Ordinary Sunday 3: 23 January, 2000
The Rev'd Dr John Davis, Vicar, St Peter's Eastern Hill
...the world as we know it is passing away. 1 Cor 7:31
It is true that there were some millennial types scattered around the globe who said that they were
expecting rather more dramatic things than actually happened, to be occupying our minds at the turn
of the year some three weeks ago. They were of course wrong in the sense that everything
cataclysmic would be focussed on that one night. St Paul too was clearly also expecting events to
move quickly in his correspondence with the church in Corinth than was to happen. After the whale
episode, Jonah preached a message of the ending of things for the inhabitants of the capital city
of the enemies of his people. He was very grumpy indeed when they actually took notice and then
God did not destroy them. But, interestingly, the greatest upheaval we actually see in the readings
given to us today, happens in the lives of four fishermen. Peter, Andrew, James and John had a good
business going by the Sea of Gallilee.That world was utterly turned upside down by the arrival of
the prophet from Nazareth. So there are worlds and there are worlds.
A natural disaster, for example like the Turkish earthquake, or those terrible floods in Venezuela,
can bring an abrupt and terrible end to whole patterns of living. So can a war or violent
persecution such as in Chechnya or Ambon. The livelihood, indeed the lives of whole communities,
is destroyed. "... the world as we know it is passing away", they could certainly say.
This can happen too at a personal and individual level with the sudden onset of grave illness. If
this happens to you or to someone you love, things will never be the same. A world suddenly
collapses. The events of a day can change everything.
All this sounds pretty grim. The fact that it is also true - that we perhaps have experienced
examples of this ourselves, or that we in any case can see it on our evening news any day we care
to tune in - really gives one pause. In the seasons of the Church year, we have a particular focus
and a reminder of such themes in Lent and Advent. We are encouraged to reconsider our priorities.
We are reminded that here we have no abiding city. Our certainties need to be based on something
rather more lasting than job, health, stable political systems or a tamed natural order.
That is where the readings for today and indeed last week from John covering the same ground are
interesting. Last week, with the call of the boy Samuel and the call of the first four disciples,
the theme was clear enough. God calls: the individual may respond, but with some confusion. Today
we have the call of Jonah the reluctant prophet, giving us the Old Testament context for a further
consideration of the call of the first four disciples, this time as presented by Mark. God calls:
individuals may respond with hesitation.
It is possible enough in the Scriptures to find examples of the call of God being presented in ways
that are not immediately attractive. Threats of dire consequences, fear, potential destruction -
the language of power - all this is for instance present in the message delivered first to Jonah
and then though him to the people of Nineveh. It produced a result. How long lasting, one may
well question. But overwhelmingly that is not the recorded approach of Jesus of Nazareth.
There was clearly something very compelling about this teacher, this prophet, who had so recently
burst upon the scene - first in association with John the Baptist, and then after John's
imprisonment and death, in his own right. John had been a challenging enough and confronting
figure. Anger and bitter condemnation were very much part of the message he taught. And they came
out of the cities into the wilderness to be confronted. The message of repentance and conversion
of life was strident. Salvation and Life in its fullest sense depended on it.
The Lord says the same things in today's gospel - the very beginning of his public ministry
according to Mark. The time has come. Repent; turn your life around: believe. The challenge to the
first four was simple: follow. That is what a disciple is, a follower. And they left and went
after him. A whole world crumbled in a few moments. But a new reality, a new vision, a new hope
that had been grasped was there to replace what had gone. And over the next three years this was
to be steadily reinforced and developed.
The language of this gospel today is of a different type of power. It is a power that is first and
foremost to be observed and experienced and shared in relationship. Clearly in some pretty obvious
way, Peter, Andrew, James and John were simply bowled over by the shining integrity and the
compelling strength of what the Lord said and did. And they were simply the first. This
individual reached out and touched other individual hearts. Christianity starts from here.
We have just spent an entire season of Christmas having underlined the truth that the Word was
indeed made flesh and dwelt among us. That the Christ Child of Bethlehem was and is one with the
God of all creation. Thirty years later that grown man, truly human and yet truly God, walked
along that beach by the lake and began to reach out. God in Jesus Christ is the reaching out of
the divine to the human, the infinite to the finite, in a way that is full of promise and hope and
love. It is indeed a reaching out that offers a new context for living, for loving and for dying.
It is summed up in the gospel as being simply "the good news".
Our Christian faith began and spread from this point. First and foremost the good news is that God
is in Jesus Christ. So what he said, what he taught, what he did, how he lived, and how he loved,
became for Christians the way that they too sought to follow. There is so much less of the
grimness and confrontation that characterised John. John pointed to the one who was to come after.
And the one who came declared that the news he was bringing, the message he was conveying, was
good. The unfolding of his teaching, of his relationship to his God, of his relationship with
those around him or those who were brought into contact with him - all this helped clarify the
dimensions and scope of this "good news".
It was good news not only for four men fishing. Salvation, justice, peace, forgiveness,
compassion, love - these are like a hot knife through butter. Suddenly what was previously so very
important, no longer seems so. Suddenly the penny drops. Suddenly there is a new way of
understanding, of being. And it is to do with a sense of relationship, of profound connection with
God. Discipleship flows from that. Attempting to respond with faith and hope and love to the call
of God in our individual lives flows from that. Attempting to live lives together in Christian
community in a way that reflects these insights and realities and which brings positive change to
the lives of others, flows from that.
"Teach me your ways, O Lord" was the response for today's psalm. That is what the first four were
doing as they first followed. That is what we attempt to do twenty centuries later. And we do it
in the context of the gathered community of all sorts of people, which is the church. We are fed
and nurtured by the sacraments, we seek to grow in the faith which we have received, so we read, we
pray we listen, we are encouraged. From time to time we fall or stumble. Sometimes we just plain
run away. But the God who calls us in Jesus Christ is there, ready and waiting. And there is much
more of that "good news", given first to those four fishermen.
|
Views is a
publication of
St Peter's Eastern Hill, Melbourne Australia.
|
