Third Sunday After Epiphany Year B 2009

03 Epiphany B 09

January 25, 2009

Jonah 3:1-5, 10
1 The word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time, saying, 2 "Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you." 3 So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days' walk across. 4 Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's walk. And he cried out, "Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!" 5 And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.
10 When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.

Psalm 62:5-12
5 For God alone my soul waits in silence,
for my hope is from him.
6 He alone is my rock and my salvation,
my fortress; I shall not be shaken.
7 On God rests my deliverance and my honor;
my mighty rock, my refuge is in God.
8 Trust in him at all times, O people;
pour out your heart before him;
God is a refuge for us.
9 Those of low estate are but a breath,
those of high estate are a delusion;
in the balances they go up;
they are together lighter than a breath.
10 Put no confidence in extortion,
and set no vain hopes on robbery;
if riches increase, do not set your heart on them.
11 Once God has spoken;
twice have I heard this:
that power belongs to God,
12 and steadfast love belongs to you, O Lord.
For you repay to all
according to their work.

1 Corinthians 7:29-31
29 I mean, brothers and sisters, the appointed time has grown short; from now on, let even those who have wives be as though they had none, 30 and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no possessions, 31 and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away.

Mark 1:14-20
14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, 15 and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news."
16 As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea--for they were fishermen. 17 And Jesus said to them, "Follow me and I will make you fish for people." 18 And immediately they left their nets and followed him. 19 As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. 20 Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him.

Listen to these words: “Greetings from the President of the United States: You are hereby ordered for induction into the Army of the United States and to report to Assembly Room, 17th Floor, Federal Building, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.”

A letter with these words or words like it was delivered to my grandfather on the day before his 34th birthday, the birthday that would have exempted him from the draft. It required him to leave his wife and my mother, then his ten-year-old daughter, and to go to war. It sent him in the Army Engineers and he served in the European theater of World War II. He got the letter, and however he may have felt about it, he just dropped everything and went.

We wonder at the immediacy with which the characters of the bible make their decisions.

God said to Abraham, “Get up and go.” And Abraham got up and went.

Jonah said to Nineveh “Repent.” And Nineveh repented.

Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the good news.” And the fishermen did.

In the book of Acts, we read about the radical way that Christians lived in the immediate aftermath of Pentecost. They shared all things in common, they adopted all the poor people, they ran off in droves on missionary journeys. They frequently got in trouble with the authorities. In the words of one observer, “they were turning the world upside down.”

All of this they did, as they themselves frequently said, because they believed that at any moment Jesus would return. They really did. Working at jobs, running businesses, attending to family matters, all those things that were the ordinary stuff of life, just as they are the ordinary stuff of life for most people for most of human history, well, they just weren’t important anymore.

And these weren’t survivalists expecting a war who run off into the wilderness and set up fortresses. They didn’t run off and hide. No, they came together in community, it says in the scripture” every day,” to pray and break bread. They shared everything they had, they fed the poor, the visited prisoners, they clothed the naked, they forgave sinners and outcasts and welcomed them. They even began to find that people who weren’t Jews were attracted to them and they had a little problem with that to begin with, but then they said, “well, everything’s changing, isn’t it? Come on in!”

People who would ordinarily have gotten married and started families said, “Well, there’s no point in doing that.” People who would ordinarily borrowed money and started businesses said, “No sense in starting anything now.” They weren’t fatalists. They weren’t planning on a holocaust. They were planning on a different kind of world, a world in which heaven would be at home. In such a world, everyone would love everyone else as themselves. Laws and rules and institutions, like marriage, trade, politics and war, all those things that used to keep order in the world, wouldn’t be necessary anymore.

Violence or the threat of violence would have no place in such a world. Soldiers gave up soldiering. Jailers gave up their jails. Cops gave up their nightsticks. Slave-owners freed their slaves, then made them pastors. Women who had been chattel were put in charge. Former prostitutes became church leaders. Old women had visions, young men had dreams.

The world they lived in was a terrible mess, a violent world in which life for most people was brutal, hard and short. But they had heard the promise, had seen the risen Lord, had heard the kingdom was at hand, and so they lived in the midst of all the mess as a sign of a better world that was coming.

Time passed.

Somebody said, “Jesus preached the coming of the kingdom, but it was the church that came.” I remember when I first heard that, I thought, “they made a mistake.” But I don’t think that anymore. It is true however that as the years went by and those first radical Christians grew old and the apostles were martyred one after another and the day-to-day nuisance of running a subversive sub-culture that had no apparent rules became increasingly difficult, the leaders of the church began to recognize that everyone couldn’t just drop everything and leave the world. Some would be married, some would have families, some would start businesses and run them, some might even continue serving in the military. Sadly, the church began to cave into pressures about social institutions like only having men in charge.

In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul wrestles with the problem by encouraging people to avoid getting married, unless they are inflamed with passion and would act up without it. He tells slaves not to expect to be liberated and slave owners that if they have to have slaves to remember they themselves are slaves to Christ. You can almost hear him sighing, frustrated with all the compromising. But at the end of it all, he says, “Look, just remember, whatever you do, that the kingdom of God is near. Keep that focus!”

Jesus comes to all of us, reminding us again and again that the kingdom of God is very near to us, and that we should change our focus, aim at this different target, shoot for this different goal. Where he finds us and what we’re doing at the time has a lot to do with what we actually do or don’t do. But what action we take is less important than what we believe in, what our lives are aimed at.

The scripture tells us stories of others Jesus called who refused his call. We hear many stories of opponents and detractors among people of faith. We hear countless stories of those he healed who went on their way rejoicing and never even thanked him. And even those who walked away from their nets walked away from Jesus in his own hour of greatest need.

It’s obvious to me now that as we all go through our lives, the call comes to us and we hear it or don’t, accept it or don’t, but the call keeps coming. As young people, many of us have a season of passion for the Lord and we imagine running off to some foreign land to spread the word about Christ, only to discover the opposite sex and a different, less holy passion. Yet some do answer that call.

And some of us go into business and raise families and send them off to college, and hear the call when we are retired, and find, “wow, I can answer it now.”

Even within our congregation, we all know the old saying that twenty percent of the members do eighty percent of the work. Everything that is done is a response to the call of the kingdom of God: taking care of the building, dealing with the money and paying the bills, planning the worship services, gathering food for the hungry, doing the blanket drive, serving the food for our fellowship gatherings, teaching the classes. But that eighty percent who show up on some Sundays and sleeps in on others are still answering the call as best as they know how.

And I think we need to remember that Philippi Christian Church is not the whole church on earth. There are still people who joyfully leave everything and give themselves to a simple life of poverty and service. There are still people who leave the world of business and power to preach and teach as pastors of the church. There are still people who leave home and country to serve the poor and carry their witness to the ends of the earth. Most may stay a little off to the side, cheering them on, but it’s still one body, still one Lord, still one kingdom that is coming.

I think the question is when. When in your life do you hear this call? When in your life do you heed it? Can you heed it while you are still concerned about spouses and family, your town and your earthly nation? In some ways the path of staying in the world, but not of the world, seems to me the harder path, because always you are there being tempted and cajoled and persuaded that the ways of the world are where you should put your trust. I guess that’s why I’m here, why I left the world, to remind you each week where you hope really lies.

The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe this good news.

Amen.