke says that Jesus' and
John's mothers were related. The other
gospels make no such claim.
Either way, we don't know
what exactly it was that attracted Jesus to John or how much time Jesus spent
among the disciples of John... presumably, Jesus fit it in between his
carpentry jobs, when he could be away from Nazareth.
//
//
All four biblical gospels
include the ministry of John the Baptist as a precursor to Jesus'
ministry. All four gospels quote the
book of Isaiah (chapter 40) in relation to John the baptist: A
voice cries out in the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord.
Matthew, Mark and Luke also
describe Jesus submitting to John's baptism ritual. It is generally considered that the baptism
and a personal forty day wilderness retreat
(spirit quest) signified the start of Jesus' ministry career... although
Matthew and Mark report that Jesus did not begin to share his message in
Galilee until after John the Baptist
was arrested. These first two gospels
imply that Jesus stayed in Judea with John and his other disciple in between
the baptism and John's arrest.
//
As I have preached before,
it is a fair interpretation of the biblical texts to conclude that it was
John's arrest which motivated Jesus to strike out on a ministry of his own...
in his own way, back in his home region.
Matthew also explicitly
notes that Jesus relocated from Nazareth to Capernaum... which we can assume
meant that he was leaving his home-based carpentry career behind.
//
At age 30, Jesus was making
a mid-life career change.
//
//
No one's path through this life is
straight. We all navigate corners,
hills, valleys, deadends, wide roads and dense brush. Our path also includes sections that feel
like we are off a path entirely.
That is life.
And so... we adjust. We change.
We adapt. Along the way, we
develop the person we become.
We are a combination of our
experiences.
Jesus' experience changed the course of
his life.
//
Even if Luke is right and John (the
baptist) and Jesus were cousins - only
six months apart in age, they may have had a lifetime of experience with each
other before Jesus joined with others at the preaching place by the Jordan River.
Regardless of how much contact Jesus
and John had over the first three decades of their lives, something new must have happened to inspire Jesus to adjust the course (and destiny) of his
life.
//
It may just have been that baptism
experience. For Jesus, it was more than
a soaking in a river. It was an
experience of mystical experience.
Let's look at what the gospels tell us
about what happened to Jesus.
//
We read from Matthew this morning, but
a similar account is also told in Mark and Luke. [The Gospel According to John talks about
John the Baptist pointing to Jesus as 'the lamb of God, who is greater than
John', but does not describe a baptism.]
Matthew (like Mark and Luke) mention
two aspects about the mysticism of the moment: an experience of the descending
spirit of God; and an affirming voice.
As I have said before, biblical
scholarship tells us that Matthew and Luke used Mark as one of their major
sources. They expanded what Mark had
first written... and (at times) made adjustments to Mark's version.
As an example, Matthew made a small
change to the second of Jesus' mystical experiences relayed in Mark's baptism
narrative. More on that in a minute.
First, all three synoptic gospels are
very similar when it comes to the first mystical experience.
Mark: Just as [Jesus] was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn
apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. (Mk1:10)
//
Luke: When Jesus... had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened,
and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove.
(Lk3:21-22)
You can see that Luke made two
additions to Mark's version: in Luke,
Jesus is praying when he experiences
the descending spirit and that the manifestation of the
spirit was physical - bodily form
like a dove.
//
Matthew: Just as [Jesus] came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were
opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting
on him. (Mk3:16)
Like Luke, two small changes to Mark by
Matthew: different verb to describe how the spirit got out of the heavens: torn apart in Mark; opened up in Matthew. More
significantly, Matthew describes a spirit that not only descends but also alights on Jesus. Matthew wants his audience to believe that
the spirit was not just near Jesus after his baptism, but actually touched him:
alighted (or settled) on him.
The fact that Luke interprets
"like a dove" literally rather than metaphorically, he is implying
that others could have seen this happen.
Mark and Matthew (on the other hand) both imply that the descending spirit
may have been noticed by Jesus only... "Jesus saw the heavens open,
and Jesus saw the Spirit descend".
//
What might have changed the course of
Jesus' life?
//
//
Being baptized by John was more than
going in and out of the river and hearing a sermon about repentance and the
nearness of the Kingdom of God.
Jesus was inspired... in-spirited.
He was touched in a special way. I'm not as fundamentalist as Luke... it
doesn't have to have been a bird-like physical manifestation of the spirit to
have been a real and significant experience for Jesus.
Jesus went into the water as a faithful
pharisic carpenter and came out understanding that God's spirit was with him in
a fresh way.
//
That leads us to the second mystical
experience that followed Jesus' baptism: the voice.
Mark: A voice came from heaven, ‘you are my Son, the Beloved; with you I
am well pleased.'
(Mk1:11)
//
Luke: A voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I
am well pleased.’
(Lk3:22)
Identical to Mark: word for word... in
Greek and English.
There are three affirmations here:
·
Jesus
is a child of God.
·
Jesus
is loved by God.
·
God
is happy with (or proud of) Jesus.
Matthew has the same three
affirmations, but says it differently.
//
Matthew: A voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom
I am well pleased.’
(Mt3:17)
Did you catch Matthew's change?
??
In Mark (and Luke), the voice speaks
directly to Jesus (in the second
person):
You are my son, the beloved. With you I am well pleased.
There is no indication in Mark or Luke
that anyone other than Jesus was able to hear the voice.
Matthew shifts it to the third person: This is my son, the beloved. With whom I am well pleased.
//
In the first version, Jesus is
personally affirmed and encouraged... you are my child; I love you; I
am proud of you.
Matthew makes it into a public
declaration about Jesus... Jesus is God's
son; God loves and is proud of Jesus.
I would not go so far to say that the
voice was able to be heard by the crowd according to Matthew, but clearly, he
wanted that three-fold declaration about Jesus to be understood by his
readers... to the People of the Way,
reading these words 45 years after Jesus was baptized, know that Jesus was the
beloved, proud son of God.
//
//
I get no clarity from the three gospels as to whether others at the river that day saw the descending spirit or heard the
heavenly voice. Certainly, none of the
gospels mention the crowd's reaction if they did.
To me, it doesn't matter whether the
spirit and voice physically and audibly obvious to people, I am quite sure that
Jesus was aware of what we was experiencing.
I take the same attitude expressed by
Professor Dumbledore in Harry Potter and
The Deathly Hallows.
"Tell me one
last thing," said Harry. "Is this real? Or has this been happening
inside my head?"
Dumbledore beamed
at him, and his voice sounded loud and strong in Harry's ears even though the
bright mist was descending again, obscuring his figure.
"Of course it
is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it
is not real?"
//
Whether anyone else could see the
spirit or hear the voice has no bearing on whether Jesus had a real, impactful,
mysterious, mystical, spiritual experience that day at the Jordan River when he
was baptized by John.
And this experience seems to have changed the
trajectory of Jesus' life.
The spirit and voice lead Jesus to take
time away from the distractions of daily living... forty days in the wilderness
struggling with the temptations of possible futures that his baptism experience
might be leading him to.
//
Not long after came out of the
wilderness, when John was arrested, Jesus went back to Galilee and began to
share his own version of John's basic sermon: Repent, for the Kingdom of God has come near.
John's arrest experience may have
impacted the manner that Jesus chose to preach his message. As a settled preacher - who could always be
found at the same place, John was easy to find when the authorities came to arrest
him.
Jesus, on the other hand was like a church without a building: he was a
traveling preacher. Three years later,
when authorities wanted to arrest Jesus, they had to obtain inside information on Jesus' movements
in order to find him.
//
//
//
We are the sum of our experiences and
how we have been impacted by them.
The impact is key.
Two people can be together in the same
place, experiencing the same thing, but it might mean something different to
each of them.
For the most part, we all have the same
capacity to take in information from our surroundings: some combination of our
intuition along with, what we can see, smell, taste, hear and touch.
But that information is given meaning
by what we think and how we feel.
I may get jealous of your spiritual
experiences, but they do not have to be shared to be real.
I will have my own ways of becoming
aware of the spirit in my life.
//
//
Interpreting what we read about Jesus'
baptism and wilderness experiences, we can say that Jesus was
"called" in to a specific ministry by God.
Next Sunday, I will be inviting us to
think about what it means to be called to follow Jesus in our day.
//
God called Jesus out of his home
woodshop to live a less certain existence that would take him to the seaside
village of Capernaum, where he would set out on a series of road trips to
familiar and unknown places to share his experience of what it means to be a
beloved child of God.
How Jesus treated people on these new
life paths, tell us a lot about how God viewed the people he met. Jesus gently tended the bruised and the
broken. He lovingly nurtured and fanned
even the smallest spark of faith he found in people's hearts.
Perhaps it was a sermon he preached in
his old hometown synagogue that described best his own view of mission: Jesus read from the scroll of the prophet
Isaiah: "The spirit of the Lord God
is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news
to the oppressed, to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the
captives, and release to the prisoners;
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour... to comfort all who mourn... to give them a
garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle
of praise instead of a faint spirit."
Then Jesus told the congregation, These
are not just words from our past. I see
this happening all around me, everyday.
//
//
May it be so with us, today.
//
Let us pray:
Loving God, you breathe your spirit
into us. Guide us to live as your
beloved children - witnessing to Jesus’ compassion in all we do. Amen.
#135MV “Called By Earth and Sky”
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