FIRST STEPS First in the Sermon Series With Jesus on the Lakeshore Mark 1: 14 20 April 26, 2015 McCormick United Methodist Church, McCormick, SC Paul A. Wood, Jr. All scripture quotations are taken from The Message, a paraphrase written by Eugene Peterson. In January of 1989, Kay and I were able to travel to the State of Israel. We left South Carolina and flew into JFK. A few hours later we joined several dozen other United Methodist clergy and spouses, walked into a 747, and then landed at Ben Gurion Airport around sunset on the following day. After customs and a long bus ride through the dark, followed by a late dinner, we spent what was left of that night in a hotel on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. I knew where Kay and I were going; I knew we had arrived; I knew where I had finally gotten into bed that first night. But my real location on Planet Earth did not get into my weary head until after breakfast. Our first activity in Israel was to get onto small pontoon boats. Before long we were gazing out at the hills which surround that large, natural lake we call the Sea of Galilee. Someone started reading scripture about Jesus encountering fishermen on the Sea of Galilee.and then it finally hit me. And I started crying. My crying went on a long time. I was at the lake where Simon and Andrew, and James and John, and thousands of other fortunate people had met my Savior Jesus Christ. I was at the lake around which Jesus grew up and went to synagogue and learned the scriptures and prayers and healed the sick and ministered to thousands of fortunate people. I was on the lake on which Jesus had walked. I was on the lake which had a terrific storm which Jesus calmed with a few words. I was in view of the hill where Jesus had preached the Sermon on the Mount. And I cried. I had grown accustomed to drawings of Galilee and seeing black and white photos and faded color photos of the region of Galilee. They all made the terrain look dry and grey and colorless and..well. dry. But that morning I was struck by the beauty and lushness of the place. Yes, we were there in January; winter is about the only time it rains; and spring comes early in that part of the world. But
2 the hills surrounding the lake were green with grass and with winter grains which were growing toward the sky. I discovered that Galilee is drop-dead gorgeous. And my God had blessed his Son by having him grow up and go to synagogue and learn the scriptures and prayers and conduct most of his ministry right there. What a blessing! I m sure it started as a hum-drum day. Get up before dawn. Gather your equipment (mainly casting nets). Launch your small boat and hope for the best. The lives of Simon and Andrew and James and John and many other locals depended on a steady supply of fish to eat and to sell. That was their life and their livelihood commercial fishing. The lake is very deep and several miles wide and usually provides plenty of fish. But that day turned out to be anything but hum-drum for those fishermen and their families. It was probably in the afternoon, and the boats had returned to shore. The fishermen were drying their catch, repairing nets and a casting a few more times while wading. Then the two sets of brothers were approached by a man a carpenter s son from Nazareth. After John was arrested, Jesus went to Galilee preaching the Message of God: Time s up! God s kingdom is here. Change your life and believe the Message. Passing along the beach of Lake Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew net-fishing. Fishing was their regular work. Jesus said to them, Come with me. I ll make a new kind of fisherman out of you. I ll show you how to catch men and women instead of perch and bass. They didn t ask questions. They dropped their nets and followed. A dozen yards or so down the beach, he saw the brothers James and John, Zebedee s sons. They were in the boat, mending their fishnets. Right off, he made the same offer. Immediately, they left their father Zebedee, the boat, and the hired hands, and followed. (Mark 1:14 20) And so began the journey of discipleship for them and for many, many others. I just called it a journey of discipleship. Those men, plus other men and women, would travel on foot with Jesus for about three years. But discipleship is a spiritual journey and Christ bids all people to follow him in that journey.
3 A spiritual journey with Jesus is one which thrill us and terrifies us. A spiritual journey with Jesus take us into realms we never dreamed of experiencing.or asked to experience! A spiritual journey with Jesus challenge us to the core. A journey with Jesus is the real thing. A journey with Jesus is the best journey a person can take, and there is no rule that the start line has to be in Galilee. That just happened to be the starting place for those two pairs of brothers. People have been stumbling over this story for years and years. Lay people trip up over the idea that Simon and Andrew just dropped their nets and started their discipleship journey. Clergy stumble over the idea that James and John could have just left their boats and the hired hands and their father and just walked away. But that is what the Gospel of Mark tells us: Immediately, they left their father Zebedee, the boat, and the hired hands, and followed. Our rational, modern minds conclude that this was not the first meeting between Jesus and those men. They had met him. They had heard him. They had watched him heal some people. They probably did some informal background checks about this carpenter s son who grew up just over the hills in Nazareth. Our rational, modern minds take it ever further. Our minds just cannot absorb the concept that any sane person would simply and without hesitation obey a command like that one: Follow me! So we imagine Jesus suggesting that he might invite them to follow him. We say to ourselves that Jesus started talking with them during the weeks or months leading up to that amazing day. Surely, Jesus brought up the subject over a meal or after prayers at the synagogue. Surely, Jesus explained what it would mean to follow him, and surely Jesus invited them to give thought and consideration to the possibility! Surely they gave it lots of thought, discussed it all with their families and prayed about it, as many of us are prone to do. The lay leader at church asks us to lead a new ministry, to try out some skills and interests we ve never used before. So we go home and pray about it and talk about it with our spouse and make two columns on a scratch sheet of paper. One column is the reasons to accept the request the pros. The other column is the reasons to say no to the invitation to take on the project the cons. (One con, of course, is that you ve never done it before. You re not sure they are recruiting the right person for the job.) Column A and Column B. We say Honey, let s sit down and talk about whether or not I should say yes to this. A few days later we call or shall we say we answer the call to this invitation to serve God in some new and
4 challenging way. We answer the call by staying in the boat with the hired hands and dear old dad. Or we answer the call by asking When do we start? Now, let s get straight about today s sermon. It is not about the process of deciding whether to do something for your church or for the local arts association or for a helping agency in town or for the garden club. This is a sermon about discipleship. Why? Because the Gospel of Mark is about discipleship. What we have before us today is the decision to follow Jesus. It s just hard to imagine anyone dropping everything to follow Jesus. So many of us respond with these words: Well, I just don t have that much faith to head out the way the fishermen did, dropping everything and never looking back. Maybe someday I ll have that kind of faith, but I know I don t have it now. So we exclaim to each other about the immense faith which those four men showed that day on the beach. Then we look more closely at the passage and at the Gospel of Mark and at the entire New Testament. We might guess that it was strong faith that led the four fishermen to drop their nets. But we would be wrong. It was obedience to the authority of Jesus which drove them to follow Jesus. Maybe I should not have even mentioned what it s like to decide whether to take on a program or take a leadership position. That s a watery soup compared to the banquet feast of obeying the call of discipleship. That s the children s game of skipping over a mud puddle without getting your feet wet compared to the giant, all-for-nothing leap that it is to follow Jesus. The amazing German Christian martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote about this passage: This encounter is a testimony to the absolute, direct, and unaccountable authority of Jesus. Bonhoeffer points out in the book that he wrote soon before the Nazis put him to death (The Cost of Discipleship is the title) that it is Jesus who calls the disciples and Jesus who is obeyed. The men don t get some detailed description of what they will do as disciples. And they don t get an invitation, either. They get an order. It s not just a carpenter s son from across the way in Nazareth that they obey. It is God s Son that they obey. This man from Nazareth has authority, and they respond with obedience. So we don t develop our faith so that someday we might be obedient to Jesus. We start by being obedient, and faith deepens as we follow Jesus. Some of us here have been through Disciple, a wonderful group Bible study which covers the basics of the Bible and invites people to be disciples of Jesus. (We are offering it
5 this fall. Check with Don Tummons or sign up through the church office.) The Disciple book says that Faith is not belief without proof; faith is obedience without reservation. (page 29) I try to speak for Jesus in my sermons, and I am speaking for Jesus in this sermon. But I know I can t issue a command on Jesus behalf. I might dare to say something like Jesus commands you to follow him. But my words would only be an invitation. The one who issues the command to follow (to be a disciple of Jesus) is Jesus. I hope that you recognize his authority. I hope that you respond with obedience to his call. I hope that you are not assessing the cost of following Jesus and making a list of pros and cons. I hope that you are being obedient to Jesus. I hope that you are obeying him from the time you wake up in the morning until the time you lay your head on the pillow. To be a disciple of Jesus is to obey the authority of God s Son. And along the way.along the path of discipleship, whether you are on that path in beautiful Galilee or in beautiful McCormick County or somewhere else. along the way I pray that you may come to know him better and better and that your faith will grow stronger and stronger! Amen. Mark 1: 14 20, NRSV 14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news [a] of God, [b] 15 and saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; [c] repent, and believe in the good news. [d] 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.