The Good News Proclaimed
Preached by the Reverend Durrell Watkins at the
Sunshine Cathedral on Sunday, January 25, 2009.
My great-aunt Gladys and my grandmother went on a fishing vacation. Hiking
through the woods toward a stream with their fishing gear in hand, they came
across what appeared to be an abandoned mine shaft — a big, dark pit really.
My grandmother was claustrophobic, so my great-aunt couldn’t persuade her to
go into the pit. But they did want to know how deep it was, so they tossed a
pebble in; they never heard it hit bottom. Then they threw in a bigger rock,
still no sound. Finally, they found a log, and they struggled to lift the log
and toss it into the bottomless pit. Soon after they tossed the log in, a goat
out of nowhere came running by them and jumped into the hole! A few minutes
later a man came along and asked my grandmother and great-aunt if they had
seen his goat. Aunt Gladys said, “Well, sir, a goat did just rush run by us
and jumped into this deep pit.” The man said, “Oh, that couldn’t have been my
goat; my goat was tied to a log.”
Our gospel lesson today is another short passage, but in that short passage
there are important points to be made. I want to look at three points from the
gospel lesson that can be of benefit to us in our lives today.
1. When we change our attitudes, we see new possibilities.
Mark tells us that after John the Baptizer had been arrested, Jesus came to
Galilee sharing good news about God’s love, saying, “The kin-dom of God, the
Blessed Community is here; repent and believe in this good news.”
Repentance isn’t beating ourselves up. It isn’t begging an angry deity to
overlook our wretchedness and withhold wrath that we deserve simply because we
are so innately vile. That doesn’t sound like good news at all! Repentance is
just making a change, and change is necessary for growth, for success, even
for survival.
Charles Darwin taught us that “it is not the strongest of the species that
survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the
most adaptable to change.”
Repentance is just a change of mind, change of attitude, change of
perception. It is the change that makes miracles possible. Repentance is
getting unstuck… releasing the past to the past, forgiving ourselves of our
mistakes, and forgiving others who have wronged us. It’s choosing to know we
are not limited by our past, or by our parents, or by what others have said
about us. It’s embracing the new idea, the new hope, the new opportunity.
Turning away from what was keeping us down or holding us back and toward what
can give us hope or joy or peace… that is repentance. Ernest Holmes said,
“Change your thinking, [and you’ll] change your life”!
Mark is writing during a time of crisis. Jerusalem has been sacked and the
Temple has been demolished and he knows that if during such times of
difficulty we aren’t careful, we’ll start to define ourselves by our pain.
We’ll get so stuck in the crisis that we forget how to transcend pain, how to
transform it, how to be stretched by it and how to heal from it. Yes, be
honest about the difficulty but also be hopeful about moving beyond it. Don’t
get stuck… Repent… adapt… change your mind and believe in good news! Even when
the fit hits the shan… dare to see possibilities and believe in good news.
When we change our attitudes, we see new possibilities.
2. The second point I want to raise this morning is simply this:
Religion is our tool; we are not its prisoner!
Jesus makes that very point later in Mark’s gospel when his critics accuse
him of breaking religious law by doing good work on the Sabbath. Jesus’
response to them is simply, “The Sabbath was made for us; we weren’t made for
the Sabbath” (Mark 2.27).
In today’s lesson, Jesus sees Simon and Andrew fishing and he says, “come
with me and I’ll make you fish for people.” That is probably more than just an
acknowledgment of their fishing profession. You see, in the bible that Jesus
would have known, and presumably Simon and Andrew too, fishing for people is a
negative image.
You’ll recall Jonah who is called to Nineveh. He doesn’t want to go to
Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian empire which has oppressed his people.
Those people are his enemies. And Jonah is called to minister to his enemies…
in his mind, he believes that means he is to foretell their destruction, but
in the end, they are not destroyed and Jonah admits that he had always
suspected God would prove to be kind to those horrible Assyrians after all.
And God was.
Well, Nineveh is named for Niné — the Assyrian fish god. And when Jonah
tries to get out of going to Fish City to minister to his enemies, he winds up
being taken there anyway… and how… In the belly of a fish! Jonah is the one
fished for… he is caught… not in a net by people fishing but actually by a
fish. To fish for a person in Jonah’s case means forcing him to confront his
prejudices; and whereas that may be a good thing in the end, it was not a
pleasant thing for Jonah.
The prophet Amos, a crazy shepherd who comes down from a mountain top,
challenges every nation he can think of (including his own), tells one group
that as a result of their injustices they will one day be carried away by
fish-hooks (Amos 4.2).
And Jeremiah imagines God sending hunters and fishers to catch corrupt
people to bring them to judgment (Jeremiah 16.16). Fishing for people is not a
joyous image in the bible.
And yet, Mark’s Jesus reinterprets it. For Mark, who lives in a community
that is sustained by the fishing trade, fishing is a sign of nurturing, of
feeding, of people working together for the common good, of getting people
involved, of braving the storms of life in order to bring in the catch that
will help the whole community. Mark doesn’t view people as fish to be
hooked…tormented… abused… he views people as fish to be gathered gently in a
net, embraced, and becoming part of a life-giving matrix of relationships. He
has taken an old image from his own religious tradition and redefined and
reapplied it. He isn’t a prisoner of the religious status quo; religion is his
to use, and he is free to use it in more nurturing, healing ways than it has
been previously used.
3. Finally: Religion at its best is more relational than regulatory.
Down the road a bit, Jesus sees James and John fishing and he calls to them
and they leave their father Zebedee and join Jesus’ growing band of disciples.
Jesus, it would seem, needs people. Today he is calling out to Simon,
Andrew, James, and John. In chapter 2 he’ll recruit Levi. In chapter 3 he
appoints the 12 as apostles and in chapter 6 he sends his disciples out to do
what he has been doing. Jesus is not a solo act.
Mark’s Jesus is showing us that God needs us. The church isn’t a creed or a
hierarchy, the church is the Blessed community, a matrix of relationships, a
group of living, loving, learning people. Without our talents, our prayers,
our goodwill, our presence, our generosity… there is no church.
If we look at our story today as an allegory, then the Sea of Galilee
becomes the energy of life, the life-force, the spirit of Jesus’ movement,
which is human cooperation… it is at the Sea of Galilee that he calls his
first disciples. He can’t do it alone, he needs help, he needs relationships.
He needs collaboration. And when he gets it, the church is energized.
But let’s not forget about Zebedee. He’s also part of this transformational
energy at the Sea of Galilee. His name means, “God has given.” In
relationship, in community, through our giving, God gives. God shares through
our sharing. So as Zebedee shares his sons… he certainly needed their help
with his business, but he doesn’t make a fuss. He lets them go, and through
his giving, God gives. God is able to use Zebedee’s gifts to bless people
Zebedee will never even meet.
Not only does Zebedee give up two of his faithful workers to now be workers
in Jesus’ mission, but he gives even more of himself. He stays behind to
continue the work of fishing. Someone has to mend the nets. Someone has to
catch the fish. Someone has to take the fish to market. Someone has to have
fish to shares with those who don’t have fish. Zebedee is doing his part… and
his part may seem less glamorous than the others, but it is equally important;
in fact, his part makes it possible for others to do their part.
In our story today, some go out with Jesus into the limelight, some stay
put to keep the home fires burning and to help resource the movement, but
everyone has something to do and when everyone does what he or she can,
choosing to share the work and the responsibility — the good news of God’s
all-inclusive love is advanced. Jesus can’t do it alone; he needs people; he
depends on the power of relational living. When such relational living takes
place, miracles seem to happen.
When we change our attitudes we see new possibilities.
Religion is our tool; we are not its prisoner.
And religion, at its best, is relational rather than regulatory. This is the
good news! Amen.