When the Gospel of Mark was written in the second half of the first century, early Christians living in the kingdom of Rome had witnessed the persecution of Nero and the deaths of Peter and Paul, and may have been hearing about the siege of Jerusalem. [i] “Good news” didn’t come to people casting nets from the shoreline or mending their nets so they could be ready for the next catch. In ancient Rome, “good news” was brought to the emperor by messengers arriving with news of victory from military battles.
It is into that world that, here at the beginning of Mark’s Gospel, Jesus arrives.
But instead of proclaiming that Rome has won and the pax romana was being restored by the emperor’s might, Jesus is “proclaiming the good news of God.” (Mar 1:14) And in this Good News – this εὐαγγέλιον —God, not Rome, is victorious, and, in God’s victory, peace is restored to the least of these, and not just to the mighty.
Immediately we know Jesus has turned the tables on the world’s powers and principalities and upended their ways of seeing life around them.
Next, we hear Jesus tell the people, “Repent and Believe.”The good news continues: repentance isn’t about naming our failures and trying to do better. It isn’t the result of self-directed soul searching, but of the Word of God active in us.
Martin Luther described the function of the law in Scripture as “[teaching us] to know [ourselves], that through [the Word] we may recognize [our] inability to do good and may despair of [our] ability.”[ii] In Scripture God is always the actor, and we respond to what God is doing. Repentance, then, is “inviting God to do what we can’t do ourselves.”[iii] It is inviting God to lead us in changing not only how we act and what we believe, but who we are.
Jesus tells Simon and Andrew, “Follow me and I will make you fishers of people.” Now these men might not have been old salts, but they weren’t young children either. They knew the sea and their trade and were skilled at mending their nets. But Mark says they dropped their nets and followed Jesus who invites them to not only look at the world differently, but to be in the world differently.
In the film “Dead Poets Society” Robin Williams plays an alumnus turned teacher at an all boys’ boarding school, where as an English teacher he’s expected to teach the high school boys to understand poetry. Insisting the importance of poetry is not measured by studying “its meter, rhyme and figures of speech” Williams’ character teaches the boys instead that poetry springs out of their humanity, out of their identity. He teaches them, “just when you think you know something, you have to look at it in another way.” And, telling them, “the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse,” he asks, “What will your verse be?” The boys don’t simply learn poetry but become poets, discovering the power their words and ideas carry.
Just as Simon, Andrew, James and John were fishermen who didn’t know how to fish for people, we can read the Bible, learn its stories about Jesus and even memorize his words, without being his disciples. In Mark’s Gospel, discipleship is about believing and following. It is about responding to what God is doing.
Importantly, discipleship isn’t only for those twelve who knew Jesus first. And it’s not only for religious leaders. That’s Good News! In a world that celebrates power, position and wealth, our victorious God invites everyone in, counts everyone and counts on everyone participating.
Reflecting on this week’s gospel text, Bishop Mike Rinehart of the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast Synod affirmed, “In baptism every single person is called to a vocation of following Christ and fishing for people, each in our own way.”[iv]
When I was in seminary, I spent a semester of Saturday mornings at AHOPE, an Asheville day shelter that provided people on the streets with a permanent mailing address, access to washing machines and showers and storage for belongings they couldn’t carry every day. I still follow news from Homeward Bound, the nonprofit that works to end homelessness in that city and runs the day shelter, and recently I saw where a woman who had been homeless for more than thirty years was moved into housing just before Christmas. She’s been in Asheville three years, working as a flagger during the construction season and sleeping on a riverbank at night, and now she is warm and safe. AHOPE and Homeward Bound aren’t churches or even explicitly Christian organizations and the social workers who ran intake for the shelter probably wouldn’t describe their work as ministry, but, through them, visible signs of hope and mercy are revealed to a hurting world.
Jesus’ invitation today is
to change how you look at the world and see the people who haven’t heard the Good News of God;
discover where the things that give you joy are also what the world needs;
and live out of the freedom each of us is given in faith to respond to those needs.
Let us pray…[v]
Holy God, Bearer of Good News,
We give you thanks that you cast your nets wide
so that you might draw everyone into the shelter of your strength, love and mercy;
By the wisdom of your Holy Spirit, teach us to respond to your call to repentance, to change who and how we are and follow you.
Amen.
[i] Philip A. Cuningham. “The Gospel of Mark.”
[ii] Martin Luther, “Freedom of a Christian.”
[iii] Brian Stoffregen, “Exegetical Notes for Epiphany 3B.”
[iv] “Epiphany 3B” Bishop Mike Rinehart’s Podcast.
[v] Adapted from Laughing Bird Liturgical Resources.
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