If you could have been a fly on the wall after Jesus made his selection of the twelve disciples, you might have heard James say to John, “You know, I don’t like that Simon Peter. I hate the way he’s always shooting off his big mouth, throwing his weight around and acting like he’s the big chief over the rest of us. Somebody needs to cut him down to size.” Meanwhile, Andrew says to Peter, “Do you see the way those two sons of Zebedee, James and John are always ponying up to Jesus, waiting on him hand and foot, trying to impress him and angling for position? I can’t stand people like that.” Then Philip said to Thomas, can you believe Jesus chose Matthew? Here’s a guy who makes his living squeezing revenue out of his own people to finance the Roman army that is squeezing the life out of our country. What kind of message does that send? Then Thomas said to Bartholomew,” How could Jesus choose Simon the Canaanean? Doesn’t he know that’s a terrorist organization? Doesn’t he know that the real name of that group is the assassins and that they kill not only Romans, but even people of Israel they think are too friendly toward Romans. That isn’t what Jesus has been teaching us. Finally, James the son of Alpheus said to Thaddaeus, “I don’t trust that Judas. I can’t prove anything yet, but I’ve noticed that the common purse has gotten a lot smaller since Jesus put him in charge of the finances. Mark my words, that guy is only out for himself. When the opportunity comes to sell us out for a fast buck, he’ll back stab us in a New York minute.”
What is the common denominator here? What do these twelve men of diverse backgrounds, conflicting interests and opposing biases have in common. Almost nothing, except this: Jesus called them. Jesus wanted them. Jesus chose them to bring the good news of the dawning of God’s just and gentle reign to the people of Israel.
So began the Church of Jesus Christ, and so it still is. The church is still made up of people who don’t see eye to eye, people who don’t always get along very well and fight over all kinds of stuff that really shouldn’t matter. And, as those of who have spent the better part of our lives as active church members know, those fights can be brutal, hurtful and destructive. I have to tell you that I have been hurt, betrayed and disappointed far more often by people within my own church community than by anybody on the outside. So why do we hang around? Why not just be done with the church?
That question was answered for me by Sandy. I met Sandy while I was still in seminary. He was working as a youth leader in the Minneapolis church where I was assigned to do my field work training. Sitting together in a donut shop over a cup of coffee, Sandy told me his story. He was actually an ordained minister in the Lutheran Church. After graduating seminary, Sandy took a call to a small congregation in a small town in northern Minnesota where he was accepted, loved and successful. “But for now,” Sandy told me, “I’m flying under the radar.” When I asked him what he meant by that, Sandy told me that he was gay. Now this was back in the late 1970s. The policy in those days did not allow for the ordination of openly gay pastors. Sandy was OK with that. “I understood all along that ordination in the church meant that I would conceal my sexuality and live a life of celibacy and I accepted that,” he told me. But then one day a young man in Sandy’s congregation attempted to commit suicide. When Sandy went to see him, the young man told him that he was experiencing attraction to other men. In spite of all his prayers and best efforts, he could not rid himself of these feelings he thought were unnatural, depraved and sinful. Death seemed like the only way out.
“At that point,” Sandy told me, “I knew I had no alternative but to come out. I needed to tell this young man that he was not perverted, unnatural or hopelessly sinful. He needed to hear that God loved him exactly the way God made him. And he needed to hear it from someone who had lived his experience of shame and guilt and found the way to grace.” Sandy’s congregation did not take any of this well. They notified the bishop who promptly removed him and began proceedings to have Sandy taken off the clergy roster. Now as I said, this was back in the 1970s and I wasn’t so sure then how I felt about same sex attraction or a lot of other sexual issues. But I was appalled by the treatment Sandy got from a church that is supposed to mirror the love of Jesus. “So Sandy,” I said. “I just have to ask you, why do you even want to stay in a church that doesn’t want you?” Sandy smiled, and then he said to me, “I know the church doesn’t want me. And believe me, there are days I don’t want anything to do with the church either. But the thing is, Jesus wants me and the church comes with him. So me and the church are stuck with each other whether either of us likes it or not.”
Sandy taught me something important about Jesus, the church and discipleship. You see, when it comes to church, it isn’t really about my needs, my wants and my desires. It is all about what Jesus needs, wants and desires. And Jesus decided that he wanted twelve people who never seemed to understand what the reign of God was all about, who frequently misunderstood his parables, who often tried to turn away people he was seeking to bless and heal and at the end, they betrayed him, deserted him and denied him. Yet Jesus comes back to these same failed disciples on Easter Sunday to say, “OK people. Let’s try this again.” Like Sandy, Jesus refused to give up on his church.
Sandy understood that the church was not there to meet his needs. He understood that Jesus had called him to meet an urgent need of the church. The church needed Sandy and people like him to open our eyes and help us see past centuries of bad teaching, bad practice and bad science so that we could recognize God’s lovely image in a community of people too long persecuted by society and excluded from the Body of Christ. And so, in obedience to Jesus’ call to him, Sandy stubbornly remained in a church that was often hostile toward him, faithfully bearing witness to God’s love for all people. Sandy’s calling and his ministry to the church was difficult, painful and sometimes lonely. He paid dearly for his faithful discipleship. But then, Jesus never asks us to do anything easy, does he?
So here’s the thing, folks. You might give all kinds of reasons for being here today. But the real reason for your being here is that Jesus calls you to be here. You have gifts to offer this community of faith that no one else can give. You have things to teach us that we cannot learn from anyone else. You know, back in the 1970s, my Uncle Robert, who had to be the first kid on the block to own every new contraption, bought himself a rock polisher. It’s really just a cylinder on a rotisserie into which you put rocks and a little sand. Then you pug it in, turn it on and let it run for a month or so and at the end of the process, you get a bunch of polished rocks. I don’t have any idea why my Uncle Robert bought that thing or what he ever did with all his polished rocks. But I tell that story because I think, even if Uncle Robert’s rock polisher had no practical use, it is at least a pretty good image of what the church is supposed to be. We come into it, all different shapes, colors and sizes with all our rough edges, cracks and stains. We rub up against each other, irritate each other, then learn to tolerate each other, eventually accept one another start to appreciate othne another and finally learn to love one another. And that is how the world learns that there is a love deep enough, strong enough, patient enough and enduring enough to bind up all its wounds and unite it into one human family as it was always meant to be.
So this morning, as we enter into this seventieth season of our Chapel, take a good look around at everyone here. I can assure you that you are looking at someone Jesus is bringing into your life. I can assure you that you are looking at someone who has much to offer both you and this community of faith. You are here today because you belong here; you are here because Jesus wants you here; you are here because we have important work to do together. Praise be to God! Amen.
Chapel of St. James the Fisherman, Wellfleet
June 14th, 2026, 3rd Sunday after Pentecost
The Rev. Peter Olsen