Third Sunday after the Epiphany, Year B, January 21, 2018; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

O God of good news, grant us the wisdom, the strength and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

Our readings this morning, from Jonah’s advice to the great city of Ninevah, to Paul’s advice to the Jesus followers in the city of Corinth, to the Gospel of Mark’s breathless account of Jesus’ move back to Galilee, all convey a sense of urgency and risk. Ninevah has only 40 days to clean up its act (which seems like a very short time). Paul says that time has grown short, that the present form of this world is passing away. Jesus has come out of the wilderness where he was being tempted by Satan for 40 days (which seems like a very long time) to learn that John has been arrested, and has headed to Galilee quoting John directly: repent, that is, change your hearts toward God. A complete re-orientation is what John and Jesus were calling for. Jesus began to teach that the present form of this world is passing away.

I could go on and on about the story of Jonah’s struggle with God – a scriptural folktale from the First Testament about the futility of not listening deeply to the Holy One, about the arrogance of not understanding the unending and enormous compassion of the Holy One. From time to time, someone tells me that they’re interested in reading the Bible and I caution them not to start at the beginning. I advise starting with the Psalms, reading them like the song lyrics that they are, not 1- 150 in order, but skipping around, lingering on lines that catch your eye. Then I recommend going to Jonah next. Biblical scholar Phyllis Trible calls Jonah a “noisy story of just forty-eight verses” that has “an enormous afterlife…in Jewish, Christian, Islamic, and secular art, music, and literature.” [1] I urge you to spend some time with this amazing story because it’s a powerful account of the present form of this world passing away.

The verses we heard from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians can sound Paul is saying, the end is near, so shelter in place. If Paul did think the very literal end was near, he was wrong, so why read his teachings? I think that Paul was using rhetorical language to communicate a sense of urgency. It’s like the current Time’s Up social and legal movement to fight systematic mistreatment of women in response to the confessions of those who have been on the receiving end of sexual exploitation. Time’s Up is a movement joining Latina farmworkers of Alianza Nacional de Campesinas with powerful women of Hollywood such as producer Shonda Rhimes, director Ava DuVernay, actress Meryl Streep, and others. Time’s Up is an aspirational statement that means let’s live as if we are free from the slavery of mistreatment. Let’s speak out, and speak up, and support one another, especially the most vulnerable working poor. Let’s act as if (and so that) the present form of this world is passing away. [2]

In 1st Corinthians, verse 32, the very next verse after our short passage, Paul writes, “I want you to be free from anxieties or worries.” (Seems like that would have been a nice verse to include.) Paul is arguing for greater freedom, not confinement until the end – freedom from worry or anxiety about the future. One of my teachers defines anxiety as an emotional state of feeling under-resourced for an imagined future scenario. [3] Paul is writing to these relatively new Jesus followers, to assure them that, as a community, they have just what they need to live fully in the redeeming love of God (aka Christ). Paul is encouraging them to live as if they are not bound by cultural or societal limitations of who is slave and who is free, who is non-citizen and who is citizen, who is married and who is not. There is good news in not being enslaved to the expectations of economic or military power. There is good news in behaving toward one another in a way that demonstrates that the present form of this world is passing away. [4]

For any of you who were taught to understand that the good news was something like “Jesus died for our sins” or “Jesus Christ was raised from the dead,” I have to say that, I don’t think that’s good news Jesus was talking about here. This is the good news that fear and oppression, the military and economic power of Caesar, the despair and indifference of many, even death doesn’t have to have the last word. This is good news that would make sense to people minding their own businesses and get them excited about spreading that news.

The summary of that news, the whole of Jesus’ message according to Mark, is what Jesus proclaims here: the time is ripe and the realm of God so close; change your mind (and your behavior). Stop relying on whatever the empire calls ‘good news’ and rely on the good news of God.” The Greek words here are so heavily associated with the Roman empire – the word for kingdom and the word for good news are words that Caesar used. To my ears, this is clearly an anti-imperial proclamation. God’s good news is freedom from oppression, enough to eat for everyone who is hungry. God’s good news is dignity and grace abounding. Turn around – repent – and see or believe or trust in the possibility of dignity and grace abounding, and start acting accordingly.

If you were to read the Gospel of Mark from beginning to end (it’s not that long… only about 20 pages) I bet you would notice the fast pace of Mark’s storytelling. In fact, it’s even faster – and more spare — in the original Greek. The word that here gets translated as “immediately,” (euthos) appears 42 times. The eu part of the word has to do with goodness, wellness and has moral undertones. Think “right away” which conveys a sense of closeness in timing and uses the word right with its allusions to being morally sound, correct, and decent. The word can also be used to mean directly, open, frank, without reserve. Mark is talking about what came next, and after that, and after that in terms of both timing and a sense of goodness.

Perhaps his emphasis on goodness – on rightness – in this story is because fishing is and always has been hard, dangerous work that is not particularly highly regarded as a profession by others. The Roman philosopher Cicero wrote to his sons fishing was one of “the most shameful occupations.” [5] And there was an ancient Egyptian opinion that the fisher was ‘more miserable than any [other] profession.’ [6] Added to the low-esteem in which fishers were held was the fact that after paying the Romans for the license to fish, after paying the hired help if your family wasn’t large enough to staff a boat, after paying the taxes on the haul of fish, and maintaining the boat and the nets, fishers were lucky to be able sustain their families. Roman taxes and tolls placed an extremely heavy burden on peasants in ancient Palestine. Nevertheless, fishing was what Simon, Andrew, James and John knew and did. And the story is that Jesus called them from their casting and their mending –Jesus called them while they were at work. They were not at the synagogue worshiping; they were not at home eating; they were not asleep and dreaming.

Two things about this story occur to me. The first is what this story illustrates about how and where Jesus works. It’s not like the joke in which a traveler asks for directions, and the response is, “ahhhh, you can’t get there from here.” That is never Jesus’ response. To get to experience the realm of God, Jesus wants his followers to start from wherever they are. There are no auditions or interviews or future meeting dates in other places. Jesus wants them to follow him starting immediately – and they do! The second thing is the way that Jesus sees the skills that these four fishermen have and knows that those exact skills can be applied to spreading the good news of God’s goodness and of all of the possibilities in the midst of the problems of poverty and oppression. He sees them casting and mending, working the nets, and says, “Come with me. I’ll show you the dignity of networking!” You can start where you are, be who you are, and use what you know to spread the good news. (And remember, Jesus doesn’t only call fishermen.)

Hear this, busy people of Emmanuel: Jesus doesn’t say, “I see you’re really busy, but there’s one more thing you need to be doing.” Rather, Jesus calls Simon and Andrew, James and John, and the others, to stop what they’re doing and try on a new way of being in the world – not an easy way, but surely an amazing way. The story then, and the story now, is that Jesus never works alone. Jesus needed the hands and the hearts of people like Simon and Andrew, like James and John. He invited them to think and look and move beyond their own small boats.

You know, a lot gets made of the idea that these four fishers left their work right away to follow Jesus, but actually, they didn’t seem to leave fishing and the sea completely and they didn’t leave forever. They continued to have experiences fishing and traveling across the Sea of Galilee by boat while learning from Jesus. And in the last part of the Gospel of Mark, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome encounter a young man at the tomb who tells them that the Risen Lord will meet his disciples back in the Galilee. They never stopped fishing on the sea – they just learned to work together in an entirely new way and for a greater purpose.

You may wonder what this story set in a Galilean fishing village has little to do with our stories set at a church in a Back Bay shopping village. None of us fishes for a living. (Well, I kind of do.) And yet, the narrative – the meta narrative — of our tradition is that Jesus calls each one of us by name. This story may be teaching us that to experience the realm of God and to spread the good news, we must start where we are – in our work, our responsibilities, our daily existence. We are invited to re-examine our daily routines, to move beyond or through our many anxieties and worries, and imagine new possibilities. We are invited to abandon the smallness of our own little boats, or whatever constructs keep each of us from spreading good news of dignity and grace, to those who experience little of it. We are invited to seek other venues and work together in entirely new ways. We are invited to use the skills we already have to deliver the good news that God loves each and every one without measure and God needs each and every one to love without measure. We are invited to stop doing whatever keeps us from building a loving community. We are invited to know that Love is a healing and reconciling force in the world and that Love needs each and every one of us to be a healing and reconciling force in the world. And today is a great day for us to begin again – right here, right away, because the present form of this world is passing away.

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