Year B Third Sunday after Epiphany 22 January 2012
Jonah 3:1-5, 10 Psalm 62:5-12 1 Corinthians 7:29-31 Mark 1:14-20
The readings this week are short and straight to the point. They are about people being called by God and these people answering the call. At least that is how it appears at a superficial reading, but if we look further we see that there is actually more to each story.
The Gospel tells us about Jesus calling Simon Peter and Andrew and then the brothers, John and James.
Mark 1:16-20 “As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” At once they left their nets and followed him.
When he had gone a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John in a boat, preparing their nets. Without delay he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him.”
From the reading we get this image of Jesus calling out, “come follow me” and these men immediately acting as if hypnotised, blindly and strangely, dropping everything to follow him. We know from other Gospel accounts that these men had been followers of John the Baptist. They had witnessed John’s testimony about Jesus and had already encountered Jesus personally. The ground work had been done and these men were ready to answer the call.
One of my favourite stories from the Bible is the account of Jonah. There is so much we can learn from Jonah, but more than anything we can relate to Jonah.
Jonah was a prophet. He was relatively comfortable in this role and comfortable with his relationship with God until God calls him to go and speak to the city of Nineveh. I’m assuming we all know the story of Jonah being swallowed by the great fish.... What happened was that Jonah tried to run away from God.
Interesting...... Jonah ran away from God and straight into trouble. There is a message for us right there, but the emphasis on this week’s reading is Jonah’s second call.
Jonah had re-submitted his life into God’s hands and God had rescued him. Then it seems that God calls Jonah again.
I’m reading in between the lines, of course, but it seems to me that Jonah surely must have realized that he had failed as a prophet. In today’s world we would have sacked this preacher and left him to find other employment. I’m sure that God could have used someone else to go to the Ninevites and give them His message, but there is something very important that we need to learn about the way God operates, and we learn it through this story.
God called Jonah. Full stop!
He didn’t un-call him or decommission him or “let him go”. Jonah was called, commissioned and in that he was affirmed as being in a positive and sure relationship with God.
Sometimes I see leaders in Churches and I do wonder if God called them. Other times I have a strong sense of a person called by God, but they “fail” and the church dismisses them. One very simple example of this is a priest from when I was just a teenager. He was the most gifted priest, who really taught well from the pulpit, but also had a way of pastoral care and wisdom that meant that the parish grew in both number and activity and in spiritual maturity. Eventually the priest moved on and later left the church because he decided that he wanted to marry. The churches loss!
Stories like these we hear time and again, but sometimes the “failure” is more than a perceived failure and actual sin...... sometimes, we are the only ones who know and we feel that we can not be useful to God because we know just how bad we are.
If we have been called by God, we are called. Running away, we will find ourselves running into trouble, but in acknowledging our failure we will find that we have not forfeited the call and purpose that God has for our lives. The call of God is constant.
When we are called we know that we are forgiven. The “word of the Lord” coming a second time to Jonah, reassured him that God still had a plan and a purpose for him and it was the same plan and purpose that God had all along.
Mark 1:14-15 “After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”
There is also a sense of urgency about this week’s readings. “The time has come....” The time HAS come. It is time we stopped feeding our doubts and claimed back the truth, but to do this we need to know that we are also called.
It isn’t just those who are far away from God who need to repent and believe the Good News. From day to day, many of us get lost in our own world and in our own narrow perspective. To believe the Good News means to open our eyes to the bigger picture and realize that God has all of our personal “worlds” in his hands. But we need to repent. We need to realize that we have been running away from God by not fully trusting in him and not following the purpose to which he has called us.
But how do we know that God is calling us?
I remember seeing a poster many years ago with this same question. In big letters the poster said;
How can you know that God is calling you?
................................You are breathing!
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