Trinity Episcopal Church

After Epiphany III-B     Mark 1:14-20       January 22, 2012        Rev. Tom Murphy

The liturgical Gospels for these Sundays after Epiphany are mainly about the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry and especially two events that occur at the start of his work.  First, Jesus announces the themes of His ministry.  He proclaims what He has come to do – what His work is to be.  Second, Jesus forms his working team.  He calls and recruits people he chooses to assist him in his work and who are to continue his efforts after he is gone.

First of all – Jesus’ proclamation of his ministry has four parts.  First, the time is fulfilled.  He’s not talking about clock time, or calendar time, or what season of the year it is – the Greek word for that, the commentaries tell me is CHRONOS  -  He means fulfilled  time.  Everything in human affairs is ready – all the lines of historical convergence have come together – a great space has mysteriously and unexpectedly been prepared for some unprecedented new event to emerge – the Biblical term for this kind of time is KAIROS – when all is ready for something amazing and new to occur in human affairs.  The Kingdom of God has come near – that’s the second part of his announcement – and that’s the new thing the Kairos has been made ready for – a new way of being human  – human life imbued with the presence and power of God – a whole new way of being human together – a new kind of human society in this world.  The third component of Jesus’ ministry is the call to “Repent” – and that powerful and creative term needs to be freed from the moralistic baggage that it has tragically accumulated over far too many years of legalistic Gospel perversion.  Jesus’ call to repentance is a liberating challenge to be new – to change direction – to start over – to decide and act in a totally new way – to be open to unimagined new possibilities.  Finally, the fourth aspect of Jesus’ ministry is his gracious and empowering invitation to “believe in the Good News”!  – to act and choose and behave and function in the conviction that a loving and gracious God  is among us and with us and in us, who cherishes us and all other people – the challenge to turn away from enmity, strife, self-serving and violence because life  -   and every life  -   is good and noble and exalted and valuable and precious, and that the future for all of  us is to share in the Divine life of God, in this world and in the world to come – and not to end on the ash-heap of  meaningless oblivion!  “The time is fulfilled” Jesus proclaimed, – “thekingdom ofGod has come near – repent – and believe in the Good News!”   Is there a more urgent or vital message than that to be heard in our day  -  I don’t think so!!

What Jesus said he was to be about has implications right across the spectrum of human life and experience, from the most intimately personal to the most transnational.  Is this election year, for example, a Kairos time for our country when powerful forces are converging for a showdown; and the way of our being human together is up for grabs; when new and changed behaviors and decisions are called for; and people are waiting to see if the news is good or bad?  If you think I’m going to explore those ideas in this sermon, you can think again!  I may  be dumb, but I’m not stupid!!   What Jesus said he came and comes to do is the framework of our common life and the implications of what he said ought to be explored and discussed and debated in the faith community in a way that enables free give and take and where everyone who wants to can have their say – and this ain’t that setting!!

And what about Jesus’ team-building activity – his recruitment drive for those he wanted to be his co-workers?  Here are Peter and Andrew and James and John happily doing their routine work as fishermen – same as they’d done numberless days before – and Jesus comes along the shore and calls to them and says, “Get out of those boats – come, be with me”  -  and they do it,   and everything changes!!  My goodness, what a Kairos moment that must have been for them – the total and instantaneous transformation of everything  -  I can hardly imagine it!!  and whether you like Mark’s version of the call of the disciples, where Jesus is the initiator – or John’s very different account  – we heard a part of it last Sunday – where Jesus is just sort of hanging around – just walking by – and the other John – John the Baptizer, the Forerunner – who, in Mark’s version, has already been locked up in prison before Jesus does anything – in John’s Gospel version, the Baptizer sees Jesus and directs his disciples – including Andrew, to go with Jesus and they do – and they ask Jesus the rather strange question, “Where are you staying?”  and Jesus says, “Come and see” and they spend the rest of the day with him – and it develops from there.  Episcopalians and Anglicans like John’s version better – because it’s more passive and less assertive and not as pushy as Mark’s!  “Come and see!”  That’s our line.  That’s our strategy.  That’s the way we do it!  “Come and see” – I’m pretty sure there are people in your life and mine right now – this minute – who are waiting – they may not exactly know it – for you and for me to say to them about  this life in Christ we so cherish – “Come with me – come and see”  What stops us from making that saving and transforming  invitation!?  I suspect it’s the fear they’ll say “no – not interested”  although they’ll say it politely so as not to hurt our feelings, but we’ll do anything to avoid rejection!  We need to take our cue in this from sales-people!  Experienced sales reps don’t worry about being turned down – they know they’ll be turned down – but they are energized and excited because they know that out there is someone who’s going to say “yes!!”  and it’s worth it to them to slog through the chorus of “NO’s” for the anticipation and thrill of getting to that “YES” they know is coming!  “Come with me – come and see”  is our gracious invitation – let’s have the courage to make it  -   in the sure knowledge and trust that there’s someone out there right now who you know -  who’s going to say “YES” and we will have helped change their lives!!

Maybe another reason we hesitate about inviting folks to join us in this Christian faith community – although it may be buried a little deeper in our consciousness – is that we know about today’s Gospel – and that, as much as we might like to think we are inviting people to come with us and join a nice religious country club where our every whim is indulged – that at some place in our souls we know it isn’t true – and that at heart, when anybody decides to take Jesus and the faith community that forms around Him seriously – when anyone does that it’s an invitation to sign up for a job – it’s agreeing to go to work – as it was for those fellows who were called out of those fishing boats on Galilee so long ago – it’s to take on a job that will never be done – that will consume all that we are and have – and that may kill us – as it surely did for most of those Galilean fishermen so long ago, although they didn’t know it when they went to follow Him – and we also know that no other life than life with Him – and the glory and the burden of that life  -  no other life than that  -  is worthy of the name.

And what is that work – that job – that vocation to which He calls us?  He tells us with crystal clarity in another part of the Gospel – in the 25th chapter of Matthew in which Jesus – two days away from his own end – gives his disciples – gives us the stunning parable of the Last Judgment – to me, one of the half-dozen most important passages in all the New Testament – it’s the great finality, when everything in all the course of human life is settled, and all is sorted out, and all humanity is assembled before the King -  and the King says to those on his right hand, “Come you blessed of my father recieve the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world!”   and he tells the blessed what are the grounds of their great reward – what it is that they have done – what work they have accomplished – what righteousness they have shown  -  to deserve this benefit – and what does he say, “Come you blessed ones  -  for you have the correct religion – the true doctrine – you believe all the right principles, you’ve kept all the rules and regulations,  and have unsullied morals, and impeccable ethical standards, and belong to the right church!”  No such thing!  “Come”, says the King to the blessed, and why, “for I was hungry, and you gave me food – I was thirsty and you gave be something to drink – I was a stranger and you welcomed me.  I was naked and you gave me clothing.  I was sick and you took care of me.  I was in prison and you visited me.”  and the righteous remonstrate – and say, “Wait a minute – we never did any of those things for you – what are you talking about!” – and the king makes this astonishing answer, “When you did it to one of the least of those who are members of my family – you did it to me!!”  They were just being decent, caring, compassionate, loving human beings – and all the while they were serving the King – and they didn’t even know it!!  The job we are called upon to embrace, as followers of Jesus, has nothing to do with religion, and everything to do with the needs of human life – and any religion that is not based and founded upon the exaltation and blessing of human life in all of its infinite variety and need is a lie and a sham and a travesty!

I think it is something like that Jesus means when he calls to Peter and Andrew and James and John – and when he calls to you and me and says, “Follow me and I will you fish for people!”

“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, . . . . ”