Jesus Calls (2)
Mark 1:14-20
Last Sunday, we began our journey with Jesus to the mount of Transfiguration as we read about the calling of Philip and Nathanael. We saw in the story three intersections between the biblical world and our own: Jesus calls; Jesus calls different kinds of people; and called people bring people.
We continue in the same vein this week as we read another call story. It involves some of the same people, but it is reset in terms of its location (from the Jordan, near the Dead Sea, to the sea of Galilee), and it is told differently.
The text falls into two paragraphs. The opening paragraph, vv. 14-15, tells us how Mark understands the beginning of Jesus’ preaching ministry. There are a number of important observations to make.
First, John, the forerunner according to Mark’s understanding of has had his role come to an end. He has been put into prison. Not only does John’s ministry logically and chronologically precede Jesus ministry, it also foreshadows it. Just as John was “handed over” (that is the Greek phrase used), so, at the end of his own ministry, Jesus will also be “handed over” to be killed. Second, Mark makes clear that Galilee will be the center of Jesus ministry. Jesus had come to John from Galilee (1:9). Now, after his temptation in the wilderness, he comes back to Galilee. Third, Jesus’ ministry will focus on the proclamation of the good news of the kingdom. Whatever else happens—whatever miracles, whatever controversies, whatever callings—whatever else happens will serve to illustrate his preaching.
That message itself is then summarized in verse 15. It is condensed into two announcements followed by two commands. First, Jesus says, “The time is fulfilled.” The time, in other words, that the prophets—the last and greatest of which was John himself—looked forward to was now here. The second announcement then elaborates on the first. The time is fulfilled because the Kingdom of God is present. With the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, God’s rule has, in fact, already entered history.
And the response to this announcement is then made plain. Repent, that is, change your ways. And believe in the Gospel—in other words, trust that in me, the kingdom of God has come and is here. As Mark presents it, there is in Jesus’ message a deliberate confusion of the proclaimer—Jesus—and the proclaimed—the Gospel of the Kingdom. Jesus is both the one through whom the Good News is being preached and the one in whom the Kingdom comes.
In the next paragraph, we move to the call of the first four disciples: Simon, Andrew, James and John. Mark’s story opens as Jesus is walking by the sea of Galilee. And Jesus’ eyes fall upon Andrew and Peter, fishing. “Follow me,” he says, “And I will make you fish for people,” And immediately (one of Mark’s favourite phrases) they left their nets and followed him. He then walks just a little further up the beach, I imagine Andrew and Peter racing to catch up from behind, to where he sees James and John. And the scene is repeated. “And immediately” Jesus calls and the brothers leave their nets to follow Jesus (no one knows what Zebedee thought as he saw his RRSPs walking away).
There are three aspects about discipleship in this call story that draw our attention. The first is this: Jesus calls. This intenstifies the theme found in last week’s text. Jesus emerges on the scene. Jesus calls the disciples solely by means of an authoritative summons. The disciples did not choose their master—a fairly common characteristic in other Jewish call stories—the master chose them. And they obeyed.
Second, Jesus’ call has both negative and positive responses. Negatively, the disciples leave. They leave their nets; which is to say, their occupations. They leave the only means of financial security they have ever known. They leave the only means of providing for their families for which they have been trained. Not only do they leave their occupation, but James and John at least leave also their father behind. The call to discipleship for these followers of Jesus meant a radical and immediate severing of social and family ties. The theme introduced here—which will slowly intensify throughout the Gospel—is that of the cost of discipleship.
Positively, Andrew, Peter, James, and John responded by following Jesus. He called; they followed. There is no mention of deliberation. Peter did not stop fishing, call Andrew aside and weight the pros and cons. James and John did not contact an accountant and sit down with Zebedee to make the appropriate financial arrangements for the family business before they left it behind. The immediacy of their response is reinforced and intensified by Mark’s repetition of the phrase, “and immediately.”
Third, Jesus promises that these new disciples will have a new vocation. No longer will they fish for, well, fish. Now, they will fish for men and women. Why does Jesus make such a strange statement? Remember, we’re dealing with a call story. Call stories are not uncommon. They grow up around influential rabbis. Mark’s call story follows the right form, but some of the details are strikingly different. We have already seen one. Where in a typical call story we would find the disciples searching out their master, Mark has Jesus calling Andrew, Peter, James and John. Here we have another striking, if small, change. Instead of the master saying to the new followers that they will, under him, become students of the Law, the Torah, now they will fish for people.
The significance is remarkable. For in these words, Jesus has obliterated any permanent distinction in terms of status between his disciples and himself. The disciples will accompany Jesus. The disciples will learn from Jesus. The disciples will be commissioned by Jesus. All of this is true. But they will not be his inferiors. They will be trained to share in his ministry and eventually to continue it. That he called two pairs of brothers probably foreshadows the further development of this theme when Jesus will in chapter 6 send out the disciples two by two to minister to the people in the same manner as he had.
What does the Gospel have to say to us this morning? First, Jesus calls. I know. It’s a carry-over from last week. But bear with me. Far too often we want to jump to the latter part of the story. To the response of the disciples. To the stories emphasis on the immediacy and cost of discipleship. But that’s premature. Before we focus on the negative response (what we have to give up) and positive response (what we must do) to Jesus call, we must focus on the call itself.
When we do not, it is a short step to the subtle and deadly deception that we have, by our response, actually earned the call. That our response is not a response at all. That we have taken the initiative. That we have found Jesus. That we remain in control of our lives. That we have an occasion to brag. To think ourselves better.
But scripture does not say that. Scripture says that Jesus calls. Without Jesus’ call, Andrew and Peter would have kept on fishing. Without Jesus’ call, James and John would have kept on mending their nets with their Dad. The Scriptures say that God in his grace found them before they were even looking for him.
In every decision that is made, Jesus is in control. It will be our task not orchestrate events but to pray and to work in such a way that any orchestration is left to Jesus. He will call. Our job is first to listen, and then to act.
Second, Jesus calls ordinary people. Andrew and Peter, James and John. Fishermen. Business men. Not aristocracy. Caesar is in Rome, Herod in one of his palaces, Pilate in his administrative offices in Jerusalem. Jesus was in Galillee. Jesus was calling fishermen. Jesus passed over the powerful. Jesus evaded the elite. Jesus went to the weak. Jesus walked among the ordinary and the everyday in a backwater province of the Roman Empire. And when he called, he called ordinary everyday people.
And he still calls ordinary, everyday people. He called a Polish actor and student in the midst of the Nazi reign of terror in the 1930s. “And immediately,” Karol Wojtyla ended a romantic relationship, entered seminary (a capital offense under the Nazi government of Poland), and became a priest. His message to Poles under the Nazis: “Do not be afraid. Christ has triumphed. So will you.” When the Nazis were replaced by the Communists, he became a bishop. His message to Poles under a second foreign occupation was “Do not be afraid. Christ has triumphed. So will you.” When, in 1981, he stood on the balcony outside the papal apartments, his message to Poles and to all under the repressive government of the Soviet empire was “Do not be afraid. Christ has triumphed. So will you.”
How much of the 20th century was shaped by a Polish actor who heard the call of Jesus and changed the world. The real story of the collapse of Soviet style communism is not the story of power plays and armies and political machinations. It is the story of ordinary people who became convinced of the truth of the Gospel. Who became convinced that because Christ had triumphed they could look death in the eye and not blink because He had gone ahead of them and come out the other side.
Now this morning, you may well be thinking I’m not cut out to be a priest, let alone a Pope. I’m no great leader. I have no profound moral vision. And all of those statements may be perfectly true. But Jesus doesn’t call the great and the powerful. Jesus calls fishermen and actors. These are the people Jesus uses to change the world. Jesus calls ordinary people to do extraordinary things. There is no reason to believe that he will act differently here. The only question will be will we, like Andrew, Peter, James and John, leave all behind when he calls.