SEASIDE UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST January 21, 2018 Third Sunday After the Epiphany / Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B A New Way of Being by Rev. Dr. Joseph Francis Cistone LECTIONARY TEXTS: Psalm 62 adapted and read by Deacon Karen Pinkham Our first reading this morning is from the Book of Jonah, Chapter 3, verses 1 through five and verses 10 The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying, "Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you." So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days' walk across. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's walk. And he cried out, "Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!" And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth. When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed God s mind about the calamity that God had said God would bring upon them; and God did not do it. Our Gospel Reading this morning is from Mark, Chapter 1, verses 14 through 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. The word of the Lord!
DRAFT SERMON NOTES A New Way of Being Good Morning Everyone! It s good to see you on this Championship Sunday with football on many of our minds and after the eventful week behind us with commemorations of Martin Luther King, a 2 nd Annual Women s March, a counter Women s pro-life gathering, and now another government shutdown. Last weeks Sermon, as those of you who are here know, was rather heavy with its focus on Temporarily Protected Status, our history with El Salvador in particular, and all the lives being impacted by these potential changes in DACA, TPS, and Immigration policy in general. It I didn t leave us much time to speak about the Epiphany though I know Deb did on the 7 th or the Gospel Reading from John with Jesus beginning to call his Disciples Philip and Nathaniel in last week s case. Well this week I d like to focus a bit more on that call of how God in Jesus calls us to A NEW WAY OF BEING! And, today s Reading from Mark also sets a similar story in place. Except this time we are in Mark. So, before we begin here s a trick question for you that if you have been paying attention for the last year and a half?.. you should know the answer to: What is the first Gospel? Is it Matthew as most of us were taught and our Bible orders things Mathew, 2
Mark, Luke, and John OR someone else? [Hands?] RIGHT, it s Mark! Mark is three things, (among others): the FIRST, the SHORTEST so much so that a friend of mine in Massachusetts goes around the country performing the Gospel from memory in one sitting AND the primary source for Mathew and Luke! So it s important that we understand that before we dig into today s story. Why, because Mark doesn t have time to mess around! Ted Smith captures the urgency well when he proclaims: Mark begins like an alarm clock, persistently declaring the time and demanding some response," (Feasting on the Word Year B, Vol. 1). 1 Everything in Mark is URGENT the URGENCY of God s Call to each of us AND the expectation that Jesus is going to come back soon. So Mark jumps right in. No Angels speaking to Mary or Joseph, no trip to visit cousin Elisabeth, no Roman census, no flight to Egypt, no Shepherds, Stable, or Wise Men (Magicians perhaps) from the East Nope, none of that! Just Jesus on a beach not too dissimilar from the one out our windows this morning. Jesus at the Sea of Galilee calling his first four disciples with only a cursory reference to Jesus Baptism by John and time in the wilderness to build upon. 1 In this portion of my Sermon I am drawing largely from the commentary by Kate Huey in her Sermon Seeds for January 21, 2018. 3
So there is Jesus on the shore calling Simon who we will come to know as Peter and his brother Andrew. Two fisherfolk so poor they cast their nets from the shore. And, then calling James and John, Zebedee s son, who leave their father behind with hired men to run the family boat. We may not notice this easily but Jesus is calling four VERY different kind of men. The poorest of the poor, if you will: Peter and Andrew fishing from the shore as I ve seen off the Kerala Coast of South India so may time backbreaking work, men at each end of a cove, relying on the tide to bring fish back in as they heave & ho in the midday or early evening sun. And some fairly wealthy folks within their social context James and John with their boat and hired men. To take it local: Think of someone who fishes these shores with a ½ a million dollar boat and five hundred traps vs. a poor, high school kid in Tremont dropping his five pots from a pea pod! That s some contrast and one I think most of us can identify well with, can t we?! But Jesus calls them both and in the provincial backwater of Galilee no less this man from Nazareth from which nothing good can come as we reflected upon last week! not in Jerusalem, Damascus, or Rome! NO! This Jesus is here on the shore, calling these rather simple men, to drop everything and follow-him. Why, might we ask, do they. Well, there s all kinds of suppositions: 4
Jesus clearly had serious charisma! Fishing can be tedious at best we know here in Maine, with the waiting, weather-dependency, tending of boats and nets, hiring folks who might decide to quit any day for a better gig But we don t hear from Mark that Peter, Andrew, James, and John had seen Jesus baptized by John (maybe they had heard about it) so we can t just assume they knew he was special somehow certainly not special enough just to drop everything and follow! And later in Mark, he is rather scathing in how he potrays these same men with a bit more tolerance for John as ignorant and stubborn. So it can t be that they were just smart enough to figure out just how important Jesus would be for them. So why? Well, for one, I believe it s because that when we encounter God we know it somehow, don t we? How many of you have felt God s presence at times and in ways you couldn t understand? I know I have: At the birth of my kids; By the side of someone I loved dying; On a morning hike up Day Mountain or on Seal Harbor Beach at sunrise, or sunset, (just behind me); In times of joy and suffering both here and abroad. Somehow God just breaks in and we can t help but feel God s presence in 5
our lives! So think of those times when you wonder how Peter, Andrew, James, and John just jumped ship and jumped in. And to help us visualize this I ve brought some photos from our time in Italy of two of my favorite paintings by perhaps my favorite painter, Caravaggio: 1) The Calling of Saint Matthew (a tax collector); 2) The Crucifixion of Peter; 3) You can even cheat (depending on the book you have) and take a glimpse at the Calling of Saul/Paul as well. What strikes you?... What strikes me the lighting as always, the sharp contrast between light and dark, a Caravaggio calling card is their faces. Look at Matthew pointing at himself as Jesus points at him (Caravaggio s face is on the man avoiding Jesus s eyes almost always in his paintings, and always a figure of failure but that s another sermon) Matthew wondering, how can you be calling me? A tax collector, one of the dregs of Hebrew Society? And look at Peter s face, after all he has been through called on the shores of Galilee, failing to walk to Jesus on that same lake, denying Jesus three times, and now asking to be crucified upside down not worthy of his Savior s fate. That s A FACE OF SOMEONE CALLED BUT STILL AFRAID! 6
A face like all of ours when we are fearful and afraid of what s new, what s different what s happening in our nation how things are not like we imagined. And yet, we too are called! The question from this morning s text is not whether we would drop anything EVERYTHING!... to follow Jesus, but if we TRULY BELIEVE that Jesus calls us? Calls us despite our foibles and failings? Calls us apart from our material comfort here on MDI? Loves us and calls us to be the very best essence of ourselves [MAYBE--through the trials and tribulations of life just as an Umbrian Olive Press squeezes out the most essential essence, the very best, for the Olive Oil itself]. 2 Jesus came to Peter, Andrew, James, and John, Mary and Martha, and so many others at a time when Israel was tired of being under Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, and Rome. To a people longing for a Messiah and wondering when that Messiah would deliver them. He came from a village and a region no one could have ever imagined perhaps the most important person in history would come from. But Jesus called his disciples then, like God called Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks some sixty years ago, and God calls each of us today to be the 2 From Lelania at 8am on 1.21.18 but not of her creation 7
that best version of ourselves. Let me restate that as I heard some time ago from a Hebrew Scholar whose name I can t recall just now: we are not called to be someone other than ourselves Jesus, Mary, King, Gandhi God calls us to be the best, truest, version of ourselves! Not just to change the world, but to a New Way of Being: to know that we are loved [not loathed] and from that place of loving kindness to be willing to change ourselves to be the best that we can be! Amen! 8