The Church of St.
Paul & Incarnation, Jersey City NJ
February 10, 2019
Year C: The Fifth
Sunday after the Epiphany
Isaiah 6:1-13
Psalm 138
1 Corinthians 15:1-11
Luke 5:1-11
Spiritual Tidying Up at Starbucks
Sometimes
after a long day of teaching and priesting, Sue and I just want to veg out in
front of the TV and watch something that’s entertaining and not too challenging
for our tired brains.
One
show we sometimes watch is called “Tidying Up” with Marie Kondo.
It’s
gotten a fair bit of attention so maybe you’ve seen it or at least heard about it.
Marie
Kondo is a spritely, extremely pleasant and seemingly deeply spiritual Japanese
woman who is self-proclaimed expert on…tidying up.
She’s
written best-selling books teaching people how to organize their dresser
drawers and closets, how to “tidy up” – how to de-clutter - their homes.
The
core of her teaching and method is taking a moment to look, really look, at
each piece of clothing in our dresser, each object in our closet, really look
at each one of them and ask, does this spark joy?
If
there’s joy, it stays.
If
not, it goes.
On
each TV episode Marie Kondo and her interpreter (Marie only speaks limited
English but truthfully she communicates most clearly through her eyes and smile
and joyful presence) arrive at the home of people whose stuff has taken over
their lives.
At
least in the episodes I’ve seen most if not all of these people are middle
class, but it’s an unfortunate truth of our society and its cheap goods that even
people who struggle to make ends meet often live in homes absolutely filled
with stuff.
Anyway,
Marie begins the process by sitting on the floor to make a spiritual connection
with the home. Then she gives some basic instruction and encouragement (she
never shames the people in their cluttered homes) and then it’s up to them to
begin emptying their dressers and closets, to begin tidying up.
It’s
not an easy process but on each episode, as the piles of stuff get smaller, as
people really do tidy up, they discover (or rediscover) the joy of what really
makes them happy.
I
don’t have a whole lot of clothes or other things but I do have a lot of books
and music CDs. (The last few times we’ve moved, the movers have looked at the
many boxes of books and asked the same question: why have so many books when
you can only read one at a time? Fair enough but kind of misses the point,
right?)
Anyway, Marie Kondo has inspired me to (very
slowly) start weeding out these collections, keeping what gives me joy or has
some special meaning.
Tidying up.
I love today’s
gospel lesson because it’s a Peter story – Simon Peter the leader of the
apostles, the fisherman who follows Jesus and usually means well but so often
doesn’t really get it, so often messes up and falls short – Peter who gives
hope to all of us who also mean well but often don’t really get it, who also
mess up and fall short more often than we’d care to admit.
But today is a
special Peter story because this time – this time – Peter gets it exactly
right.
We’re told that
Jesus is at the Lake of Genessaret (otherwise known as the Sea of Galilee) and
when the crowd starts to be too much Jesus sees the fishermen’s boats. The men
have been out all night fishing unsuccessfully and are now involved in the hard
work of cleaning their nets – what must have been a grueling and not very
joyful daily chore of “tidying up” – made even more difficult and frustrating
after no catch, meaning for today no livelihood for themselves or their
families.
Anyway, Jesus in
his very Jesus-like way just invites himself onto Simon Peter’s boat and orders
him to set out a little from shore.
Notice there’s no
protest from Simon Peter – no “Lord, we’re all really tired so maybe some other
time” – no “Lord, we’re kind of in the middle of cleaning our nets here, if you
don’t mind” – no, Simon Peter simply does what he’s told.
Then Jesus issues
a second command, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a
catch.”
Here Simon Peter
does push back a little, saying, “Master, we have worked all night long but
have caught nothing.”
Now, I think if I
were Peter – Peter who must have known these waters as well as anybody and
certainly better than a carpenter from Nazareth – if I were Peter I’d say
something like, “Please, Master, we’re tired. We know there are no fish today.”
Or, if I were feeling particularly tired and cranky, "Master, please leave the
fishing to us and we’ll leave the teaching and the healing to you.”
But, Peter doesn’t
say anything like that. Instead, despite being I’m sure very exhausted and kind
of doubtful and reluctant to soil the nets again, he says, “Yet, if you say so
I will let down the nets.”
And, as we know,
Peter was rewarded with abundance – so many fish that the carefully washed nets
began to break – so many fish that the boats began to sink – so much abundance
that Peter who, this time at least, had said and done exactly the right thing,
begged Jesus:
“Go away from me,
Lord, for I am a sinful man!”
Since Lent is now
less than a month away, I’ve started to turn my attention to that holy season –
started reflecting on how I might take advantage of this special opportunity to
repent – to change my ways – to do a little spiritual tidying up.
And, I think most
of all I want to tidy up my assumptions and my expectations of some of the
people I encounter.
More often than I
care to admit I judge people on superficial traits or on first – and often
faulty – impressions.
Unlike Peter, too
often I don’t really trust Jesus when he says lower the nets, don’t really
trust Jesus that there is abundance – abundance of goodness and love all around
me, all around us, even in some pretty unlikely places.
As some of you
know, in the past few years I’ve gone away to California right after our annual
meeting – not because there was any particularly bad news at the annual
meeting, not because I needed to run away, but just to get away for a few days
in the middle of winter to clear my head.
It’s quite a
luxury and I’m very thankful for the opportunity.
I’m very much a
creature of habit so each time I stay in the same place and follow pretty much
the same routine which includes getting up first thing in the morning and going
to the Starbucks just a block from my hotel for my first cup of coffee and for
something to eat.
On Monday morning I
was a little surprised that the same homeless man – a youngish guy, maybe about
40 years old - who I had seen at this Starbucks last year was still there every
morning as the place opened – with his suitcases and bags piled in the same
corner of the small store.
I also recognized
one of the baristas from last year, too.
She was perfectly
pleasant and professional but there was something in her manner and appearance
that suggested that she’s had a hard life – that she was what in the past might
have been called a “tough cookie.”
On my last morning
I actually got to Starbucks before it opened and I waited outside with this
barista who was having a last before-work cigarette with a man who seemed to be
her boyfriend.
Before she went in
to start her day serving coffee, the boyfriend handed her a dinner plate
covered in aluminum foil. I thought, that’s nice, it looks like maybe he
prepares a lunch for her, and then I immediately followed her into the store,
ordered my coffee and forgot all about it.
About a half hour
later, as I was getting ready to leave I looked over at the corner where the
homeless man was sitting with his bags and saw that he was eating.
I looked a little
closer, trying not to stare, because I saw that he was eating what looked like
homemade beef and noodles and vegetables.
And I realized
that the plate that the boyfriend had handed over to the “tough cookie” barista
wasn’t for her, it was for the homeless man.
The hard-seeming
barista could easily and reasonably have shooed away the homeless man as a
nuisance and a possible danger to business and maybe even her job.
We’ve all seen it
happen – it even might have been the wise thing to do - no one would have blamed
her.
But instead,
before dawn, at the start of a long day, she served this man a homemade meal.
And, my guess is
that this is an everyday event.
There is so much
beauty and so much abundance out there, just beneath the surface.
Our work is to do
the needed spiritual tidying up to clear out our assumptions and expectations
so that when Jesus invites himself onto our boat, like Peter, we’ll find our
nets filled with grace and goodness, filled with so much joy, just bursting at
the seams.
Amen.
Posts
