Mark 1:14-20&nbs=
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“God Calling”
During my trip to the=
Holy
Land which I was fortunate enough
t=
o go on late last summer, we spent nearly a week =
in and
around the
I’ve brought a =
few
photos to show you today,
t=
o help us imagine the scene from the Gospel which=
we
just heard.
With the
i=
t’s easy to imagine how that story we just heard ab=
out
the call of the disciples
m=
ight have taken place.
And imagine it we mus=
t, for
Mark’s gospel is so abbreviated,
s=
o truncated even, that it’s up to us to fil=
l in
the details.
More than likely it w=
ould
have been early morning, when it was still cool.
Simon and Andrew, bro=
thers
from
s=
tood waist deep in the warming waters of the Sea.
They had been out for=
several
hours before dawn, casting their net from the shore,
i=
n an area where fish were known to feed in those
pre-dawn hours.
A little farther alon=
g the
beach, James and John with their father Zebedee,
a=
nd several hired hands, were coming back from a ni=
ght of
fishing.
Each was busy with his
assigned task:
s=
orting the catch, mending the nets, putting away
supplies.
As Jesus walked along=
the
seashore in those early morning hours,
s=
uddenly his voice broke the stillness as he called out =
to
Simon and Andrew.
“Follow me,R=
21; he
said, “and I will make you fishers of people.”
The Gospel doesn̵=
7;t tell
us what he called out to John and James,
b=
ut we can assume the call was similar.
&=
#8220;You
fishermen of
More than likely, Jes=
us
already had a bit of a reputation in the area.
He had come there pro=
claiming
the good news of God, with this amazing message, saying, “The time is
fulfilled, and the
Repent and believe in=
the
good news.”
What’s astonish=
ing
about this story of Jesus calling the first disciples
i=
s that nobody asked any questions (Christian Century, Jan. 13, 2009, p. 21).
Instead, immediately Simon and Andrew left their nets and followed him.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'>
There is a similar se=
nse of immediacy in Jesus’ call=
to
John and James.
Right after Jesus cal=
led John
and James, they got out of the boat,
l=
eft their father standing there with the hired men,=
and
followed him too.
Four men leave behind=
their
careers and make a 180 turn to a new vocation
a=
nd they don’t seem to have any questions.
But even if they had
questions, what else would Jesus have told them?
He had already announ=
ced what
was taking place:
The time is fulfilled=
.
The
For us moderns who need action plans, goals, and job descriptions,
t=
he good news doesn’t seem very specific.
But Jesus isn’t
explaining, he’s proclaiming, with an urgency.
A=
ll of
Mark’s gospel has a to=
ne of
rapid time, urgent time, the-time-is-now-time.
Jesus is announcing t=
hat
it’s God’s time -
t=
he Greek word used for time here is Kairos.
It’s a distinct=
word
for time not like any word we have in English,
a=
nd it means a special time, an opportune time,
a=
time when everything has come together to creat=
e an
unusually significant moment.
Whatever the year, or month, or day, wherever the place,
God acts through Jesu=
s Christ
and it is Kair=
os
time.
And anyone who hears =
and
believes and responds to the good news
h=
as entered God’s time and heard God’s =
call.
The Bible is full of =
stories
of people who have responded to God’s call.
Yet most of them
wouldn’t pass the first set of job interviews.
In today’s stor=
y, these
two sets of brothers are fishermen.
What do they know abo=
ut
evangelism?
(Even if Jesus did ca=
ll it
“fishing for people.”)
And we know the rest =
of story
- how really ill-equipped these disciples were.
Simon, who is Peter, =
later
denies Jesus.
James and John go beh=
ind the
scenes and try to talk Jesus into giving them
special places of glo=
ry, one
on the right and one on the left.
All the disciples are=
prone
to arguing about who is the greatest.
Ill-equipped, yes, bu=
t still
called by God.
There’s another=
story
in the Bible - the story of Jonah. <=
/span>
He is not so much
ill-equipped and untrained as unwilling.
God calls him to go t=
o the
people of Ninevah and tell them to repent, to t=
urn to
God. Instead, Jonah gets on a=
ship
going in the other direction.
Most of you probably =
know the
rest of that story.
There’s a storm=
at sea,
Jonah, goes overboard, he’s swallowed by a whale,
and only then does he=
repent
and do the job God called him todo.
He uses this dark tim=
e to
turn back to God. Unwilling, yes, but still called by God.
We don’t have t=
o just
look to the Bible for stories of call,
surprising stories of
ill-equipped, untrained, and reluctant people whose lives
somehow intersected w=
ith
God’s Ka=
iros - God’s timing -
and all of a sudden t=
hey find
themselves doing something
that is part of God&#=
8217;s
creative, loving purposes in this world.
It can happen anywher=
e, to
anyone.
There’s a book =
on the
New York Times bestseller list right now that tells such a story. Three Cups of Tea tells the true s=
tory
of a man named Greg Mortenson
whose call is quite
unexpected.
He started out as an =
R.N., a
nurse, but he was also a climber, a mountaineer.
The main reason he wo=
rked was
so he could fund climbing trips to
Much of his adult lif=
e he
lived in his car, worked the hospital night shift,
and saved his money f=
or the
next mountaineering expedition.
In other words, he wo=
rked to
climb.
But everything change=
s in
1993 when he travels to
where he attempts - a=
nd fails
- to climb
which is the second h=
ighest
mountain on earth.
As he struggles to de=
scend,
worn and defeated,
he gets separated fro=
m his
climbing partner and ends up in a remote village in
When he recovers his =
strength
and his health,
he promises to return=
to
build a school for the village,
for the only school t=
he
children have is an outdoor area
where the children hu=
ddle
even in brutally cold weather to learn basic reading and math.
He does return, the s=
chool is
built, and the story continues with
Greg Mortenson
starting an organization called the Central Asia Institute whose purpose is=
to
build schools, especially for girls, in this region of the world.
So far 78 schools hav=
e been
built, and there are nearly 20,000 current students.
But his idea goes dee=
per than
education. In his own way he is waging a peaceful campaign against the Isla=
mic
fundamentalism of this region.
By building secular s=
chools,
there is an alternative to the religious schools,
from which Islamic
fundamentalists often recruit for their extremist views.
Greg Mortenson
has received numerous awards,
speaks around the wor=
ld, and
is a tireless advocate of education
as a means of promoti=
ng
peace.
NBC newscaster, Tom B=
rokaw,
calls Mortenson,
"One ordinary pe=
rson,
with the right combination of character and determination,
who is really changin=
g the
world."
What is significant about call, is that it is mo=
re
than something we do,
it changes who we are.
In today’s read=
ing,
Jesus says, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.”
But a better, more ac=
curate
translation is,
“Follow me, and=
I will make
you fishers of people.”
Jesus is calling us n=
ot to a
task,
not to one more Chris=
tian job
to add to our list, but to a transformed way of being.
Disciples do more tha=
n just
say yes to a job in the church.
Disciples say yes to extending God’s creat=
ive
loving purposes in the world.
Disciples take a leap=
of
faith as we leave the boat and everything behind
that is keeping us fr=
om
trusting in Christ -
our doubts, our fears=
, our
bad experiences, our self-serving priorities.
Being a disciple is a=
serious
commitment. It’s not superficial religiosity.
Jesus is calling disc=
iples
who are willing to follow him with a serious faith
that is a way of life=
, not
just a superficial list of Christian tasks.
Too often, I’m =
afraid,
the church has not emphasized the seriousness
of the commitment to =
which
Jesus is calling us.
We live in a culture =
where
commitment seems like too much work.
Unfortunately, our ch=
urches
have been influenced by that culture.
But our culture may be
changing when it comes to commitment.
Just last week, in Pr=
esident
Obama’s inaugural speech,
he used themes of sac=
rifice
and virtue,
words that Christians used to lift up as wor=
thy
goals.
But over the past few
decades, Christians have mistakenly come to believe
that the church exist=
s for
us.
We want to know what&=
#8217;s
in it for me?
We look for new and n=
ovel
experiences.
We want to be enterta=
ined and
enlightened.
We want to be served =
and
satisfied.
Sounds like the cultu=
re, but
it’s also the church.
But the church doesn’t exist for us. It never has.
We exist for the church, so that through the chu=
rch -
the Body of Christ -
we extend God’s love in the world.
Nearly 100 years ago,=
there
was a little book called the Divinity of Christ,
written by a disciple
minister named Edward Scribner Ames.
In this book he said,
disciples have too often asked the wrong question.
When people join the =
church,
we ask
“Do you believe=
Jesus
is the son of God and do you accept him as Lord and savior?” Instead,
“Are you willin=
g to
follow Jesus and do the utmost within your power
to establish his king=
dom of
love within the world?”
When Peter and Andrew=
, James
and John left their boats and nets behind,
that’s the job =
they
signed up for.
And as unprepared,
unexpected, and unable as they may have been at times,
God equipped them alo=
ng the
way.
The calling continues
today.
We may wonder if we&#=
8217;re
unprepared, or unable to establish God’s kingdom of love.
At times we may even =
feel
unwilling.
But the time for this=
work of
disciples is as urgent as it ever was
and the question rema=
ins for
us:
Are you willing to fo=
llow
Jesus and do the utmost within your power
to establish his king=
dom of
love within the world?
God is calling you!