Achievement Unlocked: Preach a sermon that incorporates the Matrix

(Also, this is probably the only way I’d ever preach using pill imagergy 😉 )

“Follow me.” Christ’s words to Phillip are also calling us. God calls each of us into a new way of being, and we choose whether we answer, and whether we follow.

It’s the second Sunday after Epiphany and the second Sunday of our new sermon series: Resolutions. How can we resolve to be better Christians with the gift of each new day, month, year? Last week, Stephen reminded us that God isn’t calling us to do things because “we’re supposed to”. The choices we make with our lives – the choice to be here – should be about what quenches our thirst and feed our hearts. Following Jesus is the best way to quench our thirst, and for all the ways we follow Jesus by keeping the same covenant to love God and to love each other, God also has a unique call to each of us. God doesn’t care about checking boxes. God knows the best way to nourish the unique piece of Christ in each of our hearts and call us into something bigger. We have to listen, and we have to keep our hearts open to all possibilities, as we chose to go right or left, north or south, red pill or blue pill.

Have any of y’all ever seen the Matrix? In The Matrix, the protagonist, a hacker named Neo, has spent much of his life searching for answers about the world he lives in and the nature of reality. Even within the wild imaginings of brilliant sci-fi, we can all relate to seasons of searching for answers in our lives. In time, all of Neo’s searching causes some strange things to start happening to him: things that don’t make any sense or that he can’t explain. Just as Neo starts to fear for his life, he gets the opportunity to sit down with a man named Morpheous, who has all of the answers he’s been seeking but who warns him that these answers don’t come easily and he needs to decide if he’s willing to take on the weight of listening to such a big truth. Morpheus tells Neo he has two choices, offering him either a red pill or a blue pill. He can take a blue pill and wake up in his bed, believing whatever he wants to believe OR he can take the red pill and embrace this new Wonderland-like reality he’s stumbled into, and see how deep the rabbit hole goes. Could you ever imagine giving up all you know to leap wildly into something more? How can you even be sure that a wild leap is the right one?

I don’t know about you, but sometimes, with all the noise of loud radios and long to-do lists, I worry my own ability to listen. What if I get distracted? I don’t want to miss my cue from the Holy Spirit. Luckily, we have the story of God calling Samuel to comfort us in these seasons of worry. God called Samuel’s name four times before Samuel answered. Samuel heard a voice but didn’t know the source. When Samuel didn’t know what was happening, God persisted. God persists with us, too. If you know me well, you know I can be rather strong-willed, so I’ve tested this. Thoroughly. God’s will is stronger. God knows that God knows us better than we know ourselves.

God knows we sometimes need to hear things more than once, because God knows us. God knows each and every one of us, In today’s gospel passage, Jesus calls Phillip, and Phillip calls Nathaniel. When Nathaniel approaches Christ, ready to follow, Jesus exclaims about Nathaniel’s honesty. Nathaniel is shocked that Jesus already knows him so well, asking “Where did you get to know me?” Christ sees every part of us, even the parts of us that we don’t yet see of ourselves. God sees all of the good and all of the bad and loves us so completely all the same and it is from this complete, radical love that God calls us, each and every one of us to that path that is best for us and unique to us in the choices we make for our vocations, our relationships, and the rabbit holes of life that we might be bold enough to explore.
Christ called Phillip and Nathaniel differently from each other and differently from how God called Samuel. God called Samuel repeatedly and by name. Jesus spoke directly to Phillip, saying “Follow me”, but Jesus knew that the best way to call Nathaniel was not with clear instructions from an unfamiliar face. So, Jesus sent Phillip to find Nathaniel, and Nathaniel’s call consisted of a longer explanation spoken through someone Nathanael already trusted. One of the many benefits of there being a piece of Christ in every human heart is that God’s call to us can come through the mouths of those around us, friends and strangers. With Nathanael, Jesus knew he needed to hear from a friend, whether or not Nathanael knew he needed to hear his call that way in order to be able to answer it.

When Eli helped Samuel figure out God’s call, Eli taught Samuel how to answer readily – to say “Speak, for your servant is listening” Samuel’s answer surrenders his own will in favor of God’s will and the transforming power of God’s love. Part of being a good listener means hearing even the things that we don’t want to hear, that we’re not ready to hear, and that don’t fit with the vision we thought we had of what our lives should be. To let go of the false reality of the blue pill and the choose the life-altering truth of the red one. To be completely open to the transformation of God’s radical love, we need to surrender any expectations we might have that limit its ability to fill our hearts. We need to say, “Here we are, the servants of the Lord, let it be with us according to your word”

God knows us better than we know ourselves. God knows everything we are and everything we can be, even the things we may think we cannot be – or haven’t yet figured out we can be. God called Samuel as a boy knowing who Samuel could grow into as a man. God’s patient persistence journeys with us throughout our lives and through every transformation. Our God is the god who from the darkness created heaven and earth, all that is seen and unseen. Our God is the god who defeated death, and who promises us eternal life. Just as God did these things on God’s time, transformation that happen on God’s time, regardless of what our idea is of how things should go.

Our lives are a series of choices. Shouldn’t we all be striving to be brave enough to choose the red pill? Choosing to answer God’s call is a choice we can make every day. It is a part of all of the other choices we make about how we focus our time and energy, our work and education, and our love for all of those around us. Let us resolve today and every day to choose God: to choose to listen and be in relationship; to choose to join together each Sunday and quench our thirst in the waters of baptism and feast on the grace, as we break bread together at the altar. to choose to be open to every possibility God might be calling us to, even the ones that we’d never imagined. “Speak, Lord, your servants are listening”