Ready or Not, Here He Comes!
January 24, 2021
Third Sunday after the Epiphany (YrB)
Readings
Psalm 62:1-12
Jonah 3:1-5, 10
1 Corinthians 7:29-35
Mark 1:14-20
+points to ponder
How do the gifts of our intellect (reason) and of our emotions serve as handmaidens to our faith?
As we come to understand that our time on this mortal coil is short, what is our reaction to that? What is the world’s reaction to that?
When Jesus says to ‘pick up your cross,’ what does that mean for your life?
The sermon is largely based on the Gospel reading (Mark 1:14-20). What did you find convicting in that lesson? What did you find comforting?
+Sermon Transcript
Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father, and our Lord and King, Jesus the Christ. Amen.
Let us pray: Father in heaven, help us to hear the call of our King, Jesus the Christ, and to follow, by faith, in His service, whose kingdom has no end; for he reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, one glory Amen.
One of the professors from Seminary who taught me homiletics, Dr. David Schmitt, shared this story: “A few years ago, on spring break, many students went down to Florida. Luka Minglu, however, decided to stay in Saint Louis, Missouri. He was one of fourteen students who chose to participate in Urban Immersion, a five-day immersion experience in the urban landscape of the city.
Luka was a student in political science at Washington University. Only now, for five days, he found himself immersed in experiences of housing and homelessness in Saint Louis. Through this immersion experience, Luka changed. He said he saw homelessness in a new light. It was “more personal” and “intimate.” Instead of “numbers and statistics,” he began to see ‘people and stories.’ Suddenly, a city where he attended school became something more: An opportunity. After his five-day experience, Luka went to the shelters to find out how he could volunteer.
I like Luka’s story, Dr. Schmitt continued, because it reminds me how we learn in different ways. Homelessness looks one way when studied in a classroom. It becomes something else when experienced in life. The same is true for faith.”
As important as it is – and it is important – learning what we believe, teach, and confess can sometimes be reduced to being only a body of teachings. We hear them in the Divine Service, in catechism or Bible class, but if we are not careful it can remain as a matter of mere intellectual study. Learning is good – it is meet, right, and salutary. Our intellect or reason is given as a handmaiden to serve our faith. But, when Christianity becomes only a matter of teachings, then faith becomes only matter of knowledge, and God’s people are then reduced to students going to school one day a week. And beloved, faith is not merely intellectual assent to God’s truth!
In our gospel reading this morning, Jesus pushes us outside the classroom and into the world. He invites us to see faith as an immersion experience that forms us as disciples as we follow our Lord.
Mark begins by setting the scene. He tells us John the Baptizer has been imprisoned. John’s incarceration is a result of prophecy colliding with politics in Galilee. John was baptizing by the Jordan and all the region of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him. Now, however, John is censored, his message suppressed, and he is placed in prison. He will experience cancel culture firsthand as he will literally lose his head for preaching the truth. Galilee is no longer a safe place for prophets.
Into that unsafe space, Jesus comes, preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom. Notice how Jesus does not retreat. In the face of parasitic political and calumniatory cultural opposition, Jesus does not withdraw to a different part of the country. He does not begin His service where it might be calmer. He does not retreat to a place where He will be accepted. No, Jesus comes into the land that imprisons prophets and publicly begins to call His disciples there.
I find great comfort in this action of Jesus. Jesus is not threatened by political or cultural opposition. He confronts and challenges it. He tells and preaches the truth in the face of it. Jesus knows that, as the Psalmist says, “Those of low estate are but a breath; those of high estate are a delusion; in the balance they go up; they are together lighter than a breath.” ‘Whether from the lower or upper classes, poor or rich, unknown, or famous, or infamous, our time on earth is fleeting. What the world thinks is important is an utter waste of time.’
And so, Jesus confronts the crooked culture and dismisses the vindictive politics because He knows that, ultimately, He will triumph over it.
After He has been killed and placed in a tomb, He will rise and reveal that His kingdom is not of this world. His Kingdom is of God: Eternal and indestructible. Jesus rules over all of it. He can enter any hostile territory and claim people as His own, giving them life that is everlasting.
This is comforting for us because we have seen how our cultural setting has become less and less amenable toward Christianity. We are not being put to death like Christians in other parts of the world, but in our culture of death, we are publicly mocked for our beliefs on TV, in social media, during so-called protests, and by lawmakers who cannot seem to put together a simple prayer. It can make one uneasy. How can I enter into that world and live as a believer? Christianity is much easier if I just reduce it to a teaching I know and something I do for an hour or two on Sunday with maybe an occasional Wednesday evening thrown in.
But Jesus comes to us today and reminds us that He has the power to make disciples in the midst of conflict, struggle, and suffering.
In doing this, Jesus does not gather those who might make His mission more appealing and certainly not easier. That is, He does not gather soldiers to defend Him or wise men to explain Him or social influencers to persuade others to receive Him or government officials to endorse Him. No. Instead, He calls fishermen who are casting and mending their nets. Unabashedly, He says, “Follow Me and I will make you become fishers of men.”
Note here that Jesus’ practice contrasts sharply with that of other rabbis of that time, who were chosen by those who wanted to follow their teaching. Jesus, however, chose those whom He wished to follow Him. Like fishermen, then, Jesus’ disciples are likewise expected to draw others into the Kingdom.
Beloved, God makes disciples from ordinary people. It is not our gifts or our talents or our work that make us disciples but God’s work on our behalf. In baptism, God immerses us in the death and resurrection of His Son and claims us as His own. We are now disciples, called by Jesus to follow Him. In another place Jesus put the call He has for you and me in this way: “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?”
“The cross [which Jesus calls each of us to take up is not the day-to-day human suffering we experience. No. Instead it] is that suffering which results from our faithful connection with Christ. And Jesus here intimates that each disciple will have his share of such suffering.”
And so, notice then, as we follow, Jesus forms us. These fishermen would write gospels. They would testify before tribunals. It would take time, but God would work and shape them into the witnesses the world needs. And, with the exception of John – who would live and die in exile – they all would die as martyrs – witnesses to the saving work of Jesus.
In Christianity, what we inwardly digest about what we believe, teach, and confess, we implement then by doing. Discipleship is not reclusive; it is active, and it is transformative. When we follow Jesus, we are changed. Our lives become more cross-shaped and we live in faith, not in fear. And so, the places where we work, and play become holy. Our lives are opportunities for others to encounter our God. Christianity becomes ‘intimate’ and ‘personal’ as we walk with Jesus into His world, not hiding from it.
“A young man was promoted to fill the position of a senior officer with a brilliant record who had just retired from the company. The young man asked his predecessor for the secret to his success. The old man answered, ‘Two words: right decisions.’ The young man then asked, ‘But how do you make the right decisions?’ Again, the older man answered, this time even more tersely than before, ‘Experience.’ ‘And how do you get this experience?’ the young man asked once more. ‘Two words – ’ answered the older man, ‘wrong decisions.’”
The kingdom of this world with all of its political and cultural superficiality has its own definition of success. Unsurprisingly, it is nowhere near what success is in the kingdom to which you and I belong – the Kingdom of God which, in Christ, is near.
By God’s grace, discipleship then is an immersion experience. In baptism, God immerses us into the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Not a part of our lives is separated from Him. We are completely, totally, wholly His. And He leads us, as His disciples, into His world. Ready or not, here He comes! Amen.
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.