ABUNDANT LIFE?
TEXT: John 21:1-14

In these weeks of our stewardship campaign, we are thinking about walls....walls that keep others out, walls that prevent us from living the abundant life that God intends for us. Last week you wrote down some ideas of things that build walls in our lives, and the wall representing those things is starting to go up. With the altar representing God, you can see that already access is more difficult. Our chancel is not as pretty as it was last week, and I'm sure some of you would like the wall down already. All of that is part of the message of these weeks.

Often we run into a wall that someone else has built and we wish they would take it down: Walls of bigotry, walls of fear that keep us from intimacy with a person we care for, walls of class and status that require a pass to get through the gate. We stand on the outside, and we feel alone and alienated. But this morning I want to talk about how walls are often harmful to the one inside, and how even seemingly helpful walls can block our relationship with God.

I think I have at least alluded before to the story of my decision to move from Florida to New England. I want to share that full story with you today, because in many ways it was my Jericho. My feelings surrounding the move were a wall that had to come tumblin' down.

As I was trying to determine whether God had called me to New England or whether my sense of God's call was really just too much spicy food before bedtime, I decided to take a trip up here to see what I could find out. That was January, 1999. Just before I left on that trip, I had to have my yearly consultation with my District Superintendent in Florida. For those not familiar with Methodism, the District Superintendent, or DS, is my immediate supervisor. Every year, around the turn of the year, every pastor meets with his or her DS to see how things are going and to discuss whether the pastor wants to stay or move. The DS then advises the Bishop.

In 1999, I was ready to move. I was feeling a calling to New England, but moves between Conferences are very difficult, and it wasn't certain that my move here could happen. So my DS and I had to talk about where I might go in Florida, if a move to New England didn't pan out. Now you have to understand about these two Conferences. In terms of the material side of a pastor's career, the difference between Florida and New England is like the difference between a gourmet meal and bread and water.

The top salary for pastors in Florida is more than double the top salary here. I think there is only one other Conference in the US that pays its pastors less than New England. The church in Florida I was leaving had over 3,000 members, and it was only the seventh largest church in the Florida Conference. Not a single United Methodist Church in all of New England has over 1,000 members. When I told my colleagues that I was seriously considering a move to New England, they looked at me like I had three heads. Tiny churches, no pay, AND snow?

They didn't get it. "But God is calling me to New England." I would say in return. "I do need to live and I still have sizeable debt from seminary, but as long as I can make enough to pay the bills, the rest doesn't matter if God has called me there." Very noble. And I thought I meant it...at least until I sat down with my DS to talk about what might happen if New England didn't open up for me. In that conversation, my DS, who I dearly loved, took on the role of Satan. He began to talk about a church opening up...a church almost as big as the one I was leaving with a $60K salary.

I went home to pack for my trip, even as I began to have serious thoughts about staying in Florida. I remembered the times when I had to return in the evening to homes where I had done a funeral because I knew they had food and there was nothing in my cupboards. I remembered what it was like to try to decide which bill to pay this month. I remembered all the vast opportunities for ministry with a tiny church with no resources to help. And then the battle started. "You hypocrite!" said my other self. "Here you've just proclaimed to everybody that it's about God's call and not about money and numbers, and you're about to sell out at the very first offer of a big church with a good salary." I headed for the plane with an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other...both of them were shouting at the top of their lungs.

My flight up here was a flat out battle, and it wasn't too long before I turned from fighting with myself to fighting with God. "Look," I said to God. "I am not going to quit preaching the Gospel just because I make a good salary. You are not being fair! Here I've done well enough in Florida that they are ready to give me something good at a comfortable wage, and now you come marching in and tell me that I've got to go back to the bottom and start over someplace else. I'm tired of having no money...you tell me what's so great about poverty! You know the salaries up there...I'm going to have to take a 7-8 thousand dollar cut to have a church in New England, and I'm just getting by now!"

I raged like that in my mind for hour after hour on the plane. I raged and I cried and I didn't know what to do with the two voices in my head...the one that said, "Call your DS," and the one that said, "No church or salary is worth going against the calling of God." But somehow, over the hours of the flight, I realized that whatever it might cost me, I had no choice. If God said, "Go to New England," then to New England I had to go.

So, as the flight neared Manchester, I said to God, "OK, you win. If you want me up here, then I'll come. If I have to be poor, I'll be poor, and I'll preach your love in the midst of it. BUT," I said, "Don't you go expecting me to preach any of those abundant life sermons, because I don't know what that's about." If I could have slammed the airplane door, I probably would have.

Twelve days later, I was flying home, having been appointed here to St. John's...one of the largest churches in the New England Conference. Instead of a pay cut, I got more than a ten thousand dollar raise, and a beautiful parsonage to boot. I came home humbled. But I was still worried as I had to put my house in Florida on the market. I had a housing allowance rather than a parsonage, and I had only been in the house two years. I had to make a lot of repairs and had no equity. The house sold in four days. For more than the asking price. When the real estate agent put the contract on the table, I cried. And then at last I said, "OK, God. I'll preach the abundant life sermon."

That experience almost three years ago marked a major turning point in my life. I had put myself behind very practical and understandable walls. The material difference between appointments there and here were plain. To keep myself within the comfortable Florida walls made all the sense in the world, as person after person patiently tried to explain to me. Trouble is, God's sense is not the sense of the world.

We see this in play in the passage about the early morning fishing expedition in the passage from John 21. The disciples have been fishing all night long and have caught nothing. It is only when they drop the net where Jesus says to drop the net that they bring in the payload. These weren't novice fishermen. Fishing was their life's work. Jesus had been a carpenter, not a fisherman. How did he know where the fish were? But they left the safe walls of their experience and trusted Jesus...and they could barely get the huge load into their boat.

Another thing has always struck me about this passage. The huge catch came only after the Disciples had fished all night and caught nothing. That rang true with my own life. We travel our spiritual journeys in stages, and there seems to be an almost universal spiritual stage that is the equivalent of fishing all night and catching nothing. It is the wilderness time, the desert time, the dry, wasted time when all effort seems to be wasted. Every person of faith comes to that time at some point along the way. It seems to be God's way of showing us that on our own, we can't find our way out of a paper bag.

My time of abundance came after about ten years of fishing all night and catching nothing. There had been physical illness, poverty, divorce, panic attacks, five moves, and just a lot of heartache and struggle. I was desperate to get out of that place to somewhere better, but God's invitation didn't look like a better place to me.

In Florida it looked like finally someone was going to come and build a home for me in the wilderness. Walls of protection would go up around me, so that I could live more comfortably. It was like I could see the workers coming with the boards and planks, the carpet and bedding, the grass for the lawn, the flowers for the walk. And there was God saying.... "No...leave those walls behind and come with me. Trust me to be your wall...come out of what you have made into what I have planned." It was my largest test.

That test is the test of the steward, and passing the test of the steward is the entrance to abundant life. But why would God make us pass a test like that at all? Why not just bless us? Because the purpose of God's abundance is not so that we can live abundantly.. The purpose of our abundance is so that we can be a channel of God's abundance to others, so that the WORLD can live abundantly. God gives us whatever we have, so that we can give it away to others.

The test of stewardship is whether we are willing to give up what we have so that others can benefit. If I had insisted on clinging to the large, Florida church, God knew I would insist on clinging to other things as well. But if I were willing to once again have nothing for the sake of the Gospel, then I would be less likely to hoard God's other resources.

Walls that protect us can be helpful and lovely. But if one day the door opens and the hand of God beckons you out...asks you to leave the security of the walls behind...the wisest thing to do is to go. If you stay, the walls of protection will become your prison. Instead of keeping your valuables within, they will block the flow of God's abundance from reaching you...because God will know that if it gets to you, it will go no further. And that's not what God's abundance is for.

If you want to be rich and famous, work hard and build your walls. Don't let anybody in and you probably shouldn't step outside either. A thief might come while you're gone. If you want a good reputation, you probably will have to pledge to the church, since our culture values charitable giving, but you only need to give what is comfortable from your excess. No need to make it hard on yourself. You will be lonely, since it's hard to trust others when you have a lot of money, and you will be afraid a lot, because you will know your life will have been wasted if you lose it all.

But if you want to know real joy...if you want to find purpose for your life...if you want to know life that is abundant in all ways and not just one or two...get rid of the walls. Either leave them behind or knock them down...you don't need them where you're going, because there everybody is welcome to come and go without fear. If someone takes from the stores you have built up, everyone will be thrilled that there was enough to meet the need, and God will multiply your efforts so that the stock is replenished. But don't build a wall around your stockpile in that land, or you will be called a thief...taking away the opportunity for resources from those who need it.

God called Abraham out of the comfortable city of Ur to go to an unknown land. Jesus told the master fishermen to drop the net on the other side of the boat. Both were obedient; both were blessed. Are there walls that God is calling you to leave behind?

Amen. (c) 2001, Anne Robertson