EPIPHANY 3

May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)

SEASON: EPIPHANY 3
PROPER: B
PLACE: St. John’s Episcopal Church, Kingsville
DATE: January 26, 2003


TEXT: Mark 1:14-20 The Calling of Disciples
“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”. . . . . . “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.”

ISSUE: Jesus is not a solo performer in his ministry, but calls others to join him in his new community. He calls them to accept the good news that God is with them, near, and is the dependable patron in a world of situations that are uncertain. He calls them into the service of fishing for people with all its risks, but in persistent compassion and love for God’s people.
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In this Epiphany Season, which refers to the manifestation of Christ to the world as its light, we have another story of Jesus calling his disciples from the Gospel account of Mark. What is always striking about this account is its simplicity. Jesus says, “Follow me.” And, they do. Dropping nets, and leaving family behind they begin a new life with Jesus proclaiming good news to a largely oppressed and hopeless world of the time. As one biblical scholar puts it, they appear to be acting rather recklessly in their quick abandonment of home and work. Jesus’ command to follow him, and the quick response of some disciples seems almost magical, like a kind of Pied Piper. It is a curios passage of Scripture.
From this passage, we given the possibility that Jesus was very likely for a period of time, a disciple himself of John the Baptist. King Herod had executed John. Jesus now strikes out on the ministry of his own. At first it sounds a lot like John’s theme of ministry and preaching. Jesus calls men to repentance, that is, change of mind and direction in their lives. Remember that a persons could not survive on their own in this period; you needed family or group support of some kind. Jesus left his own family to join John the Baptist’s community. Once Jesus strikes out on his own, he must have a support system. He is not a solo act. He begins immediately to call disciples to follow him and work with him in his ministry. They are an obvious support to one another, and their working together expands their coverage and enhances their ministry. The importance of people working together to spread the gospel is always important to the life of a growing church community. Churches where too many people do everything on their own are rarely effective, and lose the focus of being a servant community for the world.
It is not likely that James and John, Simon Peter and Andrew merely dropped everything on a whim to follow Jesus. While their were no news papers, and limited ways of spreading news in Jesus’ time. One way worked very well by necessity, and that was by gossip, from which the word Gospel comes. It is most likely that Simon and Andrew, James and John had some pretty good idea of what Jesus was about. These men were themselves a part of a rather big industry, that of fishing. They were all common men, who like carpenters and other artisans suffered many injustices and indignities. In the fishing industry taxation is reported to have been about 40% by the Romans. By the time fish were sold, and middle men got their cut, there was often very little left for the fishermen. For folks in financial difficulty, there were few places to look for help.
Jesus comes preaching a message of hope, and a call for men and women to turn to the only one who can give them any sense of well being and worth. Jesus proclaims the need for caring compassion for all people in need, and new sense of worth and dignity and love given by God. He reveals the healing hope and deliverance of God. “Follow me,” says Jesus, “And I will have you fish for people.” Peter, James, John, and Andrew are ripe for the mission to bring to their world some new hope. While they leave their family and business, it is not abandonment. The fathers and the hired hands will carry on. In one way, the following disciples are not really acting recklessly in that they must have known something about Jesus, and had fallen in love with him, his message, and his hope. Yet on the other hand, to strike out the way they did with Jesus demanding a reversal of many of the values of the time, it was indeed reckless and dangerous work. These men, however, were used to hard and dangerous work. Fishing was dangerous. Anyone who has read or saw the recent motion picture, “The Perfect Storm,” is going to be well aware of the dangers of fishing.
Today we must be very careful as to what we mean when we talk about the disciples fishing for men. We all know that each of us is also called to following Christ as part of the Christian community, and fishing for men. Fishing for us is often thought of as hooking the fish. There’s a kind of violence in that aspect of fishing. The kind of commercial fishing that Jesus was taking about was net fishing. A weighted net was dropped over the back of the boat. While trawling, it was hoped that the net would capture a school of fish.
Sometimes we Christians think of “fishing for people” as a kind of entrapment or snaring people into the church. It is often done with fear tactics: “You’d better join,” or “Go to Church,” or “Be saved.” “Lest you endure the fires of hell.” We think of fishing for men in terms of quantity. After the conversion of Emperor Constantine in the 300’s A.D. everybody in the Empire was expected to be baptized into the Christian faith automatically. The church became quantitative in terms of numbers of participants. Bigger is better.
The full context of the life and ministry of Jesus has to be understood if we are to more deeply appreciate what Jesus meant by fishing for people. I can think of no passage of Scripture, and no Biblical story of Jesus that tells of Jesus tricking, manipulating, or trapping people into loyalty and faithfulness. The ministry of Jesus is based entirely from the motivation of servanthood. His ministry was intentional in his desire to heal people that were sick. His ministry was intentional in its effort to raise-up the fallen, and those who were paralyzed. The ministry of Jesus was given to opening the eyes of blind people to have new understandings of God as love. The ministry of Jesus was given to opening the ears of the deaf, so that they could hear that a merciful and compassionate God loved them. People that were untouchable, like lepers, were touched, healed, and embraced by Jesus. Jesus grieved for the injustices of the time. Peasants were expendable by government and religious authorities. They were not cheated, and often without help or recourse. Remember the old widow lady who has to beg and plead for justice. Jesus saw these people, as God’s own, and worthy of justice, and their full day’s wage. Jesus reportedly in some instances raised the dead, the depressed and hopeless to give them a new chance at life.
What we see in this passage of fishing for people is like the passage of the Shepherd in search of the one lost sheep. The shepherd is not seen as bringing the flock to slaughter or seeking the lost to condemn, but as the great protector. In the same way to fish for people, is not to catch and kill, but to serve people, reveal the love of God, and be in the service of God.
This Scripture holds up to the light what it means to be in the discipleship of Jesus. There are risks. In the same way that there are people in the world who hate democracy and the American way of life. There are people who do not like the Christian Faith that proclaims change of mind, forgiveness, renewal, and hope. The status quo, keeping things the way they are, holding a grudge, and maintaining a system of vengeance for some people is by far preferable. So to stand on Christian ground may seem as reckless and dangerous in threats and the storms of the world.
There are still others who will resist the fact that the Christian Faith calls people to work for justice, and to have their eyes open to the fact that some people are getting the shorter end of the stick, by virtue of their race or by the place or position in the social strata. Jesus himself stood up, even to death, in his embracing the justice of God calling for freedom and justice for all people. By the powers, both secular and religious powers, of his time, he was indeed seen as dangerous and disturbing.
But the truly remarkable ministry of Jesus was one of caring witness to love and affection for all the people of God. He dared to be different and intent and focused on his ministry of love without manipulation or violence, or insult of people with basic human need.
Jesus did not work his wonders alone. He called simple folk, men and women too, to join him in that ministry. His fishing net became a net of love that encompassed the known world, and his church was and is to be the symbol of God’s love embracing the whole world.
Jesus knew only too well that he and his little band of disciples, and even the growing early church would not bring down the Roman Empire. He know only that love, compassion, and caring for the human condition would melt human hearts, shaping and molding them into something radically new would change the world. In St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians (I Cor. 7:17-23), Paul called the early church into just being what they were, and stand firm in their place in love and not become slaves of the world, but stand firm in their commitment to the ways and teachings of Jesus Christ, and live in love and hope always. In this way of following Paul knew, like Jesus, that the world sees God through his people in their efforts to embrace the world of God with his love. Then all shall know the Kingdom of God, the Reign and Realm of God has come near.