"Following Jesus" - Mark 1: 14-20

A Sermon preached by Marty Albershardt

January 25, 2009

This past week we had a special moment in time: the Presidential Inauguration, the ceremony held to formally place our new President of the United States in a new term. It's a new time. A new beginning, like a commencement, a launch, a kickoff, a new start - promised to be about change. Well, it certainly has been the beginning of a lot of changes this first week! No matter how you feel about them, it certainly has been a signal of turning towards something new and immediate!  

Today, from the scriptures, we have another inauguration, of Jesus' ministry - he makes a pronouncement. He speaks for the first time in Mark; it is also the start of the calling of disciples, who turn away from what they are doing and turn towards something in a new way, immediately.

And we also are on the verge of a new beginning here at Bradley Hills' it's the start of a new time for us this coming week, of change, a change that God is bringing about within us, around us, & through us. A new pastor, a new time!

With these things new on our minds now, let us pray, a prayer to open our hearts,

so that we might hear a new word from God:

"Dear God: 

Yes, get our attention, God.  In the midst of the mundane, call us and help us hear. Appear to us and help us see. Grant us the courage to embrace change. From you alone comes the transformation that creates new relationships and a new world. Open our hearts and mind to your Word this morning. Amen."[i]

This is such a familiar story; I hope you can hear something new in it this morning. 

Imagine you are face to face with Jesus by the sea, and he asks you to follow him. 

Would you go immediately, like the first disciples? The element of time looms at every turn in this scripture - did you hear it? First, "after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God." The time is right for Jesus; John has prepared these disciples for Jesus to come. Jesus says he has good news - that word is "gospel," "glad tidings" which, in those days, was the announcement that a new political emperor was born or anointed, who would dominate and control every aspect of their lives. What a radical thing for Jesus to say. Using the language of the politics of the day, he's getting people's attention. This statement led him to the cross, because he presumed to be associated with a new rival kingdom, which those in power could only see as an imminent threat to their realm. Jesus says "the time is fulfilled," and he means the time is now. Now "the kingdom of God has come near, is at hand." Here he proclaims God the ruler, the sovereign. Jesus is teaching boldly that God is ruler above any Caesar or Herod. Jesus is reframing reality, having a vision of a wise and loving God who rules in the hearts of people so that they can pursue reconciliation and collaboration with each other. Jesus stepped in and became the new teacher for the disciples John had prepared. So their hearts were primed; they were eager for his wisdom. 

A disciple is someone who follows, who engages in another's teaching, who strives to imitate the teacher's behavior. A disciple tries to learn, observe, and be obedient to, or act in accordance with the teacher.  A disciple follows directions, instructions, is guided, & influenced.

What is Jesus asking these fishermen to do? Jesus, the teacher, the rabbi, says to them, "Repent and believe." “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” Now, to repent meant to literally 'turn away,' go in a new direction, & think of things in a new way. Jesus was asking them to leave their boats, their nets, to come with him to learn a new way to do fishing, a new way of living, which would literally rock their boat, as God moves as swiftly as any storm they've encountered on the Sea of Galilee. The disciples don't yet know the entire plan! But they are asked to follow by faith.

Simon and Andrew "immediately" left their nets and followed him. And when Jesus saw James and John, he "immediately" called them, and they, came with Jesus, leaving their father. Mark likes that word "immediately" so much he uses it around forty times, advancing his story vividly, so that it will seem real, even to us today.

Now the Gospel of Mark was probably the first of our gospels in the Bible to be written, around 70 CE, which was the time of Christian persecution in Rome, the time of the Jewish-Roman war when the Romans destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem. Mark was written in simple Greek, and was meant to be heard by the masses, whether or not they could read.

Mark is a storyteller, giving us a series of events, with subtle themes woven through for the listener - sin, identity, the cross, being called. So in the minds of early listeners, to come after or to follow Jesus would have also meant being like Jesus, and therefore risking persecution themselves.

Mark describes the people, the crowds, that later gather around Jesus as so desperate for a leader, a teacher, that they follow him without eating for days (Mark 8:2). Jesus was promising them "the kingdom of God," which included fishermen, tax collectors, women, children... everyone!

In the book of John, it says these first disciples are from Bethsaida - known as a fishing town. In Matthew and Luke it says they were from the town of Capernaum, which is directly across the Sea of Galilee from Bethsaida. The scriptures do mention the disciples going over to the other side, so it's quite possible that both Bethsaida and Capernaum were vital in the fishing industry. Today, as we speak, a new archaeological dig is uncovering the lost city of Bethsaida, which means "Fishing Village." The fishing industry was state run, but family units owned their own boats and formed important trading ties. The Roman Herod Antipas ruled, and so taxes were due to him, they were regulated, but the lower you were on the chain, like the fishermen, the harder it was. There was a lot of conflict between the "local... economy" and "the larger political economy."[ii]

The life of these fishermen was difficult and all-consuming. When they weren't out in the boats, they were mending the nets, which had stones with holes drilled in them, fastened to the nets as weights. The boats had to be maintained. Some of the fish had to be processed - pickled or dried. And because of the mountains, the weather that burst suddenly upon the Sea of Galilee was treacherous. It was a difficult life. And Jesus was very popular among these people.  

Now the disciples did not completely abandon their connection with fishing, or their kinships as they followed Jesus. Remember the stories that came after this: "Calming of the Storm" (Mark 4), The Feeding of the 5000 (Mark 6), Jesus Walking on Water (Mark 6), and there are lots of narrative passages in Mark with Jesus and the disciples in fishing boats (Mark 3, 4, 5, 18, 21, 6, 8, 13).[iii]

But there were inner conflicts in following Jesus. Not all of the disciples consistently followed him. We later see them struggling to understand Jesus, denying him, lying. But this morning we encounter the brand new, first - called disciples, whose vigor is fresh, energetic, idealistic, and unquestioning. They have a lot of faith! They follow "immediately." They may not know what "the kingdom of God" is yet, but they are on their way.

Poet Elizabeth Alexander read her poem at the Inauguration this past week. A part of it sounds a lot like how disciples, such as us, encounter Jesus. She writes:

"We encounter each other in words - words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed; words to consider, reconsider. We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and then others who said, "I need to see what's on the other side. I know there's something better down the road. We need to find a place where we are safe. We walk into that which we cannot yet see."[iv]

Following Jesus is a life long, ongoing, activity. Jesus literally says: I will be making you become fishers (in the Greek it's in the future tense). It's literally to become in a state of becoming,' fishers of humans. It may take awhile for disciples to get into that state of be-ing, that openness to learning, an openness to God in all you do, and to all the people in the community you relate to, but this is the new life Jesus wants us to follow, to live in that geography of the heart which is the "kingdom of God."

Why are some people ready to respond to a new way, and some are not?

In our Reformed theology, we know that it is God who acts, who beckons, and initiates. We are "chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world" (Ephesians 1:4) and we know that "grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began" (2Timothy 1:9) We speak of being chosen, but also called through the Holy Spirit. We know that God's in-breaking is now, just as it was for those first disciples, and it is the Holy Spirit which enables us to follow Jesus, to hear his words, and his invitation for us. God keeps calling out to us, throughout time, throughout ALL our years.

Writer and scholar Phyllis Tickle has studied the sayings of Jesus, and she describes the "kingdom of God" as "the dream of the center" in people's hearts, which is "beyond the concept of either “now” or “later,” for like endings and beginnings, now and later are artifices of time..."[v]

Jesus invites us now to join in this surprising and unlikely kingdom, which is not by any calendar, but by God's time, kairos. The healing kingdom is present now.

When I worked as a chaplain at a hospital, I took my turn "on call," at night, about once a week. A tiny room with a bed and a television was provided there at the hospital. I liked the solitude, but was a bit cautious about going to sleep. For sure enough, as soon as I got to sleep, my beeper would go off and I would have to respond "immediately" to the call. Usually, someone was dying and the family needed spiritual care, prayer, and conversation. They yearned for God. These important moments, like being born or dying do not know time as we know it. They happen in God's time - that's often when God calls us!

We get a view of discipleship in Mark 12 (32-34), as Jesus continues to proclaim his good news. Jesus is having a conversation with a scribe, an unlikely student about the commandments. "The scribe said to Jesus, 'You are right, teacher, you have truly said that God is one, and there is no other God but Him; and to love Him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength, and to love one's neighbor as oneself, is much more than burnt offerings and sacrifices.' And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, Jesus said to him, 'You are not far from the kingdom of God.'"  

As disciples seeking the answers to the kingdom of God, we need only to look within, to know God's love, to follow the teachings of God, and to love God and neighbor with our whole being. The kingdom comes to anybody, in any place, anywhere. The kingdom of God grows within us, like faith.   The good news is here, now, by the grace of God, for all of us to discover.

AMEN.