EPIPHANY III-A -- January 23, 2005

I am not a plumber nor do I pretend to be a plumber. I am also cheap. The last thing I ever want to do when some plumbing goes wrong in my house is call a plumber. I know it will cost me an arm and a leg. So I always first try to do it myself. Then and only then do I call a plumber. A couple of years ago a faucet in our bathroom started to drip. I knew there was a problem but I was reluctant to call a plumber. That's why it took me two weeks to finally get around to doing something about that leaky faucet. I was determined to fix it myself.

The first thing I did was head to the hardware store and purchase a new faucet. Besides leaking, the old one was being eaten away by the hard water. It needed to be replaced. The fixture I purchased proclaimed on the box that it was, quote, "Easy to Install." I didn't believe that for a minute.

The worst part was removing the old fixture. I removed all the bottles and everything else we stored under the sink, got on my back and crawled up underneath to have a look to see what tools I would need. I then got into my toolbox and picked out a few wrenches and set to work. The first two nuts came off rather easily. Piece of cake, I thought. Then I tried to get at the two lock nuts at the top. My tools wouldn't do the job.

So I called the hardware store, explained my problem and was told I needed a basin wrench, which cost $6.95. I figured that since I'd probably have to do this again sometime and that I couldn't get a plumber to even walk to his truck for $6.95, it was worth the investment. So I hopped into my truck, drove back to the store, bought the wrench and went back to work. And hour later, after almost losing two fingers and my religion, I had the nuts removed and the fixture out and in the garbage. By that time my back was killing me and my whole body was sore.

It was now time for the "Easy to Install" new fixture. It took another hour and a half plus a second trip to the hardware store and the near total loss of my religion. But I fixed it. Yet the real problem still remained despite the fact that my faucet was fixed. For the real problem was how to prevent the problem from reoccurring. Even though I now know how to change a faucet, I don’t want to have to do it again, ever.

That's really what our faith is all about, too. Jesus came among us not so much to fix something that was broken, that was in need of repair. Rather He came among us to help prevent problems from occurring in the first place. Jesus never was a Mr. Fix-it although he fixed many problems. Rather, he taught us how to prevent problems either from happening at all or certainly from happening a second time.

How is that accomplished? Simple: by following Jesus. Not by following a Creed; by following Jesus. Christianity is not a religion. It is a relationship. Christianity is not a rule of life but rather a way of life. When Jesus called Peter and Andrew and James and John to follow him, he was calling them into a relationship with him. They already had a religion. They already were following a Creed. They had the Ten Commandments and the Law of Moses to guide them. But that was not enough. They were still being broken. There was something in their lives that needed not so much to be fixed as to be changed. Only a relationship could do that. That's why Jesus called them to be fishermen and not plumbers.

I am not a fisherman. I have never been a fisherman. I don't ever want to be a fisherman. Peter and Andrew were fishermen. Some of my best friends are fishermen. I think it's boring. Now I am sure that it is a lot of fun when you catch something. But simply standing there in the middle of the water or riding in an outboard or even in a big yacht in the middle of the ocean casting your line and waiting for those dumb fish to bite seems to me waste of time. Now I don't mind eating the fish that have been caught. But I'd rather be golfing. To a fisherman, golf is a waste of time. To each his own.

But whatever we like to do -- fish, golf, even fix faucets -- there are two requirements in order to be good: talent and patience. Both are necessary. I can be the most talented golfer in the world, but if I have no patience, I won't score well. I can have the patience of Job and no talent and also not score well. It’s like that easy-to-install faucet: if we don’t have the talent to do the job, or the patience, we won’t be able to do it.

The same with fishing and plumbing. All the patience in the world won't catch one fish or fix one faucet if you don't know what you are doing. But if a talented fisherman doesn't have patience, he won't catch one fish. If a talented plumber doesn't have patience, he'll give up plumbing. The young man who sold me the faucet told me that he dropped out of plumbing school because he lacked the patience necessary to become a good plumber.

Relationships take time and talent and a whole lot of patience. Jesus was infinitesimally patient with his fishermen: every day for three years he was building a relationship with them. He knew that that was the only way that they would be able to do what He wanted them to do. What Jesus wanted his Apostles to do was not to found a religion but to build a church, a community of people, a community of broken people, some of whom had been fixed but most of whom seemed to be constantly in need of repair and who were now trying to live in a loving relationship with one another.

That's what the Apostles were: they were a community of broken people who were held together by their love for Jesus and for one another. But they had to keep at it. They had to have patience. The old line about feeding a starving person is so true. We can feed him for a day by giving him a fish. We can feed him for a lifetime by teaching him how to fish.

Averill Harriman, who was really Mr. Ambassador for this country for many, many years, was once asked about his command of the French language. He said, "My French is excellent, except for the verbs." That was true for the Apostles and is so often true for us. Peter and the Apostles had all the adjectives right: holy, sacred, noble. The nouns were all right, too: God, faith, messiah, redeemer. They knew what faith in God demanded. But they were rather weak on the verbs: follow, forgive, love, act, take up your cross, and so forth. They were weak on the fixing part.

Relationships take nouns and adjectives -- good people, bad people, broken people; Good Old Joes and Sinful Susies and Holy Harrys. But relationships, communities, churches take, most of all verbs. Good Old Joes who care; Sinful Susies who help, Holy Harrys who minister. But relationships, given who we are as people, are always in need of repair. In other words, we need to be plumbers, one for another, patient plumbers. When one of us needs fixed, another does the fixing, if you will.

We're all apprentice plumbers and we're all leaky faucets, you and I. Nouns and adjectives. That's for starters. To make us whole we need to be in the fixing business. That's why we are here and that's what a church is all about. A church is a community of broken people, some of whom are in need of fixing, some of whom are doing the fixing, all of whom are patient and supportive while the fixing is going on. And like that old faucet of mine, what often needs to be done is to remove the old stuff first.

As a parish we are always in need of being fixed. How good a plumbing job we do depends on our willingness to pay the price to be patient plumbers. A good plumbing job takes time, demands talent and costs money. So does being a parish – all of which is also a reminder that next Sunday is our Annual Meeting.