Mark 1:14-20

The Third Sunday after the Epiphany | 21 January 2024 | Sermon on Mark 1:14-20 | Paul Bieber |

Mark 1:14-20 Revised Standard Version

¹⁴ Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, ¹⁵ and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel.”

¹⁶ And passing along by the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting a net in the sea; for they were fishermen. ¹⁷ And Jesus said to them, “Follow me and I will make you become fishers of men.” ¹⁸ And immediately they left their nets and followed him. ¹⁹ And going on a little farther, he saw James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, who were in their boat mending the nets. ²⁰ And immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants, and followed him.

also

Jonah 3.1–5, 10

Psalm 62.6–14

I Corinthians 7.29–31

Follow Me

Grace, peace, and much joy to you, people of God.

The ministry of the Forerunner is ended. John the Baptist, so prominent in Advent and at the Baptism of our Lord, will be seen now only in flashbacks and the questions posed in controversies between Jesus and his adversaries. Jesus’ public ministry in Galilee begins. He is preaching the gospel, the good news from God, the good news about God. Here it is: “the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel.”

Jesus then calls four fishermen, two sets of brothers, saying, “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.” Immediately they follow him and become his disciples. They will be with him to learn what this gospel means, and then will be sent to draw men out of the waters of this world, in the net of the kingdom, into the new age inaugurated by Jesus.

During the Christmas season we heard that “when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son” (Gal. 4:4). That passage spoke of chronological time, but Jesus’ proclamation of the gospel speaks of kairos, God’s time. God’s kingdom is breaking into this world’s time. Something new comes into this world as Jesus proclaims the kingdom. What that new thing is, that new age, God’s eternal kingdom, is not made clear in this opening proclamation. Later we will hear that it is like a tiny seed sown in the earth, bringing forth fruit abundantly.

We do hear already in this opening proclamation that this kingdom calls for a response. That response is repentance, metanoia, a turning of the mind, a change of heart, a reorientation of your personality, relationships, your whole way of life. What good news that is for the spiritually sick who need a physician, for those who feel trapped by patterns in their lives that they cannot break.

We are delighted to hear this gospel, this good news directed to people like us. But today’s gospel is paired with today’s first reading for a reason. While we are delighted to hear this good news directed to people like us, we are aghast that this good news could be directed also to people like them.

You know, them: the people of Nineveh. The Ninevites are whoever you hate. Jonah the son of Amittai was a prophet of the eighth century b.c. Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian Empire, the ruthless empire that was the implacable and finally overwhelming enemy of Israel. The prophet Nahum calls it a “city of blood” (Nah. 3:1) and of “endless cruelty” (3:19). Israel—and many other ancient peoples—hated Nineveh. Jonah hated Nineveh. It is no wonder that when he was called by the Lord to preach repentance to Nineveh he promptly took off in the opposite direction.

Jonah doesn’t want them to be given the chance to repent. But he knows that God is “gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” (Jonah 4:2). The point of the bit of the story we hear this morning is that Jonah proclaimed God’s message, the people of Nineveh repented, and God changed his mind about the calamity they so richly deserved.

God’s message is powerful, even in the mouth of the reluctant Jonah. How much more in the mouth of the Word made flesh, the one in whose very presence and proclamation the kingdom draws near. The call can create the response it demands. “Follow me,” Jesus says, and the fishermen sacrifice family and livelihood—immediately, unconditionally—they leave all and follow him.

The Venerable Bede, a monk of the eighth century a.d., wrote that following Jesus is imitating the pattern of his life. Fundamentally, the pattern of Jesus’ life was doing the will of the Father, knowing that the consequence of such a course of action in this world would be the cross. Indeed, later in the gospel Jesus will make it clear that the call “Follow me” means “Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me” (Mk. 8:34).

In St. Paul’s language, it means disregarding the present form of this world, because God’s time has broken into the world’s chronological calculations. Causes for mourning seem to stretch into the future, but death and hardship are not the end of the story. The joys of this world, while they are real, are short-lived in God’s scheme of things. The possessions we strive so hard to obtain will not secure our lives. And even the joys of marriage are no longer at the center of a life reoriented by repentance and faith.

“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel.” The response the proclamation demands is faith. Faith is not knowledge, a theory or theorem. Faith is a matter of our whole existence, our understanding, our will, our love, and so it goes beyond what we can know. It is a matter of letting go of ourselves and accepting what draws near in Jesus, humbly and thankfully, whenever it is given to us.

Faith is a matter of the whole person, because the encounter with Jesus Christ implicates the whole person. By faith the word of God sends roots ever deeper into our lives so that our lives can bear fruit. But it’s a process, a path we walk, following Jesus—maybe even to Nineveh. Faith is not something we ever achieve or possess completely. It is our response to the gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and so abounding in steadfast love that, in the fullness of time, he sent Jesus even to us, to heal our sin-sick souls, our attachment to the things of this world, and even our hatred of the Ninevites.

Christ calls us to follow him. He doesn’t come to our workplaces with an irresistible invitation. We are called by stories such as these. God’s message is powerful, even in the mouth of an imperfect preacher. This is not a word of generic theism, moral rearmament, hour-of-death-fire-insurance, or self-help hints. It is not concerned to demonstrate how the new thing that draws near in Jesus meets our needs. It is concerned to bring us to ask whether we know what our needs are.

We don’t deserve a chance to repent any more than the Ninevites did. But in hearing about Jonah and the Ninevites, St. Paul and the Corinthians, Jesus and the Galilean fishermen, we are given an invitation to completely reorient our lives, to deal with the relationships and emotions and things of this world as though we could do without them for the sake of this dawning new reality, to let go of much that seems indispensable for the sake of Jesus’ call to trust this good news that God cares for us, guides our lives, and wants us to share eternal life with him in the fullness of the kingdom.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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The Rev. Dr. Paul Bieber

San Diego, California, USA

E-Mail: paul.bieber@sbcglobal.net