Losing a friend is hard. It brings a certain kind of loneliness.
We become castaways in our own lives.
Jesus lost John the Baptist.
The four gospels say various things about how they knew or didn’t know each other. It’s pretty clear though that they shared a deep connection, an affinity, a certain perspective on the world, soul mates.
Matthew’s Gospel marks the beginning of Jesus ministry with the arrest of John the Baptist. Jesus then leaves his hometown and resettles a long way away. “Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee.” That is one of the saddest sentences in scripture. It is filled with implied grieving.
Jesus and John were both proclaiming the arrival of God’s Kingdom. They were caught up in one of many populist movements in a turbulent time. And it got them both killed. What was unusual about the kingdom movement, when compared to pretty much all other populist movements, was that it was peaceful, full of ancient Old Testament virtues such as :
costly hospitality to strangers and foreigners,
generosity to the poor, the vulnerable and the suffering,
of living simply
and of speaking out, holding the powerful accountable to how they behaved and how they treated the vulnerable.
And that is what got them in trouble, of meddling, of preaching politics.
They had a vision of this peaceful generous kingdom, proclaiming that all should repent, to change how they lived in response to this vision of God’s kingdom. And there were consequences to contradicting the established way of doing things.
John was arrested. Jesus lost his fellow visionary.
What do we do with grief?
So Jesus peacefully withdrew and started his ministry, he called some fishermen to fish for those who would catch on to this kingdom vision, and he taught about the kingdom and proclaimed it as good news and he healed the sick.
The apostle Paul spoke of this kingdom vision of the Cross of Christ as being foolishness to those who were perishing but to those who are being saved it is the power of God.
A peaceful vision of God’s kingdom that is vulnerable, that invites the abuse of bullies and thugs, and in that abuse and suffering the power of God enters the world.
Foolishness.
Like the disciples, we are called to become fishing fools, inviting others into the crazy vision of God’s Kingdom, to repent, to turn and return.
Turning the suffering and grief in our lives into compassion and peace.
Turning the darkness in our lives into light.
Finding the power of God in weakness.
What do we do with loss?
The Good News of God’s arriving kingdom is that God turns the cross into resurrection.
That is the vision of the kingdom that has us hooked.
God’s response to the harshness and disappointment of the world is not to lash out but rather to transform, to make a glorious soup of the broken pieces of the world.
How will we catch others up into the net of the hope, the light, the peace and the generosity of God?
Will we be caught up in this kingdom vision and kingdom ministry?
This parish lives out the vision of Jesus being God’s embrace of the brokenness of the world.
We live with the uncomfortable stuff because that is where the power of God is found.
A bunch of fishing fools casting the net near and far.
Losing a friend is hard.
All loss is painful. It makes us castaways in our own lives.
But what happens next, that is the amazing thing, so says the foolishness of God.
