3 Epiphany (B)

Bob Dylan, the poet, songwriter, activist and occasional theologian once famously said that “Jesus tapped me on the shoulder and said, Bob, why are you resisting me? I said “I’m not resisting you! He said, You gonna follow me? I said, I’ve never thought about that before! He said, When you’re not following me, you’re resisting me.”

Are you following or resisting? God’s call on us happens in a variety of ways, doesn’t it?

In the gospel of Mark, everything happens very quickly, and his favorite word is immediately. We are only on verse 14 of the first chapter and John the Baptist has already appeared, preaching, baptizing, wearing clothing of camel’s hair. He was the voice in the wilderness, preparing the way. And Jesus appeared, and was baptized by John, and the Spirit descended upon him and a voice from heaven said that Jesus was the Beloved of God. And immediately he was driven into the desert where he was tempted for 40 days.

And now, after John has been arrested by Herod, Jesus appears in Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. What is this good new, this gospel? The Good News is that God is breaking into the world. The Good News is announcing an event: In the fullness of time, when the time was right, all that God had promised comes to pass. In the person of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the kingdom of God has come into the world. God with us, God steps into human history, and the world would never again be the same. Eternity intersects with time as we know it. Or perhaps eternity collides with time. And Jesus proclaims the kingdom of God. God’s rule and authority are about to be unfurled. The reign of God is a powerful and dynamic event, where God himself intervenes in human affairs to achieve his purposes.

The time has come, the kingdom of God is at hand. It is embodied in Jesus, near enough to touch. The future was now. God is king, his rule has come, and things will be put to right, evil will be vanquished, the kingdom will be established. The announcement by Jesus requires decision and commitment: repentance, submission to the kingship of God and his Son, and belief that the impossible, the incredible, has come to pass. Repent and believe! The message is urgent, the time is now, the time is fulfilled. The planets are all in line, heaven and earth have converged, and the moment has come—the time of which the prophets spoke and sang, the time for which people hoped and longed, has come.

And Jesus begins to call people into his kingdom. Without fanfare, without warning, Jesus appears by the Sea of Galilee, calling fishermen, creating a community of followers. The kingdom is about community. Peter and Andrew are casting nets from the shore, suggesting that they are too poor to own a boat. And Jesus says, follow me and I will make you fish for people.

And immediately they left their nets and followed him.

A little further on, Jesus saw James and John, the Sons of Zebedee, on their boat mending their nets. And immediately, Jesus called them, saying follow me. And they dropped everything, walking away from their father and hired men and their boat, suggesting perhaps a more prosperous fishing business, and they followed him.

When you are fishing, and hook a fish, it has consequences for that fish, doesn’t it. Life is not as it was. God’s transforming power is part of his rule, part of his kingdom. Lives are changed beyond recognition. The disciples will be agents of a message of transformation, just as they themselves are transformed by Jesus’ call.

Jesus said, “Follow me!” Who is this man, who calls people to follow him? Prophets called people to follow God. Teachers and rabbis invited people to learn from them, but not to follow them. With what authority does Jesus call people?

When we hear about Jesus calling his disciples, we wonder at the men who dropped everything they were doing and followed him. How could they do such a thing? What did they know, what did they see that we don’t know, that we don’t see. And what would we do? What will we do? When the reign of God breaks into our lives, how do we respond? What are we willing to risk?

But the call of God on our lives is God’s doing, not our own. God calls and gathers a community of believers, centered in Emmanuel, in Jesus, God with us. It’s all about God, the power of God. Barbara Brown Taylor said that this miracle story is about “the power of God—to walk right up to a quartet of fishermen and work a miracle, creating faith where their was no faith, creating disciples where there were none just a moment before.”[1]God breaks in, and things are not the same. God invades our lives, sometimes, when we are looking the other way, minding our own business.

But we still have the freedom to respond, to drop our nets, to leave our boats and follow. The freedom to weigh the cost, to decide to follow. And yet, for some of us, we know that we are pursued by the hound of heaven, and we have no rest until we allow ourselves to be found, to be captured. In the Forward of the Shack, Willie talks about that place inside yourself “where there is just you alone—and maybe God, if you believe in him. Of course, God might be there even if you don’t believe in him. That would be just like him. He hasn’t been called the Grand Interferer for nothing.”[2]

Although we probably consider ourselves the most unlikely candidates, the Call to follow Jesus still comes, through God’s doing and not our own. We are called to a new way of living, transformed by the power of God. As followers of Jesus, we are to be messengers of transformation, and we are to embody the kingdom. Our lives must look different. We are a little bit better, a little bit holier, a little bit removed from the world. We are called a higher standard. In our work, our vocation, we are called to do our very best, as though we were doing it for God and not for men. In all that we do, we are to honor God. As Jesus is God with us, even so we are with him and in him. Our lives are centered in him. In the middle of our ordinary lives, we are exactly the person God calls, the person God wants. God wants us to give him our lives, and to conduct our affairs according to His teachings. We are disciples, apprentices to Jesus, serving, loving, seeking justice and mercy.

Brother Lawrence was a 17th century Carmelite monk, a layman who dedicated his life to God. He worked most of his life in the kitchen, but his wisdom is remembered to this day. He believed that the common business of life was a medium for God’s love, and that the key to working and living is our motivation. He said, “"Nor is it needful that we should have great things to do. . . We can do little things for God; I turn the cake that is frying on the pan for love of him, and that done, if there is nothing else to call me, I prostrate myself in worship before him, who has given me grace to work; afterwards I rise happier than a king. It is enough for me to pick up but a straw from the ground for the love of God."

The love of God is our motivation as disciples. God who first loved us. God who loved us when we were still sinners. Nothing in the world is more valuable than that, nothing is more valuable than living in the Kingdom. Unless we comprehend that living for God is superior to everything else, everything that we value, we cannot be successful disciples. When we are caught by the hound of heaven, confronted by the Grand Interferer, we still have a choice. God initiates, and we respond. Do we resist him, or do we follow him?
[1] http://i.ucc.org/StretchYourMind/OpeningtheBible/WeeklySeeds/tabid/81/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/154/Follow-Me-Jan-1925.aspx
[2] Young, William P. The Shack, Windblown Media, 2007, p. 12.