s e r m o n.

Hey, hey -- Happy Monday! I've been meaning to post this sermon I delivered at church (almost a month ago, don't judge me) so here it is...the topic was vision...hope you enjoy! (Biblical text reference was Mark 1:14-20)

I heard this anecdote a few mornings ago that really resonated with me as I was driving into work. I usually listen to a Tony Evans message from his app and this particular morning, the announcer before the message said “whether you’re on a motorcycle, in a small car or a bus – there’s only one driver’s seat. Until you decide who’s going to sit there – you’re not going to get anywhere.”

The title of the message today is called WHO’S PLAN IS IT ANYWAY?

I know we don’t normally do this here because we have our readings printed but take your bibles out and go to Luke, Chapter 5: 1-11 – a different version today’s Gospel.

Before any trip, there’s a plan. Whether it’s a full-thought out trip or one of those spur of the moment expeditions, there is still some level of planning. You get up, get dressed, get in your car, set the GPS and go. At the very minimum there is an idea to do something and you think of the best possible way to get there. You rarely account for too many detours or hindrances along the way but sometimes they just get right into the midst of your plan as if they were on the agenda all along.

As some of you may know (or will be informed now), I was recently led and made the decision to attend seminary. There’s a very “funny” story behind this decision; notice the air quotes in “funny”. So over a year ago (May 23rd, 2013 to be exact) my mentor, Ms. Gayle, sent me a forwarded email from one of her minister friends on a 36-hr Master’s program at Wesley Theological Seminary. The subject line of the email was “I’m Looking for Someone You Know”. Of course – with a catchy subject line like that, I clicked on it – blindly walking into someone suggesting I do something I hadn’t planned to with my life. Ms. Gayle’s remarks were “Thinking of you..pray on it..” In the body of the forwarded email was information on “this brand new amazing opportunity” and I skimmed over the contents and realized it wasn’t for me. I can clearly remember saying out loud, “Why is she trying to send me to seminary – I do not want to be a minister.” I also remember getting a little irritated, closing the email and moving on with my day – with no thought about it again. During that time, I was “focused” on other things – a confusing on-again, off-again situationship with someone from college, a job that was helping me grow complacent, and the overwhelming “one woman show”, I like to call a business. Things were way too stressful then to even think about adding any other sides to my full plate and where did she get off trying to push me into the pulpit, anyway?! How can I help others when I can barely help myself! These self-defeating thoughts led me to dismiss the whole purpose of the email and the decision was made – or so I thought. Little did I know there was another plan in the works. I spent the rest of 2013 not living the best life and being ignored by God and not even knowing it. Then 2014 came and everything changed.

Each year I have a faith-driven word to serve as a “stone of remembrance” in my faith journey. 2012’s word was Faith – it set the tone – 2013’s word was Obedience, something I didn’t have – hence being ignored. We often forget it but God is our loving parent, and sometimes just because He wakes us up, feeds us and clothes us, it doesn’t mean he’s happy with our behavior. With these daily blessings, he’s giving you another opportunity for YOU to get it right and each day in 2013, I got it wrong. I rode into 2014 with the same confusing relationship, complacent job and overwhelming business that I had in 2013. The only thing that changed these burdens from continuing is the fact that I was led to create a Vision Board in the first week of January, last year. If you’re not familiar with a vision board – it is usually a foam-core board you glue words, phrases, and/or pictures from magazine clippings that will serve as a visual reminder of your goals; whether it’s for the year or life objectives. Last year I put so many phrases together and didn’t realize the power they held until now. Phrases like “Harboring the power of strengths”, “Heal your soul”, “Notice the beauty in freedom”, “We need to talk about your Gold Standard” and “God’s the Boss”. Even the title was divinely ordered when I glued “2014 CLEAN SLATE” on some board from some seemingly meaningless magazine clippings. 2014 was truly a clean slate. In February, I finally ended my confused relationship and began “Healing my Soul” and “Noticing the True beauty of being Single”. The most amusing thing about those two glued-on phrases is that I was actually STILL IN THE RELATIONSHIP when I made the board – why would I need to find beauty in being alone when I had someone? What did I actually need healing from? There was a reason I glued those words together – they were divinely purposed. There’s nothing wrong being in a committed relationship with a purpose of marriage, but I think something a few of my fellow single females are guilty of is the fact we subconsciously force some relationships to happen – have more faith in potential than realizing there really isn’t much progress. We will go months into years dealing with issues over and over again, having more faith in someone to change, rather than the faith that God will bring us someone we don’t have to change. I was there, and in being there I would accept less than my “Gold Standard” – or most importantly my God Standard. We’re living in a world that contradicts The Word every day. “If she’s single, there must be something wrong with her.” The stigmatization of singlehood has us defining our worth through a relationship with man rather than a relationship with God and I didn’t get that until I had it printed plain on the vision board. “We need to talk about your Gold Standard”. What does the bible say about being single? I know this doesn’t apply to many of you in the congregation but the bible says empowering things about singlehood. You don’t have to turn to it but in the first letter from Paul to the Corinthians, he urges singles to stay single – not because marriage is bad, but because when you are married, your focus is divided; you then are also responsible for focusing on the needs of your spouse. If you do not know what it’s like to be single and focus on your relationship with God, you won’t know how to manage your relationship with God AND a husband or wife. The Word refers to relationships as gifts (1 Corin. 7:7), and without your relationship with God, you will be more in tune with the BLESSING rather than the BLESSOR. Chapter 7, verses 32 & 35 say, “I want you to be free of anxiety. I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint on you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to The Lord.” Ok, why is that undivided devotion important? It’s simple – knowing and growing with God allows for creating an impenetrable armor for battle. It’s kind of hard to fully trust something someone says if you don’t know them. If you don’t know what God says is for you, you will be easily convinced to find out yourself with the help of the devil’s craftiness. With this change in perspective, I was able to cling to Pops, land a job more aligned with my technical worth, and understand the true meaning of spirituality over religion through fasting and prayer.

After this revelation & growing closer to God, I defined my faith word for 2014 to be Deliverance – because I feel I have been delivered from a way of thinking – not just a relationship or having a career that wasn’t aligned with my worth. When you get to know God on a deeper level, beyond what the rules say, you get a clear understanding about where you fit in all of this; right with God in the Kingdom – not outside burdened following rules. I’m sold to believe that without creating a roadmap to navigate out of confusion; through my vision board – I would’ve been caught making excuses for things that contradict what God says through His Word.

So back to the decision to go to seminary. During 2014, while “noticing the beauty in being single”, I started going to more events alone and with friends, hosting events, doing a lot more history related things and started thinking heavily on why I believe what I believe. It’s all good to be able to rattle off bible verses against the enemy; The Word is a sword – to be used in battle, but realizing why you have that sword to begin with or who it should be used on and what for, means to understand your beliefs on a deeper level; not just because you were raised that way. It’s easy to believe what your parents believe – after all; they raised you – and you turned out ok, and they’ve probably done their research enough to know why we should all believe so all that background isn’t really necessary, right? Wrong. With that logic you’re already defeated because the devil knows the word too; after all, he was the angel of light. Lucifer, the name Satan had before falling from grace, actually means “Bringer of Light”. I could only imagine that with a name like “Bringer of Light”, Lucifer believed he was ENLIGHTENED enough to make his own decisions and do his own thing. He thought he had the know-how because he knows The Word and had enough logical reasoning to convince some of the other angels to follow him. This is why it’s important to know WHY we believe WHAT we believe. Without that higher understanding of what The Word says, what it means and how it still is relevant some thousands years later, you’d either be easily swayed to make bad decisions by the use of Satan’s “Half-Truths” or you’d be walking into a swordfight with a sword looking like two glued together toothpicks – TOTALLY UNPREPARED. Finding out more is one of the main reasons I want to go to seminary – not to be a minister per say, but to get so deep into this Word that my armor is so tight, that in a spiritual battle I’d probably walk around looking like one of those Transformer things my nephew got for Christmas —- LOADED. I won’t say never to being clergy, though, because God has a funny way of changing the things I say I won’t do to the next turns in the GPS of life.

About halfway through 2014 I heard a still-small voice say “Go to Seminary” – randomly at a point when I wasn’t doing anything intrinsically faith-related. Then a few months later, in November, I heard it again – but this time came with the direct instruction to go and actually read the email Ms. Gayle sent me some year and a half ago; good thing I don’t delete emails! When I actually read the email I immediately became emotionally overwhelmed. There were two article links included; and one spoke directly to my needs. I think the first thing you hear when someone tells you they are interested in going to Seminary is that person wants to be clergy, which isn’t always the case. We all have purposes and in every positive purpose, there is ministry involved. You don’t need to be clergy to minister to someone. The main character of one of the articles is a pediatrician and felt that seminary would help her be a better doctor — so she went to seminary after being a doctor for some time. She sees what she’s doing for families; especially families with children who are dying, as a form of ministry. She approaches each situation more with her spiritual eyes open. There isn’t just a medical event taking place. Healing is all through the bible. Jesus healed, His disciples healed, and so many stories in the Old Testament showed how God healed nations and left many accounts on how we should heal when we are faced with hurt. What this woman has done is made a clear correlation to her vocational life and her spiritual life. Our work lives and our spiritual life should operate together and we should use the word as our reference in guiding us — reason two that in this season, seminary makes sense. I love fashion, make-up, music, art and all things black related. Given at face value, those things may not seem like ministry, but those avenues allow me to reach so many people outside of the “Every Sunday Morning Crew”, something that God wants from us. We can’t share the Goodness of God just on Sunday to just our church members — it wouldn’t get any farther than these walls. On a deeper level, I don't think the bible would be the same without Esther the super model who saved a nation, Solomon the master architect, King David — who was better than any Grammy Nominated singer/songwriter and poet to date, Noah the engineer, or even Jesus the master carpenter. There are so many creative people in the bible — so much that I learned there was even a jewelry designer and limitless fashion designer referenced in Moses’s time. There is room for creatives in the Kingdom — God gives us creativity so that we can turn around and use these talents as gifts to God. I’ve always wanted to do something fashion related — but I think without the growing relationship with God, the deterred plans or the discomfort with being an Accountant for the rest of my life, I wouldn’t have seen the purpose in my passion or that there is ministry in everything God gives us passion for.

So…what does all of that have to do with today’s Gospel. I had you go to Luke Chapter 5 because it has a little more detail than the version in Mark. Simon and Andrew were fisherman — trained to do what fisherman know how to do; I’m pretty sure they knew what time the fish would bite, where they would need to be to catch the fish, or what type of net they needed to get the job done — after all, they are fishermen. I’m pretty sure they picked up a few extra helpful tips that only on the job training would teach you about fishing. At the end of verse 2, Simon and Andrew have clocked out, they’re off for the day — the boat is on the shore, they were washing their nets, almost ready to go home because they worked the night shift and things weren't promising; they didn't catch a single fish. Jesus steps on the scene and gets on Simon’s boat and wants to do a mini bible study on the boat so he ask’s Simon to pull out a little from the land. After bible study was finished, Jesus asked Simon to pull the boat out a little more into the deep and cast the net. I know at this point Simon is looking at Jesus like, “wait what? I just washed this net? I thought we were just here for bible study? We’ve literally been here all night and we didn’t catch anything —- and wait…aren’t you a Teacher? What do you really know about fishing, anyway? Just a show of hands, have you ever told God something can’t happen. Or let me ask this, how many times have you been a backseat driver trying to give directions. That’s exactly what Simon was getting at when he reiterated how long he and Andrew and his team had been out the night before, trying to catch fish, to no avail — something they knew how to do well because they probably did so everyday. I can just see Simon “humoring” Jesus like, “ok, you gave a good bible study service, I’ll put the net down — but I’m sure we won’t catch anything because we didn’t before. To Simon’s surprise, the net (the same net they probably use everyday) was breaking at the amount of fish they caught. So much that they had to get others to come and help pull the net in. I don't mean to be repetitive — but, I don't know if you knew by now but Simon was a fisherman; he used that net constantly — and if he used it constantly and it never broke, it means he never caught that many fish in his life, meaning an overflow — meaning a blessing that is beyond his belief; so much that the boat began to sink. I don't know about you, but I’m trying to get a boat-sinking blessing! And if all I have to do is stay in the passenger’s seat and keep quiet, so be it. At this point, Simon Peter falls to his knees with a contrite heart for the doubts that he just had about actually catching any fish. He humbled himself — so to say “you were right!! what was I even thinking to question you!” Jesus replied he will make them Fishers of Men. To me, this is the most profound part — because you know, Simon was a fisherman. He was trained to fish — His vocation and all the on the job training would now be used as ministry to expand the Kingdom. It’s amazing how it all comes full circle — just like every time you go rouge and defy the GPS’s instructions; you may think you’re running the show, driving the car, calling the shots, but God has another route in mind.

AFYA.