Mark 1:14-20
When’s the
last time you felt like a day or an experience was just dragging along? Were
you at work? Stuck in a traffic jam or
some other long line? I sure hope it wasn’t a recent time here in
worship!
We speak of feeling like days and
experiences are dragging because we
know what it means to literally drag an object. I very recently dragged this year’s
beautiful six foot Christmas tree out of our home and down into the backyard
woods. Fortunately, I remembered it
needed to be undecorated first.
Dragging – whether feeling it or
doing it -- is part of life. Though it
can seem boring and burdensome to experience, it can also benefit our lives and
our being part of community. So when
time seems to be moving slowly, it can also bring about the blessing of some
extra rest or extra productivity. That needle-dropping
tree sure needed to be liberated from our living room and returned to its
wooded home. And long lines just might be the result of
good safety measures.
I mention all this because I find it
quite fascinating that Jesus’ very first disciples were professionals of the
dragging process. The one primary
skillset they all had in common was one that Jesus knew would be most helpful
to this divine purpose. They were all
skilled at dragging fishing nets.
According to the Gospels, Jesus’s
three year ministry happened all around the great freshwater lake in Galilee. He was from this region. He knew the vital importance of life on the
shoreline and how the community had to intricately work together to support
itself. Fish was the staple diet of the
people. Catching fish was therefore
very big business, business needed to feed and employ families as well as make
a profit for the Roman Empire that ruled the land. It
really isn’t at all surprising that He first found fishermen to be his
followers. There were plenty of them!
From what I’ve come to understand,
one of the nets fisherman used in that day was a kind of trawl net. It was let out from the end of boat and was
weighted in a way that it sort of stood in the water. When the boat moved forward, the nets four
corners were drawn together. In this
way, it became like a big bag moving through water and enclosing fish.[i] This process required of the fisherman a
willingness to work long, hard hours on the water. It required skill and patience and hope that
the haul would be worth all the effort.
I suspect there were times when long days of dragging felt as if they
were, well, dragging.
As we read in this morning’s lesson
from the first chapter of Mark, Jesus first approached two sets of sibling
fisherman – Simon (later called Peter) and Andrew, as well as James and
John. He did so to offer them a radical
invitation. He invited them to leave
their livelihood behind and start a new vocation. He asked in a way that exhorted them to do
so immediately. No two week notice. No checking with their families first. Immediately. There is more to this historical experience
than Mark is telling us, but the point is they indeed dropped their nets and
got immediately caught up in what Jesus asked of them. We have to wonder what was so very
compelling that they would make such a big, life-altering decision.
Mark’s Gospel indicates they did so
because they faithfully believed Jesus’ proclamation that the Kingdom of God
was at hand. To fully understand what
the biblical meaning of the “Kingdom of God” is we’d honestly all have to sit
and have a lengthy class of study together.
It’s really good seminary lecture stuff. For our limited time together here this
morning in worship, I find it most helpful to point out that this does not
refer to a place but a way of living. It’s
not a cloudbank up above with gold-bricked streets and a gorgeous castle with a
dazzling-crowned King Jesus just sitting around waiting to be served.
Jesus’ bold invitation was to follow
His radically active and different kind of reign. Instead of dragging fishing nets, He asked
his first disciples to drag a divine net.
Not to entrap people as we might immediately come to think. Not to force people into being the oppressed
subjects of a self-serving empire such as was true for so many of God’s
children living under the thumb of the Roman Empire. Jesus words and actions, His Lordship,
focused instead on liberation from the sin that creates institutional
injustice.
The divine net He asked his disciples
to take up was for the purpose of catching more and more children of God up in
long-promised holy plans for love, peace, hope, justice and redemption.
Jesus asked because He was the flesh
and bone fulfillment of this promised peaceable dominion. With their hard work ethic and their faithful
hopes of a better life for their families and all the kin of their historic
faith, those first fisherman needed no second prompting from Jesus. They did not drag themselves into this new
way of life.
How are we modern day disciples
doing with our dragging of the divine net?
What are we doing to stay caught up in the holy kingdom living of our
Lord? How much are we doing to catch
others up in the loving, just, hope-filled, redeeming way of life? Are we dragging with joyful immediacy in
every moment, believing Christ is truly present among us and indeed reigns over
all the sin and evil of our world? Or
are we dragging our feet, passively and unproductively waiting on the reign of
Christ to just happen sometime in a distant future?
Earlier this week, I read a
compelling article on discipleship and church life today by Professor David
Lose of Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. Church is, as I’ve always understood it,
where we gather together to be in the boat and learn how to cast the divine net
of peace, hope, love and justice in Christ.
The professor lifts up the sobering reality that church participation
continues its past 40 years of being in decline. Of the many studies on this topic – and I do
try hard to keep up with the reading – he points to one particular reason why
the immediacy of discipleship, of casting out kingdom living in this world, is
dragging. He writes,
“We’ve moved from an age of duty –
where you do things because you know you’re supposed to – to the age of
discretion – where, nearly overwhelmed with choices about how to spend your
time, you exercise discretion based on how it helps you make sense of and get
the most out of your life.”
He then boils his point down further
to say, “Attending church isn’t a cultural given anymore and there are a whole
lot more options on how you might profitably spend your Sunday morning.” [ii]
Since I agree with this based on my
past fourteen years of ordained ministry, let me immediately say how grateful I
am that all of you have gathered here this morning! Especially on a day when two beautiful new
disciples in this family boat that is FPC have been welcomed by the waters of
baptism. As to how we all might be an
even more positive, productive holy fishing crew together to help offset the
decline in dragging the divine net of peace and justice, here are three things
we can focus on. These are based on a
book I’m currently reading and discussing with colleagues in Newton Presbytery
called From the Outside In, Connecting to the Community Around You.
First, we need to become even more
fully immersed in mission. This means
that we keep our focus foremost on what the reign of Jesus we are taught by
Mark’s Gospel is all about. Namely, “bringing
healing, liberation, and renewal”[iii]
to more and more people’s lives. This
involves our remaining active with and adding to our social justice ministries
such as IHN, ASP and Open Cupboard, and it also means seeing our everyday
ordinary actions and interactions in kingdom context.
Second, we should take even more
seriously our role as witnesses to the Way of Jesus within our culture. This should be a holistic endeavor, not a narrow
and programmatic one. How are we salt
and light for one another in this congregation?
In our neighborhoods? In our
places of work and recreation? We
should be willing to “add the flavor of the Gospel to daily dialogue …
therefore enhancing the human experience of God.”[iv]
Third and finally, for this morning
anyway, we need to keep focused on ministry being the calling of every person
in the church. We are all in the boat
working to cast forth Christ vision and action -- ordained Ministers of Word
and Sacrament, ordained Elders and Deacons, faithful laypersons, worship and
prayer chain participants, folks who donate time and talent in a myriad of
small ways. All of us need to energetically
and resourcefully pool together to expand the focus of ministry to “every issue
within the human experience” and for the purpose of “reflecting the concern of
Jesus that all person may have life in abundance.”[v]
The dragging process of being disciples
of Jesus is a necessary, beautiful, positive, productive gift to the
world. It may well feel burdensome at
times, but I find is a healthy indicator of passionate, dedicated work being
done. It may well lead to feeling bored
and stuck at other times, but I find this is always a spiritual summons to promptly
pick-up and cast the good divine net further.
Jesus keeps urgently commanding we follow, for the Kingdom of God is in
the holy of right now. May we do so
with fresh energy, faithful imagination, strong ropes of hope, and above all,
abundant and immediate demonstrations of divine love. Amen.
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