This is the sermon manuscript from the third Sunday after Epiphany, January 21/22, 2012. The Gospel text is Mark 1:14-20.
William Willimon tells a story about a very heated phone call he had from a parent while he worked as a campus minister at Duke. One of his students had apparently decided that instead of continuing her schooling and using her degree in engineering, that she would go down to Haiti and do mission work with the Presbyterians. Her father was not too happy about it. He called Willimon and blamed him for filling her head with the “religious stuff” that set her on her new path, that he was “irresponsible” to have encouraged her to do this. Willimon was quite shocked and asked her father if he was the one who had his daughter baptized. He asked the father if he was the one who introduced her to Jesus, brought her up in the faith, and took her to church. The father told Willimon that he had indeed done all those things, but that all he wanted her to do was become a Presbyterian. “Sorry,” Willimon told the father, “You’ve messed up and made a disciple.”This morning we hear the story of Jesus calling his first disciples. Mark tells us that Jesus comes walking into Galilee and he is talking up a storm, telling everyone that the time has been fulfilled, proclaiming that the kingdom of God has come near. This is one of those “end of the world as we know it” statements, but it’s not about fire and brimstone or weeping and gnashing of teeth. Jesus is telling us that through God’s kingdom breaking into in our world, business as usual is over. The status quo is over. Something new is happening. The world is changing because of the good news. And Jesus wants us to know about it. And not only does he want us to know about the kingdom of God breaking into our world, he also wants us to do something about it. Our call in the wake of this good news of the coming of the kingdom of God is to do two things; we are to repent and we are to believe this good news of God. We are called to be disciples.
The first part of the call is to repent. As we heard a few weeks ago, the meaning of repent is literally to turn around, to go the other way. We are called to turn around from the lives we living and follow Jesus as a disciple.
The second part of the call from Jesus is to believe the good news of God. Now to believe is to make a commitment, but it’s more than a mental choice. To believe is to live every day in the hope of the good news of God, to roll up our sleeves and go to work where the kingdom of God is breaking into our world. Jesus calls for everyone, for you and me, to turn away from the old way of life and to put our faith in the good news of the kingdom of God.
Mark describes this response in the next part of his story, Marks shows us what it looks like to repent and believe. Jesus continues his proclaiming all the way down to the fishing docks where fishermen are busy at work. He wastes no time with introducing himself. He simply tells Simon and Andrew to “follow me.” We have no idea if Simon or Andrew, or later James and John, know anything about Jesus. I would assume that they do, but this is not Mark’s point. Jesus has been calling for everyone to repent and believe in the good news and now Mark provides us with an example of what this call from Jesus looks like in the world. Jesus turns to these men specifically and calls them to turn from the lives they are living and believe in the good news of God’s kingdom breaking in to the world. And they do it Mark tells us. Immediately they are on their feet walking after Jesus. This is what it looks like to repent and believe in the good news of God. These are the first steps of a disciple of Jesus Christ.
Now Jesus is not asking us to leave our jobs per say, this call to follow is not quite that literal. Jesus is calling us to change the way we are living. Jesus is calling us to turn from the old way of living our lives, a way that is self-centered and “me focused.” The biggest mistake we make, the biggest sin that we commit, is to deny our humanity, forsake our neighbor, and try to become God. We want to be in charge. We want to hold all the cards and call the shots. That’s human pride folks, that’s ego.
But in the kingdom of God, when God is in charge, the emphasis is placed on how we relate to God and to one another. We shift our focus from the struggle to get ahead and hoard our resources, to opening ourselves up to the needs of others and making sure that all have enough. What Jesus is calling us to do is to turn away from the self-center life and to unconditionally follow him into the kingdom of God where we live for one another, lifting up those around us so that we all have what we need. The old way of life, the old world as we know it comes to an end when we repent and believe in the good news of the kingdom of God in our lives.
We hear these words, “follow me,” again this morning as we gather around the Baptismal font. God is inviting us to something new. Baptism is not a onetime event, it’s a way of life that we are promised. It’s a way of life we are called to by God. In baptism we are made new creatures by being joined to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. As Martin Luther puts it in his Small Catechism; “The old person in us with all sins and evil desires is to be drowned and die through daily sorrow for sin and through repentance, and on the other hand that daily a new person is to come forth and rise up to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.” I love the way Luther describes baptism. The old self, the selfish and sinful part of our being, is drowned in the waters, the “old Adam” is put to death; our sin is washed away. We come out of the waters as new creatures in the love of Jesus Christ. We are still sinful beings, we still have the tendency to try and play God, but we are claimed by God and set free of our sin so that we can repent, to turn from that life and live for God and for one another.
Luther suggests that we daily remember our baptism to remind ourselves of who we are, and whose we are. We are sinful people, that’s who we are. But God loves us and God claims, that’s whose we are. Now Luther was not trying to make better Lutherans, he actually did not like the term of “Lutheran” at all. Luther was interested helping people to become better disciples of Jesus Christ. He was pointing out that God does something new in us so that we can follow Jesus and help bring the kingdom of God into our world. God changes our lives through baptism so that we can turn around and believe in the good news. God calls us his own in baptism so that we can be disciples of Jesus Christ.
So where is Jesus calling you to repent and believe? Where is Jesus tapping you on the shoulder and asking you to turn around and follow him? We don’t have to move to Haiti like the girl in Willimon’s story; it doesn’t have to be that earth shattering. But maybe Jesus is calling us to look around the neighborhood, or the workplace, or the classroom and see where the kingdom of God breaking into our lives. The time has come; the kingdom of God is breaking into our world. We are called to repent and believe in the good news. God is doing something new in our world. And we are invited to come along. “Follow me” Jesus says.
