Year B

Mark 1:14-20

The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn

Drop a Line-Fish For People

How do you communicate with a fish? You, drop it a line! And this is pretty much what Jesus did as he began his ministry of calling disciples. Our God is a God who drops the line and calls people to be disciples. Last week, we heard John’s version of the call of the first disciples and today we hear Mark’s. Mark begins his story of Jesus rather abruptly. Jesus is baptized by John in the Jordan River and is tempted by Satan in the wilderness. Then, John the Baptist is arrested. And with his arrest, the ministry of Jesus begins as he moves to the Sea of Galilee where he drops his line by proclaiming the good news of God and calling his first disciples.

In the first century, a license was needed to fish, and often fishermen were exploited and barley made a living. They had to work long hours in strenuous environments to earn their wages, and they were often separated from families and friends. Not a whole lot different than what our commercial fisher people face today. Simon and Andrew were about their daily labor, casting their fishing nets into the sea, hoping their catch would make them a living. When along comes Jesus who says to them “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” Surprisingly Simon and Andrew left their nets immediately and followed him. Then another pair of fishermen are recruited for this new movement-James and John, the sons of Zebedee. Putting to one side their trade, they commit to the Jesus movement.

We see Jesus in this calling going to those who need him the most and we can’t help but admire the immediacy of their response. While they probably had very little, they gave it up for an uncertain future with no work or trade to bring in an income. But now Jesus says they will use their fishing skills in another way, to fish for people. This new movement-the kingdom of God would cast its new net and draw people in. Some are surprised to hear Jesus begin his ministry with an announcement of a new kingdom. Mark summarizes the whole message of Jesus in these few words “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”

This “Good News” is what it’s all about for Mark, a later gentile follower of Jesus. Jesus has inaugurated a new time and a new kingdom. Its beginning is a welcomed announcement for which humanity has long been waiting. Its beginning called for human action. If the kingdom of God has come near, then we humans are to repent and believe. But this announcement of a new kingdom was not entirely new. The Jewish people had longed for that day when their king would rule directly and fully in this world. They prayed for the coming of that kingdom. They worked to make their nation righteous so that God would allow them to become part of God’s rule.

Jesus announced that the longed-for moment had arrived. The time is fulfilled! As Israel for centuries had hoped and prayed, God’s kingdom now reigns. It is as if Jesus’s bold announcement was launching a new political movement, beginning a new social system. Jesus declared that all the human kingdoms are now subservient to one divine kingdom. All human systems are answerable to one Lord and one rule. We humans need to live under a kingdom, within a reign, powered by a rule. We need authority for our individual lives and authority for our lives together as a society. Left to our own power, we will destroy ourselves and one another. We need an authority that guides us, and determines our future. But the million dollar question is: which kingdom? To what system do we turn to find the authority our lives need?

Jesus gives us the answer to those questions…the “Good News.” Our search is over. We need not worry that this kingdom will fail, for this is the kingdom of God; a kingdom whose foundation is love. This kingdom is not some political system, it is not a hierarchy of powers, not a system of checks and balances, not a legislative scheme, it is a kingdom that casts its net of love, and fishes for people. This is why I believe those first disciples could leave their boats and follow Jesus. Following Jesus, Simon, Andrew, James, John and the other disciples began to learn what it meant to live in a kingdom whose rule is love and service, not power and might. They began to learn that this kingdom was one that others were waiting, longing and hoping for. The net had to be cast and the fish brought in…for this was the way of God’s kingdom.

Part of the task of Jesus’ followers is to “fish for people.” This doesn’t necessarily mean just filling our Church pews, which of course we can’t do right now anyway, or converting people to the Episcopal Church. It is about engaging people in the work of God’s kingdom, both in their personal lives and in the structures of society, and thus increasing the realm of peace, love and healing. Yet, it seems a very different note is sounded in the text from 1 Corinthians today.  The apostle Paul believed that “the time has grown short,” that the full realization of the reign of God would come soon in the lifetime of some of those living at that time. Therefore Paul could say: “Let those who deal with the world be as those who have no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away.”

Yet, in light of Jesus’ teachings and Paul’s own teaching elsewhere, it would be a mistake to understand Paul’s words here as encouragement to not take responsibility for this world. Amid the appalling poverty, atrocities and destruction of our planet, Christ calls us followers to serve the reign of life rather than the reign of death. As Bonhoeffer wrote in the midst of his darkest days in a Nazi prison: “The Christian has no escape route from history…This world must not be prematurely written off.” But Paul is right that we can struggle with the worst of circumstances with a certain assurance and serenity: “Let those who mourn be as though they were not mourning…..and those who buy as though they had no possessions.” We do so in the confidence of the resurrection: God’s kingdom is victorious over evil and death, and our future is in the hands of the God of life.

God keeps coming among us and surrounding us with the gospel of love. God continues to invite us to live in that which gives love and power. God invites us daily to repent and to believe the good news of the kingdom. God invites us to bless others by sharing our faith and unselfishly giving and serving. As the Rev. Castellan says in her chapter “Bless” from the book “Walking the Way of Love,” “Christ calls us to give without counting the cost, and to give without strings attached, because the act of giving itself shapes us into disciples on the Jesus Way.” “The more we bless others, she says, the more we find we have to share, and the more need we see crying out before us. It changes us and it can change the world.”

So what is stopping us from dropping a line, using our fishing skills in another way, to fish for people? What is stopping us from changing the world? Jesus says, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news. We have been appointed, gifted and sent for just a moment as this.