Today we worship around a common theme with other Anabaptists around the world on what the Mennonite World Conference has supported as World Fellowship Sunday. The theme for this year’s World Fellowship Sunday is Sowing Generously – rooted in the 2nd Corinthians text we just heard and comes with a request that we specifically pray for our brothers and sisters across Asia and the Pacific, a region that is home to over 315,000 baptized members of the Mennonite Church.  The specific prayer requests of those in that region include prayer for Christian witness amidst pluralities of culture and religion.  Prayer for the churches in Asia that are challenged and face difficulties such as forced closures of places of worship, prohibitions on holding Sunday services, and the effects of religiously supported violence and radicalism.  They also request prayer for Christians on other continents, that they may find ways of being faithful amidst their cultures.  So we will hold these requests in our midst today and if you feel moved you may carry them with you into the days ahead.

The opportunity to participate in World Fellowship Sunday comes each year around this time because it falls close January 21 – the date which witnessed the first Anabaptist baptism in 1525 in Zurich, Switzerland.  This was the baptism of choice of George Blaurock by Conrad Grebel during a gathering of radical souls at the home of Felix Manz to pray and decide how to move forward after the Zurich council ruled on January 17th that all who refused to baptize their infants within one week should be expelled from Zurich.  Some from this gathered group had not baptized their infants and were not prepared to do so and so they gathered together for discernment.  After prayer together, Blaurock stood up and requested a baptism of faith and knowledge and then, after his own baptism, he baptized the others gathered together there.  Thus began the Swiss Anabaptist movement.

The Gospel reading today is also about the beginning of a movement.  In Matthew 4 we learn that the time has come for Jesus to begin his own ministry.  Up to this point he has been baptized by John and has return from a time of temptation in the wilderness.  John the Baptist has been imprisoned and when Jesus hears this, he moves from Nazareth to Capernaum and begins to preach.  He also calls the first disciples to join him in his ministry – picking up at verse 18:

As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. 19 “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” 20 At once they left their nets and followed him. 21 Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, preparing their nets. Jesus called them, 22 and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.

And thus began the Jesus movement.

I am still amazed at how this movement begins – Jesus simply calls these fishermen to follow him and they drop their nets and follow him.  There must have been something powerfully recognizable in Jesus for these people to be willing to let go of their known trade, their livelihoods, to follow this teacher.  I wonder about myself and if I were at home in the middle of making a collage, or sitting in my office at the church house working on a sermon and Jesus came knocking, would I know and recognize him enough to be willing to drop my work and follow?   However it looked to these fishers something about Jesus’ call resonated with them and moved them to choose to align themselves with God in an active way.

This choice to follow, to willingly align oneself with God, is the same choice that George Blaurock was making when he asked Conrad Grebel to baptize him, it is the same choice that each of us make when we initially decide to seek a life a faith, and it is a choice that we have to make again and again in our lives, in different ways, at different times and for different reasons.  Living faith is not stagnant, it is ever growing and ever changing and sometimes as it moves and grows it shifts in ways in we are not expecting or comfortable in, and with some of those movements it sometimes gets out of line and no longer thrives.  In those moments we must make the choice again to seek that which gives life.

I should not be surprised by this aspect of the faith journey, this need to pause and realign ourselves with God.  Our lives in all aspects come to crossroads at various moments and at those crossroads we choose which direction to go. If we find we have gone down a path that isn’t life giving, we always have the option to pause and choose again to seek a path that leads to life.  Some people would call what I am referring to repentance and indeed the first message that we hear Jesus preaching in the Matthew text is “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

But I myself struggle with that word repentance.  It seems to carry baggage of coercion and promote shame and blame in ways that make me uncomfortable and itchy.  Of course this itchiness makes me think that I should definitely repent of something, because if I am so uncomfortable it must be because something is wrong.  So this week I challenged myself to sit with the idea of repentance and instead of shying away from it, I tried to find ways I could positively encounter it – I guess you could say I was seeking to repent of my skepticism of repentance.

I began to think of repentance as a re-alignment with God, which is a thought and action I can get behind (in fact, the inclusive language translation of the Bible doesn’t even use the word repent in Jesus’ first message – instead it says “come, follow me” – which is that same invitation to a relationship of faith that was offered to the disciples that they so readily accepted).  As I sat with it and thought of repentance from this refreshed perspective, I began to see it as valuable and positive.  No longer was the idea of repentance focused on seeing the wrong or placing blame, instead it was a renewal of the choice to live in active faith and to choose once again to seek God anew in any given moment.  I practice repentance with others in my human relationships when I apologize and seek forgiveness for hurts I have inflicted on another, or when I choose empathy over apathy in relating to those around me.  If I am willing to engage in meaningful action of realignment towards my fellow humans, why would I not also practice it with myself and in my relationship with God?

I had an article from the Mennonite World Review passed to me this week about a young couple and the turns their lives have taken that led them from atheism to faith, then from military service to pacifism, and finally from local ministry in the US to missionary work in Thailand.  At each crossroads, when they knew they were leaving something behind and stepping into the unknown, their tag line was repent and believe.  And I thought – yes – repent and believe – meaning – choose to align with God and then believe in the reality that, when you are aligned with God, God is in turn aligned with you and will be with you in whatever comes.

When we choose, without compulsion or pressure from outside forces, to align ourselves whole-heartedly with God, not only is God with us in whatever comes, but as we hear in the 2 Corinthians text today, God also fills us with an indescribable gift of grace so that we can be generous in our living. For it is in generous living that we are able to fully share all that we are with the world around us.  Look again at 2^nd Corinthians chapter 9 starting at verse 6:

Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.  And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.

While Paul was mostly referring to financial and charitable giving in this portion of the letter – the message of action we find here goes beyond finances and speaks to any type of offering we are able to sow in the world – offerings of time, energy, and love also reap generous benefits from being offered generously.  I am not one to preach a message of God bestowing prosperity and abundance upon us in terms of financial wealth or physical comfort as defined by our culture’s notions of need, but I am one who believes that when we generously align ourselves with God in our living, God joins with us on our journey so that, in all things at all times, we are blessed with the abundant grace of God which can give us what we actually need in that moment to make it through.

God’s abundant grace went with Jesus and the disciples as they journeyed around proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing people.  The more they sowed, the more they reaped – in the verses just beyond where the lectionary reading ends in Matthew 4 we learn that through the works of Jesus’ ministry, word of those works spread beyond the local area and people came from all over for healing and release from oppression and, in generosity, Jesus healed them and the kingdom of God expanded.   Likewise, the movement that started with the baptism of 16 radicals during a secret meeting in 1525, has spread throughout the world through generations of people making their own choice to align themselves with God and offer their lives generously to kingdom work so that we today can join, in spirit, with Anabaptist brothers and sisters all around the world in celebrating God’s generous gift of grace.

May the grace of God abiding with us help us to sow generously all that we are able to offer as we continuously seek alignment with God.