A SERMON PREACHED ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 21, 2018 AT BETHANY BEACH CHRISTIAN CHURCH, BETHANY BEACH, DE

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1 A SERMON PREACHED ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 21, 2018 AT BETHANY BEACH CHRISTIAN CHURCH, BETHANY BEACH, DE A little girl was sitting n her grandfather s lap as he read her a bedtime stry. Frm time t time, she wuld take her eyes ff the bk and reach up t tuch his wrinkled cheek. She was alternately strking her wn cheek, then his again. Finally she spke up, Grandpa, did Gd make yu? Yes, sweetheart, he answered, Gd made me a lng time ag. Oh, she paused, grandpa, did Gd make me t? Yes, indeed, hney, he said, Gd made yu just a little while ag. Feeling their respective faces again, she bserved, Gd s getting better at it, isn t he? i I thught abut this stry in preparing fr tday s sermn. Fr the past tw weeks, I ve nt been able t preach t yu, due t bad weather ne week and n heat the next. Althugh the sermns are n the website, having them preached is nt the same as reading them. Last week s sermn was n the call f the disciples, citing the Gspel f Jhn. This week s lessns are n the call f the disciples, citing the Gspel f Mark. One wuld think by nw we d be pretty gd at telling the stry since we re using the same themes tw weeks in a rw. Were we in a seminary class, the jb wuld be t take the tw stries frm tw different gspels, cmpare and cntrast the tw, and see where the differences are. But as I already pretty much did that last week, where d we g frm there? We culd d a review, f curse, but it d be better nce yu ve had a chance t read last week s sermn n the website, if yu feel s inclined. I think the best curse, therefre, is nt t g ver familiar territry, since that wuld als include ur wn persnal calls t be Disciples f Christ, a subject we ve examined at length in last years sermns. What wuld be interesting t examine wuld be if the gspel text fr this mrning ffers anything new. The first thing t keep in mind is that Mark was the earliest f the gspel writers, and that Luke and Matthew used Mark t write their gspels, expanding n his stries t fit their wn agenda. Mark presents the bare basics, and he des it at a rapid pace, using the wrd immediately ( euthys, in Greek) 42 times. ii In like manner, an amazing 410 f the 678 verses in the gspel begin with the wrd and (the Greek wrd, kai). iii With these tw terms at nearly every turn f the text, the gspel rushes alng t tell the stry with a great sense f purpse. This is particularly true in relating the call f Andrew and Peter, James and Jhn. They hear Jesus, they drp everything they are ding, they take seemingly nthing with them, and g. Immediately. Because f their placement in the stry, ne gets the idea that they must have already been fllwers f Jhn the Baptist, s maybe they already knew what it meant t be a disciple and t fllw. It certainly had t be dangerus fr them as Jhn the Baptist had just been arrested and put int prisn. He was imprisned as a result f his wn actins. He was willing t sacrifice his freedm and then his life because f what he believed. Jhn had publicly criticized the king,

2 Herd Antipas, fr his marriage t Herdias, the frmer wife f Antipas' wn brther, which Jhn dared t preach was immral. iv Yet the fur decided t fllw Jesus anyway, despite the danger it brught with it. Jesus had nt criticized Herd, but being baptized by Jhn and preaching things that angered the religius and plitical leaders f the day made him a target fr arrest als. Indeed, thrughut his ministry, he was almst taken int custdy n several ccasins, until his ultimate cntainment in the Garden f Gethsemane during the third and final year f his wrk amng the peple f Galilee. As he calls the disciples, Jesus gives them a message that given its brevity must have seemed very cmpelling. The time has cme," he said. "The kingdm f Gd has cme near. Repent and believe the gd news!" Then as he walked beside the Sea f Galilee, he saw Simn and his brther Andrew casting a net int the lake, fr they were fishermen. "Cme, fllw me," Jesus said, "and I will send yu ut t fish fr peple." Why was this message s fascinating that men wuld leave their livelihd and g? It culd nt have been because Jesus had a reputatin as a gd fisherman; frm all we knw, he was a carpenter s sn and wrked in his father s business. He is later in the Gspel f Jhn called the Gd Shepherd - - nthing f fish here S I wnder, what in his message r demeanr cmpelled this rather rag-tag grup t get up and g? It must have been the apcalyptic visin that the kingdm f Gd was near. That wuld be gd news, smething that ne wuld want t be part f, participate in. It wuld be as if ne were t prclaim tday, cme, see, there is a new presidency at hand. Lk hw this might happen, sign up nw t be a part f the mvement I m sure were this t happen, there wuld be flks wh wuld wish t participate, sme whm might leave everything and all that they have t see it happen, especially if it were, as indicated in Mark, abut t take place immediately. Still, it had nt happened, and the message itself was rather thin, thugh lng awaited and expected. What made Jesus versin f it s exciting, s wrthy f ntice? Yu ll ntice that Jesus des nt even tell the fishermen what they will be asked t d (merely fllw at this pint), nr des he tell them where they are ging. Except the fact that they are ging t be peple-fishers, there is nt a lt f prmise in Jesus call. And what culd he pssibly mean by that? They dn t find ut, just immediately fllw. And s the rest f the gspel is set up t tell us just hw Jesus ges with these and ther disciples abut the missin f reeling flks int the Way, the Truth, and the Life that he has t ffer. We call it and knw it as kingdm wrk. Yet, despite the ffer it makes fr a better wrld, we re cntent - - sme wuld say, very cntent, t let things be as they are. As C.S. Lewis nce wrte, we are far t easily satisfied.

3 We re like a child wh turns dwn an invitatin fr a day at the beach and chses instead t stay sitting in a slum alley making mud pies just because the child really can t imagine hw much better a day at the shre can be. What culd be better than making these slimy mud pies? the child might think. Ah, if nly he knew! v Or as the Christian philspher Dallas Willard writes, when he was a by, rural electrificatin was just happening and pwer lines were being strung thrughut the cuntryside. But suppse even after the lines were up and running yu ran acrss a huse where the weary family still used nly candles and kersene lanterns fr light, used scrub bards, ice chests, and rug beaters. A better life was waiting fr them right utside their dr if nly they wuld let themselves be hked int the pwer lines. My friends, yu culd prclaim, electricity is at hand! But suppse they just didn t trust it, thught it was t much f a hassle, and anyway didn t believe the prmises that things might be easier with this newfangled juice running int their huse. If it s all the same t yu, we ll stick with the ld ways, they d muse. vi S maybe the kingdm f heaven is like that - - right utside ur dr, r perhaps in us if we pen urselves t each ther enugh t share ur gd news, ur gd wrks, ur ttal gdness, t thers, thse we knw, and thse we are abut t meet. We are prmised that it will make a great difference in all the wrld abut us. Therefre, I ask yu, just what call d we need t hear, what wrds d we need t have spken t get us ging? I can remember my mther calling us fr dinner, and we d be slw t respnd. She s reprimand us: What are yu waiting fr, an engraved invitatin? she d say. The wrds f Jesus are just that, an engraved invitatin. But will we respnd? And hw? Let me pause fr a mment and be clear what it is that is being asked f us. Nt fd, nr clthing (thugh the shelter culd prbably use a little f bth); nt mney (thugh it prbably might be helpful), nr a cmmitment t jin a cmmittee r a grup within the church (thugh we d have needs in thse arenas). We are being asked t see ur wn calls, in whatever business r retirement we find urselves, as an extensin f Christ s call t change the wrld. Have yu ever thught hw what yu d (r d nt d) culd change the wrld? As yu knw, I m a fan f Tp Ten Lists. Let me share with yu the Internet s tp 10 scientists f all time. vii Wh wuld be n yur list? By cnsensus n many sites, the tp ten are: 10. Aristtle ( BC) 9. Archimedes( BC) 8. Galile ( AD) 7. Michael Faraday ( AD) 6. Thmas Alva Edisn ( AD) 5. Marie Curie ( AD) 4. Luis Pasteur ( AD) 3. Sir Isaac Newtn ( AD) 2. Albert Einstein ( AD)

4 1. Nikla Tesla ( AD) Tesla surprised me, I guess because I was s unaware f all that he did. The Serbian-brn scientist is atp the list because f his immense knwledge in different fields f science and technlgy. Withut a questin, this 1856 brn guy was a cl geek. He culd speak eight languages, recite a whle bk cmpletely just with ne reading, make a device just by seeing it nce and nt writing dwn anything. Tesla had develped almst everything by himself and did nt expse any f it which later was invented by ther scientists in his time. Tesla had generated A/C current befre Edisn even knew abut charges. Marcni, wh gt the Nbel Prize fr inventing radi, used all the ideas f Tesla. X-rays by Rentgen, RADAR by Watsn- Watt were bth devised by Nikla Tesla. There was almst nthing that Tesla did nt d. The first hydr- electric plant in Niagara Falls, experiments with crygenic engineering, transistrs, and the radi wave recrder f sunds in uter space were all built by Tesla. Remte cntrl, nen lighting, the mdern electric mtr, earthquake machines are amng the finest inventins frm Tesla. He was a true genius. Tesla made a way t charge a huse with electric lightening fr electricity purpses but did nt share it thinking smebdy else wuld take his discvery and run with it (they did). This incredible mind created a revlutin with his inventins. He was a future-thinker and his mind culd run n any wavelength (n pun intended). He died tragically in a htel rm and was fund dead tw days after his death in viii That is s much we we t just ne persn s mind, t his discveries, t his willingness t share what he was thinking and ding. Did any f Tesla s inventins (r thse f the thers in the Tp Ten List) bring the kingdm f Gd nearer? I d say s! The questin is, what d we have t ffer, and are we willing t share it with thers? Each time we share a little f urselves, the call f Jesus is answered and we see a bit f Gd s kingdm breaking thrugh. Frm where I stand, lking at yu, the light emanating frm yu is nthing shrt f utstanding (albeit that as mst f us are in retirement, we may nt shine as brightly as we used t [!]). I believe we are being called t step utside f urselves, and away frm wearied ways. Therefre I lk frward t all that is pssible shuld we decide t d it tgether, immediately, nw, cmmitted t a new and renewed church life, in the days ahead. Let us nt wait. The time, and its purpse under heaven, is nw. The call is ut. We have received the invitatin. Nw let us get up and g. Amen. (The Rev. Dr.) Rayner W. Hesse, Jr. Pastr, BBCC i ii iii Ibid. iv vv vi Ibid.

5 vii viii Ibid.