Third Sunday After EpiphanyYear B, RCL
January 24, 2021North Fork Ministry
Gospel:Mark 1:14-20
Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news."
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. And Jesus said to them, "Follow me and I will make you fish for people." And immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him.
Aspiring preachers are taught, in homiletics classes, to avoid trying to preach on three or four of the lessons in a single sermon. Choose one, or at most two, we are told, from among the Old Testament, Psalm, Epistle, and Gospel readings, otherwise, your sermon risks becoming a muddle of confusion. But every once in awhile, such a consistent theme emerges from the four readings, that I can’t avoid taking that risk.
Let’s start with Jonah. In the snippet of the story of Jonah we read today, where the Lords tells Jonah to go to Ninevah and proclaim God’s message. Jonah marches across the great metropolis, letting the people know that the city will be destroyed in 40 days. The people repent and the city is spared. Nice story. But you may recall that this tidy little tale is preceded by Jonah’s encounter with a great fish.
The Lord had come to Jonah and told him to “Go at once to Ninevah, a wicked city, and “cry out against it.” “Occupy Ninevah”, the Lord might have said. But instead, Jonah jumped on a ship headed in the opposite direction. A great storm arose. The sailors determined that Jonah was the cause of their calamity and Jonah knew it was true, so the sailors tossed him into the sea, and the sea ceased to rage. Then a large fish swallowed Jonah and he spent three days in the slimy darkness of a giant fish’s belly, crying out to the Lord for forgiveness.
And then “the Lord spoke to the fish, and it spewed Jonah out open the dry land”.
Everyone knows this part of the story. It’s part of the popular imagination. But what follows in the next chapter is less known, and far less celebrated. Jonah’s campaign among the Ninevites was a complete success and God changed God’s mind and spared the city. But this made Jonah angry because he seemed a fool for making a prediction that didn’t come to pass. He thought God was being too merciful, so he sulked. God understood Jonah’s anger, so he caused a bush to grow up quickly and provide shade to comfort Jonah. Jonah liked the bush and it made him happy.
So God caused a worm to attack the bush, and the bush withered. The sun rose hot, a sultry east wind blew round him, and Jonah, responding to the harsh elements, wished that he could just die.
Jonah’s happiness, and his despair, were both completely dependent on how brightly the sun shone and on which way the wind blew.
Unwilling to follow God’s direction for his life, Jonah fled, thinking he could sail away from his mission. Tossed by storms and then drowning in a tempestuous sea, God rescues him, gives him the dark, quiet, refuge found within the belly of a beast of the sea. A place where he could come to his senses. And in this state of tranquility, Jonah repents.
Once on dry land, still retaining the sense of God’s presence he had encountered in the solitude of the whale’s belly, Jonah lived into his mission, carrying God’s message to the Ninevites. But then, when things didn’t go as planned, Jonah reverted to a pattern of emotional reaction to his immediate circumstances – forgetting that his happiness and his well-being were dependent, not on which way the wind blows, not on the circumstances that arise around him, but on following his destiny.
“God has spoken once, twice have I heard it,” the psalmist wrote. It’s a cryptic verse, a suitable phrase to use as a mantra, to repeat over and over, to meditate upon. A clue to it’s meaning, I think, is found in the opening verse of the psalm, “For God alone my soul in silence waits.” It is in silence, the psalmist tells us, that we can hear God’s voice.
Silence, whether it be in the belly of the whale, in contemplative prayer, or sitting on a meditation pillow, may be the only place where we can escape the clamor of voices that would call us to paths unintended. Otherwise, we are likely to just respond to the voice that calls the loudest.
Our quest here on this earth is to find ourselves in alignment with God’s will. We can seek after that which is pleasurable, striving to avoid whatever makes us uncomfortable, or we can seek after that which is good and right and meant to be.
We can resist following what the universe has in mind for us and, for a time, fool ourselves into thinking that it’s going to turn out all right. But one day, when you have, like Jonah, sought refuge under the shade of a bush, you will find that suddenly the bush has withered, and you are exposed to the brutal noonday sun.
And here is where the gospel comes in.
The good news that John the Baptist proclaimed is that the Kingdom of God is upon us. We have been called, like the fishermen plying their trade on the waters of the Sea of Galilee, to follow Jesus. Inherent in that calling is a directive: work for peace, strive for justice, show compassion. Practice your faith, live your life in the manner that Jesus demonstrated to his disciples.
The good news contained within that call to discipleship, is that it doesn’t matter whether we stand in sun or shade, whether the wind blows for ill or good. Our immediate circumstances are of little import. As difficult as it may be for us to accept, the core of our being isn’t even dependent on who is President or whether or not we are in the midst of a pandemic. It doesn’t really matter whether we meet together in church on gather online. The present, the now, is the portal to the infinite aspect of being.
The call to mission issued to Simon and Andrew and the sons of Zebedee was an occasion of great rejoicing. It no longer mattered whether their nets were full of fish or empty. Because of their encounter with the Christ, their lives now had purpose. And so do ours.