Sermon: Mark 1: 14-20 (Epiphany 3B)

Christ Church Riverdale, 22 January 2006 (Sunday of Annual Parish Meeting)

The Rev. Robert C. Lamborn, Rector

 ^NRS Mark 1:14 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.

“Immediately they left their nets and followed him.”  Immediately is a word Mark likes to use in his gospel--immediately this and immediately that--unmediated--nothing comes in the middle, nothing in between.  Jesus says, “Follow me,” and the fishermen, who are casting their nets leave all of that behind--just drop them in mid-cast,       and immediately follow Jesus.  James and John, too, are working with their nets; they’re done fishing for the morning and are mending the tears that always seem to get into the nets so they won’t get worse–a stitch in time saves nine.  This time it seems even more jarring: not only do the ones Jesus called leave their nets,  they also leave the boat and their poor father behind! 

 Now some people look at the story and say it couldn’t possibly be that simple.  They say Jesus must have already known these people, already been teaching them, working with them, so that they knew at least some of what they were getting into when they heard him call.  Surely they wouldn’t just follow some stranger who says, “Follow me.”  I tend to think that myself, but the text itself doesn’t tell us one way or the other.  At any rate, whether Jesus has been holding inquirers’ classes or the new disciples just follow him cold, it’s still about the most radical decision you could make.  Here comes this guy saying repent and follow--repent, that is think again, change your mind, turn around–let your whole way of thinking and understanding be new and turn right around and go in another direction.  Turn toward me, and away from those fish nets--the only way you’ve known to make a living.  And they do it.  Immediately, they do it.

And what about those nets anyway?      What about those nets, that Simon and Andrew were casting into the sea as Jesus called, the nets that they just let sink into the water as they turned to follow Jesus.  Those nets were a big investment--after the boat, the biggest capital expense of a fisherman.  Those nets were their livelihood, their meal ticket.  But not any more for Simon and Andrew.  They set out on a new way of life, while their nets become more and more waterlogged and sink deeper toward the bottom of the lake.  Meanwhile, James and John decide to let their father and the hired hands worry about mending their nets.  These are the first two calls Jesus makes; the first thing Mark tells us about his public ministry, what he does after the hour was fulfilled. And both of these calls were to fishermen, who were working with nets, but left them behind.  Is there anything to their being fishermen?              Or, if you’ll forgive me the pun, “What’s in a net?”

One definition I’ve heard of a net is that it’s millions of tiny holes sewn together: in other words it’s a way to bind together little pieces of nothing.  A net is a way for us to capture things, to catch them and so those holes we’ve sewn together can’t get too big or they’ll let what we’ve caught escape.  Even though a net by definition involves holes, we don’t want to get what we call a hole in our net.  Nets can be clumsy; they can be heavy and awkward, especially when they’re wet (Peter, Andrew, James and John didn’t have synthetic fibers), and they can be dangerous--we can find ourselves getting tangled up in the very nets that are supposed to be our tools.  Sometimes people are tangled up in nets and washed overboard; sometimes they are tangled up just enough that they can’t move very well. 

We could say that it’s out of those tangles that Jesus calls Simon and Andrew and James and John, saying, “Follow me.”  He doesn’t say, here’s a set of theological propositions and I want you to give intellectual assent to them.  He doesn’t say, I want you to be namby-pamby nice all the time so that people will walk all over you.  He says, “Follow me.  From now on, you’ll be doing a different kind of fishing.  In this kind of fishing, people’s hearts and minds are what you’re after; in this kind of fishing, your nets will be your words and your example.  What you’ll be about is snagging people for God.”  And notice Jesus doesn’t say where they’re going– not “Follow me to Jerusalem,” for example, or “Meet you at the Temple at noon next Thursday.”

Following Jesus is going to be about relationship and trust rather than figuring out the quickest way to a certain destination.  But first there are nets to leave behind, and we may feel tangled in them--layer after layer of nets. The layers that say we’ll only be happy after we buy a certain computer, then all the right clothes, and they maybe the right car.  The layers that say what’s really important is how much we make--or how much other people think we make.  Layers that say our self worth is the same thing as our net worth, or our job, or our education, or our connections.  Layers that say we always have to be hip or cool or sophisticated or popular.  Layers that say what is important is skin-deep beauty instead of heart-deep integrity. Layers that say the only important thing is what I want.  All these layers of net tangle us up, keep us from moving freely, they keep us from the full life we were created for.

We hear this call of Jesus’ to follow on the Sunday of the annual parish meeting.  All Christians called to follow, but after the service we will talk about the specifics of how this particular and unique parish most faithfully accomplishes that--how we maintain and grow our relationship with God and each other and become freed from any nets that would hinder us from following that God’s love may be shared with a world that sorely needs it.  How do we do it?  “Give us grace,” we prayed at the beginning of the service “to answer readily the call of our Savior Jesus Christ and to proclaim . . . the Good News. . . .”  We answer Christ’s call not by our own power, not by white-knuckling, but by God’s grace, and the benefit of answering isn’t just so that others will hear the good news, but as we prayed, “that we and the whole world may perceive the glory of [God’s] marvelous works.”  Answering Christ’s call by God’s grace makes us free to become all God has created us to be, free to help snag people for God in the divine net that is the priceless and beautiful Good News, free to experience fully and deeply and joyfully with all creation the marvelous things God has done and, I would say, is continuing to do, and will continue to do, including through Christ Church Riverdale.