SUNDAY 3 rd Sunday after Epiphany (B) DATE 21 st January 2018 PREACHER The Ven Mandy Herriman Jonah 3: 1 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 the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. Then he had a proclamation made in Nineveh: By the decree of the king and his nobles: No human being or animal, no herd or flock, shall taste anything. They shall not feed, nor shall they drink water. Human beings and animals shall be covered with sackcloth, and they shall cry mightily to God. All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands. Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish. When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it. 1 Corinthians 7: 29-31 I mean, brothers and sisters, the appointed time has grown short; from now on, let even those who have wives be as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no possessions, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away. Mark 1: 14-20 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.
In the name of our God, Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier. In this digital technology world, people say we are connected more than ever. We have a multitude of ways to communicate with one another across the globe and within communities. One of the social media platforms that I have learnt about recently probably due to a lot of journalistic attention is Twitter. Now, Twitter is an interesting thing there are rules about how to use it and consequences if you break the rules. Here is what I have learnt about Twitter. You can follow someone but you can t invite someone to follow you A follower can see your tweets and you can initiate a conversation with them You can unfollow someone you have previously followed You can set up your Twitter account so that followers must apply to follow you You can actively block people from following you There are restrictions on how many characters you can use in a tweet so your statements need to be pithy and to the point I suspect Mark as a gospel writer, would have liked Twitter he is very blunt and to the point. Each word he uses is selected carefully to imbue as much meaning as he can. And his is the shortest gospel of all. Jesus sentences in this gospel passage for today fit very nicely into the twitter character count. The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news. AND, Slide 1 Follow me and I will make you fish for people. Slide 2
But I am sure Simon and Andrew and the sons of Zebedee would not have been this confused. Slide 3 and Slide 4 Jonah also appears to be a master of the Twitter statement when he stomps into Nineveh and declares: Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown! Seriously though, Twitter is counter to everything about following Jesus as a disciple or being obedient to God. Jesus invites us to follow him. We enter into a relationship with Jesus. We don t have to apply to be a follower of Jesus. Jesus will never block us from following him and our conversations with him are not limited to 140 characters. But being obedient to God and saying yes to following Jesus is a risky business and a life-changing decision. Because, to choose God and to choose to become a follower, entails changing how we live our lives not only making a choice in that split second but to keep on making that choice not matter what we meet on the discipleship road. It seems to us, with the privilege of perspective of where we stand in history, that it is about making that choice between life and death and choosing life even when it doesn t look like life! And to continue in faith to hold true to that decision and follow it through even when it seems as if it s leading us down the wrong path. And it is a risky business because it will put you at odds with the world. Before we get to the disciples in today s gospel, let s look first at the resonances of the events that we find in Jonah. In both these texts we have a sense of this being the time of fulfillment. The reign of God is at hand. Jonah heralds that God is invested in the lives of the people of Nineveh. God, incarnate in Jesus, heralds the arrival of the reign of God in an oppressed land.
This reign of God, though, is inextricably bound with the imperative notion of repentance and belief in God echoes of which we hear in both stories. But you could easily miss God in the story of Nineveh. Jonah reluctantly heads to Ninevah and tersely announces: Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown! No word of God, no word of repentance, no exhortation to believe, just that. Remember that this is a town outside of the Jewish community. The people are foreigners, not part of the story of God and his people. They could have easily ignored this grumpy fellow that has waltzed in from nowhere. But the reign of God is somehow revealed by this fish smelling prophet and they catch the vision of a new way of being and living. They instinctively know the right path and make the choice. Ninevah s immediate response to Jonah s prophecy is to repent and believe in God. The people fast and put on sackcloth. Even the king abases himself and dons sackcloth and sits among the ashes. He even commands the animals repent. Price suggests that this remarkable response is the answer to social sin (Price) - when an entire population and the government convert and transform their behaviour. That is what will redeem this world when all people and those in authority repent and believe in God. Here is the reign of God made visible in the world. The 40 days of reflection and repentance granted the people of Nineveh is not a coincidence. Consider the following: 40 days in Noah s ark, washing away moral pollution and bringing about a new beginning 40 years in the wilderness where God s people learnt to live into the promises of God and to live by faith 40 days of Elijah fleeing Jezebel which led to a place of revelation 40 days of Jesus temptation in the desert which clarified for Jesus his mission and place in the heavenly kingdom 40 days of resurrection appearances which demonstrated the new reality of life in God s kingdom. Each set of 40 leads to revelation, clarity, a strengthening of faith and most importantly, a new way of being a new way of living under the reign of God. It is at the end of Jesus desert experience of 40 days that we read of the calling of the disciples.
Simon and Andrew and the sons of Zebedee, are not accorded a 40-day cooling off period. They have a split second to make a decision in response to Jesus invitation. In a reversal of the normal rabbinical practice of the time, Jesus chooses his disciples, and makes the promise that they will fish for men. On the surface this seems like a bad business proposition, but apart from the obvious correlation because they are fishermen, there are echoes of the prophets from the Old Testament in this statement. The idea of portraying people as fish is an image that appears as a specific rebuke to the errant Israel and to the rich and powerful who reign. In Jeremiah we read: I am now sending for many fishermen, says God, and they shall catch the people of Israel (Jeremiah 16.16) And in Amos we read: The time is surely coming upon you when they shall take you away with fishhooks (Amos 4.2) Indeed, Mark has already made the political statement: Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee. This is a reminder of the power and the violence of the oppressive Roman state and the image of the shadow of death and sin marks the beginning of Jesus ministry in Mark s gospel. Following Jesus means pitting yourself against the ruling authorities. It is as if Mark is already setting the scene for that juxtaposition of the ruling authorities of the time and the reign of God which will lead to the events in Jerusalem. Jesus calls ordinary folk the working oppressed people of the land - to participate with him in turning upside down the structures of power and privilege in the world. He is calling them to make a choice to choose life. He is calling them to a radical transformation of who they are. And here we have again, as in Nineveh, the time of God s kingdom already here and waiting to be revealed. The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news. It is not fulfilled because the disciples will follow, but rather, Jesus calls them to discover the reign or the kingdom of God.
McKenna speaks about the word and the negative implications of power and authority and structures of government that we associate with kingdom. She prefers to take the g out and use the word kin-dom which speaks of relationship and not rulers and power. Slide 5. This reign of God kin-dom - brings about new relationships that override and overrule all other relationships. All our world-defined relationships are to be radically transformed. The community that grows out of discipleship and obedience to Jesus call is one that is countercultural to societal defined relationships and the hierarchies that are inherently embedded. These four men are summoned immediately make the decision now! but it is only a first step. It is only a first step to a radical transformation of lives where the decision has to be made every moment to be a follower of Jesus and to choose the kin - dom way of living. Peter (who is Simon) who is first called by Jesus in this passage (remember Jesus changes his name!) learns repeatedly through his journey with Jesus, this idea that he must continue to make the decision to follow Jesus. In Caesarea Philippi, he affirms his faith in Jesus but not as the suffering Messiah. On the mount of transfiguration, he wants to capture that moment and remain in that feel good moment but forgets that the journey ahead is to follow Jesus for a lifetime. In the courtyard on Mandy Thursday evening, he momentarily forsakes his journey of loyalty to Jesus for a moment of fear and then, he flees when the going gets tough at the cross. Eventually Simon (Peter) learns this lesson and chooses to follow Jesus every moment of his life. Jesus is not asking them to add one more task to their already busy schedule but rather calls them into new ways of being. When they leave their nets, they leave one way of life and forge a new identity one that is not defined by what they do but rather who they are. Their task of fishing has been transformed to that of becoming a fisher. To fish is to do something the word is a verb but to be a fisher is to take on a new way of being the word is a noun. And being a disciple of Jesus teaches them about how to take on this new identity not just a task oriented life, but rather a lifestyle way of being a new identity.
Simon and Andrew have made the first step and as a disciple will learn how to be a Christ follower. To follow Christ is to do three things: be with Jesus, pattern their lives on his life and take up his mission. I remember hearing a woman speak who stated that she no longer called herself a Christian because of the connotations of the word in today s society, but rather saw herself as a Christ- Follower. And so we too are called to make a decision, not just once but to live out that decision in every moment of every day. We are called to transform all our households, our relationships, our institutions to reveal the new order one that is born of the Spirit and the word of God and lives in the revelation of the Kin-dom of God.. To be a Christ follower is to live our life as a noun and not a verb. Not so much to do but rather to be. And so we reflect on the opening words of our Gradual hymn. Take my life and let it be, consecrated Lord to thee. Slide 6. The Lord be with you.