Fishing (01/22/12)

Epiphany 3B – Mark 1:14-20

Last week, Kay spoke with the children about John’s gospel and his “take” on the calling of the disciples; it was “come and see.”  One disciple called another.

But then there’s Mark’s gospel.  It’s very different than John’s account and since the details are minimal — as is always the case with Mark — there’s a lot more we don’t know than what we do know.  There’s lots of urgency, lots of immediacy.  After John was arrested, it seems almost as if Jesus just stepped into the scene.  But it may have taken days, months, years; we don’t know.  Was he ready to fill the void left by John?  Eventually he was, for he says:  The time is fulfilled…believe in the good news.

Armed with good news, Jesus passes along theSea of Galileeand, seeing several fishermen, he calls out to them and bids them to follow.  The way Mark tells the story, they do — without any further prompting.

Now I know this is Jesus calling, but I have a difficult time believing the disciples just dropped everything and followed.  Maybe one or more of them had already heard about Jesus; maybe they’d even shared those experiences with their friends.  But answering a call that necessitates dropping everything you know and heading off with an itinerant preacher isn’t something most people do.  Truth is, even when we’re called to do something minor, we often hem and haw…….don’t we?

And what does it mean to be CALLED?  If we hear only these stories about the disciples, a call must be something REALLY RADICAL — something that happens to only certain people.  Yet, truth is, we’re ALL called:  some to a vocation, some to tasks of a different kind.  But make no mistake:  God calls each and every one of us.  We may ignore the call, but that doesn’t negate it.

All of us are called to work together; you have gifts and graces that I can never have; that’s why we’re communally called the BODY of Christ in the world, because none of us alone can do it all.  It’s only together that we can achieve what God calls us to do.

Jesus knew that.  He knew he couldn’t do God’s work alone, that he would need people with other talents, other gifts.  Maybe fishermen were a good bet because they could provide food along the way.  Who knows why Jesus picked whom he did — or if there were others he picked who turned him down.

Jesus had already begun his ministry in GalileeBEFORE he called others to join him.  He must have realized pretty quickly that the need was so great he could never do it alone.  He needed other people — just like he needs us.  His message is succinct:  The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe the good news.  In those eighteen words, Mark is telling us that the prophesies about the anointed one of God have been fulfilled in Jesus.  The kingdom of God is near because Jesus is the place where heaven and earth meet.  God’s reign has broken through.

That’s what Mark believed was happening as he opened his story, and Jesus tells folks that their response to God’s reign breaking through should be repentance and belief.  Now a reminder about that word, “Repentance.”  It’s been misinterpreted and misunderstood and may even have placed a cloud over the “good news.”  “Feeling sorry for your sins” — the definition usually given for repentance — is inaccurate.  It’s not that we shouldn’t be sorry for our sins, but that’s not what “repentance” means.  The Greek word is metanoia; it means to “think differently…to reconsider.”[1]  Jesus is telling people to reconsider and readjust their lives in light of his message and his actions.  Or, said another way:  “Stop being part of the problem and start being part of the solution!”

It’s what Jesus asked of his disciples.  The first were fishermen.  Jesus asked them to reconsider their lives and to become fishers of people.  Jesus used language familiar to them to make his point.  Had they been potters, he might have said:  “I’d like you to shape and mold people, not clay.”  However Jesus “hooked” them, he did, and so they abandoned their boats and their nets and followed him.

Fortunately, for most people, calls don’t involve the total abandonment of all that they know.  But make no mistake:  following a call isn’t a casual gesture.  It means we need to think differently, and that’s not just a one-time event.  It means that every time the world lures us with its warped ways of thinking, we need to stop and say:  “How does this fit in with what God wants?”  Or, “What would Jesus do?”  And as we develop a relationship with the One who calls us — a relationship that has meaning and power for our lives — we should want to help other people develop a similar relationship.  That means we need to “fish for people.”  But let’s be clear:  the purpose of fishing for people isn’t to snag them and drag them in, it’s to help them — the way Jesus helped them.  And that task isn’t a task that falls to only some; that’s a task that falls to each of us.  That’s why it’s the one task that Jesus named as he called his first followers.

Jesus called his disciples to do two things:  (1) Follow him; and (2) Go fish.  We’re quick to hear the first part, but not the second.  But what happens to a church full of folks who merely follow along and never take up the task of fishing?

There’s a story about that; I’d like to share it with you.

On a dangerous seacoast where shipwrecks often occur there was once a crude little life-saving station.  The building was just a hut, and there was only one boat but the few devoted members kept a constant watch over the sea, and with no thought for themselves, went out day and night tirelessly searching for the lost.  Some of those who were saved, and various others in the surrounding area, wanted to become associated with the station and give of their time and money and effort for the support of its work.  New boats were bought and new crews trained.  The little life-saving station grew.

Some of the members of the life-saving station were unhappy that the building was so crude and poorly equipped.  They felt that a more comfortable place should be provided as the first refuge of those saved from the sea.  They replaced the emergency cots with beds and put better furniture in the enlarged building.  Now, the life-saving station became a popular gathering place for its members, and they decorated it beautifully and furnished it exquisitely, because they used it as a sort of club.

Fewer members were now interested in going to sea on lifesaving missions, so they hired life-boat crews to do this work.  The life-saving motif still prevailed in this club’s decoration, and there was a symbolic life-boat in the room where the club initiations were held.

About this time a large ship was wrecked off the coast, and the hired crews brought in boatloads of cold, wet and half-drowned people.  They were dirty and sick and some of them had black skin and some had yellow skin.  The beautiful new club was in chaos.  So the property committee immediately had a shower house built outside the club where victims of shipwreck could be cleaned up before coming inside.

At the next meeting, there was a split in the club membership.  Most of the members wanted to stop the club’s life-saving activities as being unpleasant and a hindrance to the normal social life of the club.  Some members insisted upon life-saving as their primary purpose and pointed out that they were still called a life-saving station.  But they were finally voted down and told that if they wanted to save the lives of all the various kinds of people who were shipwrecked in those waters, they could begin their own life-saving station down the coast.  They did.

As the years went by, the new station experienced the same changes that had occurred in the old.  It evolved into a club, and yet another life-saving station was founded.  History continued to repeat itself, and if you visit that seacoast today, you will find a number of exclusive clubs along that shore.  Shipwrecks are frequent in those waters, but most of the people drown[2].

Shipwrecks don’t occur too often in today’s world, but the recent tragedy of the Costa Concordia in Italyreminds us that they still happen.  Those who were supposed to steer the ship through safe waters and assist when disaster struck didn’t do their jobs and instead abandoned ship, leaving people to fend for themselves.  Maybe something similar has happened in churches:  people realize the direction has been lost and so they abandon ship.  There’s supposed to be a set course and, if there is none, what’s the point?  Church is more than a club, more than an audience; it has to learn to make its way into the world as a moving power.[3]  Jesus didn’t sit in one place and expect people to come to him; he moved around, noticing those he encountered and helping ease whatever troubles encumbered them.  His purpose was to heal, to bring people wholeness.  Sadly, many churches have come to believe that their primary purpose is keep the doors of the church open.  Like the Life-Saving station, maintenance has become the modus operandi.  Paul Harvey says it another way:  “Too many Christians are no longer fishers of [people] but keepers of the aquarium.”

When a church “hires” a pastor — and I do think most churches “hire” pastors rather than CALLING someone sent by the Spirit — it thinks that the pastor, as it’s hired gun, is supposed to DO the work of the church.  It’s like the Life-Saving Station folks who hired outsiders because it was no longer THEIR job to save lives.  But we’re all in the “life-saving” business, just like Jesus was.  Jesus didn’t call disciples to be an audience; he needed help, and every single person he called needed to participate.

We hear mostly about what Jesus did during his ministry.  Occasionally we hear how he sent out his disciples to be involved in ministry.  Sometimes they did well; other times, their egos got in the way.  But they had to have been considerably more involved than the gospels tell us.  Because when Jesus left the scene, it was up to the disciples to continue his ministry.  The disciples weren’t called to be listeners; they were called to be PARTICIPANTS.  Jesus needed workers in the field, doing what he did.  And he MUST HAVE prepared them well because there’s no doubt they continued his work and kept his life-saving message alive.

Has the church prepared us well?  Having sat in the pew as a church member for many more years than I’ve been a pastor, I’m not sure.  I heard a lot about doctrines and beliefs in those years, but I rarely heard anyone tell me to “Get moving.”  But if God’s healing love never gets beyond the walls of the church, is there any point in meeting here?  Somehow, the message has to be carried out — through what each of us does out there, in the world.  That’s theMISSIONof the church:  carrying OUT the ministry of Jesus.

If we were the disciples Jesus left behind, would people have gotten the message?  Amen.

This sermon was written by the Rev. Janet Weiblen, Intentional Interim Minister at Weston Christian Church.  It can only be used with permission of the author.  revj@kc.rr.com.