Tag: Calling

(re)Called and (re)Commissioned

“‘Dear Lord God, I wish to preach in your honor. I wish to speak about you, glorify you, praise your name. Although I can’t do this well of myself, I pray that you may make it good.’”[i]

Introduction

We are all called to participate in God’s mission of the divine revolution of love, life, and liberation. Everyone who can say, by the Spirit speaking through them, “Jesus is Lord” (1 Cor 12:3-13), is commissioned by the same Spirit to represent Jesus in the world by working for the wellbeing of the neighbor to the glory of God. Our call (individually and corporately) is a full Trinitarian affair; every person of the Godhead is not only invested but deeply involved in the life of us Christians (individually and corporately), breathing life and energy into and through our words and deeds of love and loving service born from faith. We never have to go it alone, because we are never out there fending for ourselves. The God who flung the stars and the planets into their courses has wed God’s self to us (Eph. 5), fulfilling the long promise that God will never leave or forsake God’s people.

But sometimes, we forget that our calling and our commissioning are of God. We take matters into our own hands, we confuse our thoughts and ideas for God’s thoughts and ideas, and we strive to accomplish tasks promoting the kingdom of humanity rather than the reign of God. And as we wander away, forgetting the source and substance of our call and commission, we end up hurting people, especially hurting those desperate to know the love and care of God the Creator, the Redeemer, and the Sustainer.

The good news is that God calls us back from our wandering, putting in our paths teachers and leaders who remind us not only about our call and commission, but remind us—especially—that God is our ground and source. Today, God is bringing to St. Luke’s a great and capable leader and teacher, Liz, to remind you, the beautiful body of Christ, that not only does God love you always and forever, but God is your sure foundation. Today we celebrate the Great Commission that defines the lives of all Christians, and we celebrate God’s specific commissioning of Liz to help love and lead you for the wellbeing of others to the glory of God.

Matthew 28:16-20

Matthew tells his audience, Now the eleven disciples traveled into Galilee toward the mountain where Jesus appointed for them and they saw him and worshipped him, but some were of two minds (vv. 16-17). The disciples, the eleven left after Judas’s departure, follow the proclamation of the women; they are on their way to Galilee as the women told them to do, they believed the testimony of the women.[ii] (The women traveled to the tomb on Easter morning and were commanded by both the angel from heaven and Jesus himself to go and tell the disciples to travel to Galilee where they would see Jesus (Mt. 28:1-10).) The newly minted eleven are moved to obey these women, trusting that what they witnessed was true;[iii] so, they traveled to Galilee.

When Jesus is there and meets them, the disciples worship him…but not all of them. The word translated as “doubted” has more nuance to it than just intellectual “doubting”; some were of “two minds” about Jesus being in front of them, they didn’t know how to respond to this familiar Jesus who was currently unknown to them in his risen form.[iv] Caught like deer in headlights, some of the eleven froze…just like you and I would do no matter what great faith we think we have. Their hearts thudded, was it really him? Their minds short-circuited, what do we do now? Some sunk in reverence, some had to let reality sink in.

With care and concern, bringing comfort and assurance,[v] Jesus moves towards his beloveds. Matthew tells his audience,

And Jesus approached and spoke to them saying, ‘All authority in heaven and upon the earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of Abba God, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to guard over all that I commanded you. And, behold!, I, I am with you every day until the consummation of the ages (vv.18-20).

Jesus stands before these humble eleven of mixed minds and assures them: I AM. In the fullest way possible, Jesus tells them that not only has he been vindicated by God[vi] being risen from the dead, defeating death, but that this Son of Man and Son of God is now in possession of all the authority in heaven and upon the earth. His authority is fully established.[vii] TL/DR: nothing, absolutely nothing can defeat him. And in this unalterable celestial and earthly, cosmic,[viii] reality born in the risen Christ is another unalterable reality of both celestial and earthly proportions: the disciples (even though only eleven now) are restored to their place alongside Jesus as his representatives. Jesus’s “task-force” can continue to proclaim the gospel[ix] and they are commanded to do so unto the ends of the earth, proclaiming the good news not only to Israel but to all the nations including (but not limited to[x]) the Gentiles.[xi] In these shocked and humbled (very) human disciples, Jesus’s mission—God’s mission of the divine revolution of love, life, and liberation to bring all the world into God’s love[xii]—goes on.[xiii],[xiv],[xv]

How are the disciples to continue God’s mission made known in Jesus the Christ? By making disciples. Not by forcing people to believe (!!) but by proclaiming the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ crucified and raised and Christ’s new law of love.[xvi],[xvii] There’s no other message that participates in the furthering of God’s mission than the gospel, the proclamation of Christ. The Disciples must begin here and always begin again here at this basic message, which is the foundation of their lives, of their calling, and especially of their commissioning. Now, how they make disciples falls to two actions: baptizing and teaching. Less about “growing the church” and more about furthering the calling and commissioning of more disciples[xviii] who will, one by one and together, cause the church by the power of the Spirit.[xix] John’s baptism becomes the gateway for all people to enter into union with God as a result of faith; [xx] Jesus’s law of love will be distributed far and wide, letting it usher in the reign of God across lands and through nations, overturning the abuses and violences of the kingdom of humanity. On Good Friday, the disciples thought this Christ event was over and dead in the ground; but now, here, in this moment with Christ, what looked like an end, is a beginning…the commencement of their calling and commissioning to further God’s reign and righting wrongs.[xxi]

In this calling and commissioning are embedded two new realities for the disciples. First, is the trinitarian formula Jesus announces to them; the second is that Jesus will be with them always. According to Jesus, new disciples are to be baptized into the full name of the God-head, the Creator, the Redeemer, and the Sustainer. Jesus, the Son of God and of humanity, the one who was crucified and who is now standing before them, is to be counted as God and thus Jesus’s name participates in the full name of God, the Trinity.[xxii] In other words, Jesus is God, just as the Holy Spirit is God and Abba God is God. (The I am is no mistake here.) Following this is the promise the gospel closes with:[xxiii] I, I am with you every day until the consummation of the ages. It is no mistake that Matthew closes his gospel with this promise, considering he opened it (1:21) with the announcement that Jesus was Emmanuel “God with us”;[xxiv] all of Matthew’s gospel points to the continual presence of God among God’s people.[xxv] Without the power of Christ to call them, commission them, and compel them, the disciples cannot carry out their making of disciples; this is more than just a comforting thought, it is the very source of their lives and living as sent and powered disciples.[xxvi] Because of Jesus’s resurrection and the sending of the Spirit, Jesus can be with his disciples now and forever unlike when he walked the earth with them before Good Friday.[xxvii] God is with us, yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

Conclusion

The calling and commissioning of the disciples is also our calling and commissioning (or, rather, recalling and recommissioning). This morning, we are called back to the root and ground of our lives as Christ’s disciples who are to live in such a way to proclaim God’s love in Christ to others and to the glory of God. We are to represent Christ in our words and deeds, knowing that we are not out here bumbling about alone; we are enveloped in the full love and presence of the Trinity, reminded of this fact every Sunday through our common worship together and in the preaching and teaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We do not need to make up a message; we already have one and it’s revolutionary. We do not need a new law; we already have one and it is built on and from love. We do not need to keep trying to find ourselves; we are found in Christ and given new life in him. We do not need to search for keys to unlock the captives; we have been given the key to bring liberation to all the oppressed and marginalized. This morning, hear your call and commissioning anew.

And, to Liz, you, too, are summoned this morning to help lead and instruct in the name of our Triune God. These here are now your charge (along with AliceMarie); to care for them, to bring comfort where there is affliction, and affliction where there is comfort, and, when necessary, to get into a little bit of good trouble as you participate as God’s called and commissioned leader of this humble church in Delta.

[i] LW 54:157-158; Table Talk 1590.

[ii] Anna Case-Winters Matthew Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible Eds Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2015), 337. “The disciples…are following the instructions given for them to the women from the angel and from Jesus himself. Apparently they believed these women.”

[iii] Case-Winters, Matthew, 337-338. “Though they have not seen the risen Lord, they see the effect of the risen Lord on these women.”

[iv] R. T. France The Gospel of Matthew The New International Commentary on the New Testament. Gen. Ed Joel B. Green (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 1112. “More likely it indicates that they did not know how to respond to Jesus in this new situation, where he was familiar and yet now different… [like transfiguration]”

[v] France, Matthew, 1112. Jesus “approached” Jesus came to his frightened disciples (assurance); Jesus “speaks” restoration of broken relations; and Jesus “says” words pushing their failures in the past, “swallowed up in the much greater reality of the mission to which they are now called.”

[vi] France, Matthew, 1108. “Jesus himself, risen form the dead, is now revealed in all his glory as the vindicated and enthroned Son of Man, a status which he has hitherto spoken of only as a future expectation, but which has now become a reality.”

[vii] Case-Winters, Matthew, 338. “Now there is no doubt of Jesus’ authority. God has raised him from the dead; it is a validation of his life and ministry. Now he announces ‘All authority in heaven and on earth have been given to me.”

[viii] France, Matthew, 1113. “…now what had been a vision for the future, albeit the imminent future, has become present reality. The risen Jesus, vindicated over those who tied to destroy him, is now established as the universal sovereign, and his realm embraces not only the whole earth, which was to be the dominion of the ‘one like a son of man’ in Daniel’s vision, but heaven as well.”

[ix] France, Matthew, 1107-1108. “In these few words many of the most central themes of the gospel reach their resolution and culmination. The preparation of the Twelve as Jesus’ task force, which had apparently ended in irreversible disaster in 26:56, is now resumed as they (or rather elven of them) are restored to their position of trust and responsibility and given the final instructions for fulfilling the emission for which they were originally called in 10:1-15.”

[x] France, Matthew, 1114. “The commission is of course to go far beyond Israel, but that does not require that Israel be excluded.”

[xi] Case-Winters, Matthew, 338. “His command to the disciples is that they should ‘Go therefore and make disciples of all nations” (Greek panda ta ethē). In much of Matthew ethnē means the Gentiles. The mission that was only for the ‘lost sheep of Israel’ is now decisively opened to the Gentiles.”

[xii] Case-Winters, Matthew, 339. “God’s work with Israel is not abolished or abrogated, it is rather extended outward to others who will be included even as was the Jewish eschatological hope. All will be judged—not on the basis of their religious affiliation or ethnic origin but on the basis of their love of God and neighbor as demonstrated by what they actually do.”

[xiii] Case-Winters, Matthew, 338-339. “The mission to Israel is never abrogated, just as Jesus comes not to abolish the law but to fulfill it.”

[xiv] Amy-Jill Levine qtd in Case-Winters, Matthew, 339. “‘It is because the promises to Israel have been fulfilled in Jesus’ mission that the message….can now be proclaimed to the Gentiles.’”

[xv] France, Matthew, 1108.

[xvi] Case-Winters, Matthew, 339. “The outreach to the Gentiles must include the teaching of the law; teaching all nations to obey everything that Jesus, the authoritative interpret of the law, has commanded them (28:20).”

[xvii] France, Matthew, 1118. “…they are to teach not their own ideas, but what Jesus has ‘commanded,’ entellomai, a term which hitherto has been especially associated with the ’commandments’…given by God through Moses. The basis of living as the people of God will henceforth be the new ‘commandments’ give in by Jesus.”

[xviii] Case-Winters, Matthew, 339. “It should be noted that this passage is not about ‘church grown.’ It is about ‘discipling’ (teaching) and baptizing (calling people into ministry).”

[xix] France, Matthew, 1108. “And at the heart of this new community of faith is the risen Jesus himself, as he had said he would be (18:20): they are to be his disciples, obeying his commands, and sustained by his unending presence among them. This new international community will be his ekklēsia (16:18) because it is he who now holds all authority heaven and on earth (an authority greater than that which he was initially offered by Satan and refused, 4:8-10)…”

[xx] France, Matthew, 1108. “The almost imperceptible mustard seed is now about to grow into a mighty tree; the kingdom of heaven is to be established over all the earth. The baptism which John had originally instituted as a symbol of a new beginning for repentant Israel (3:1-12) is now to be extended to people from all nations.”

[xxi] France, Matthew, 1110. “For the disciples, and for Matthew’s readers, this conclusion is in fact a beginning, a commencement.”

[xxii] France, Matthew, 1118. “The human leader of the disciple group has become the rightful object of their worship. And the fact that the three divine persons are spoken of as having a single ‘name’ is a significant pointer toward the trinitarian doctrine of the three person in one God.”

[xxiii] Case-Winters, Matthew, 339.  “The gospel closes with a promise.”

[xxiv] Case-Winters, Matthew, 340. “‘I am with you’ is the beginning, middle and ending of Matthew’s Gospel Jesus is identified from the beginning as “Emmanuel’ (1:21), which means “God with us.’ Midway in the Gospel Jesus comes to the disciples across the storm tossed sea and addresses them with his assuring presence: ‘“Take heart, it is I. Do not be afraid”’ (14:27). Now the promise is given, ‘I will be with you always, to the end of the age.’ It is the final word of the Gospel, and perhaps the only word we really need.”

[xxv] Case-Winters, Matthew, 339. “‘I am with you’ has been a central theme for the Gospel.”

[xxvi] France, Matthew, 1119. “But the presence of Jesus himself among his people…ensures that it is not simply a relationship of formal obedience. In context this assurance is focused not on the personal comfort of the individual disciple but on the successful completion of the mission entrusted to the community as a whole.”

[xxvii] France, Matthew, 1119. “Jesus’ physical presence with his disciples was limited to the period of his earthly life span, but the spiritual presence of the risen Jesus has no such limitation: it is an eternal, divine being that Jesus will be among his obedient people, ‘God with us.’”

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Emma Percy’s “What Clergy Do”

Emma Percy, What Clergy Do: Especially When it Looks like Nothing. London: SPCK, 2014.

Emma Percy’s What Clergy Do: Especially When it Looks like Nothing, brings the imagery of motherhood, the role of the parish priest, and “good enough” into dialogue. Every page felt like a good word reassuring that both my mothering and my priesting is “good enough” while reminding me that I cannot be all things to all people or can I mother and priest like all other people. Percy’s text highlights three important features of this human endeavor of priesthood inspired by God’s holy and gracious call: 1. The need to eradicate comparison and competitiveness; 2. Humble and substantial presence will carry one through the day in and day out; and 3. Neither care giving for children nor God’s beloved gathered in a parish is easy and comfortable. Overall, this text is a text that should be employed in seminary pastoral education classes due to its grammatical accessibility and practical application.

1. The need to eradicate comparison and competitiveness Percy’s bold approach to articulating concepts means that her sentences function as cleverly disguised scalpels. While reading I found myself intermittently getting frustrated and sometimes mad, feeling exposed and raw. Ugh! I’d say aloud This is all so much! How am I ever going to be good at this job! But that’s the point of the text (or at least one of the points I experienced). It’s not about being “good” or, rather, “the best…better than all the rest!” Percy exposed my persistent tendencies to intellectually and emotionally default to a competitive posture in the world of being a parish priest by which I would compare myself ruthlessly to other “more successful” and “killing it” priests. As a small parish pastor, I can lose myself in the deadly game of comparison that grows into competition; it is hard game to win when I feel dwarfed by the looming specter of failure always at my red, episcopal door. But yet, Percy’s constant refrain, “good enough” was a soothing balm to my exposed and raw situation; I can be “good enough” because it is God who works through me, it is about God’s good word in Christ Jesus, and because, at the end of the day, the Spirit is always with me and us as we—together as part of the body of Christ—bring God’s mission of the revolution of love, life, and liberation into the world. Percy’s text liberated me from myself to render me of (divine) use for my neighbor (both inside and outside the church).

2. Humble and substantial presence will carry one through the day-in and day-out Percy reminded me that even though removing myself from the game of comparison and competition is a good step, it can’t be the only step. Considering the scientific axiom, nature abhors a vacuum, the elimination of something demands filling that void with something substantial or anything could be sucked into that empty space. Here, Percy’s chapters provided me with access to what it looks like to come to terms with myself (who am I as a mom? As a Priest?) and then to be honest, really honest with myself—being willing to let the mythologies I present to the world and to my own mind about who and what I am and able to do be exposed by the light of truth and reality. In the theological world inspired by the reformational insights the Martin Luther, Percy asks her reader to “call a thing what it is” or, more pastorally, “to call yourself who you are” and then to work from that point. Being able to be honest with yourself is the first step of humble motherhood and priesthood. And in being honest, according to Percy, we will gain further access to the liberation of “Good enough” that bears the fruit of life, real, fleshy, messy, human-y life—the type of life that can go the distance because it gets back up when it falls, and it gets back down when it gets too high up. When we come to terms with who we are by being exposed by the cross of Christ, we are brought through that death into the new life of Christ’s resurrection. Percy’s text is founded on this gospel movement from and through death into the new life bathed in the light of Christ. Being a mom and being a priest is for the long haul, Percy points out, it is not easy to try to rush to a goal thus rendering all the people caught between you and the goal as the ground you are walking upon. Percy exhorts humble, substance filled, present tense being…for today we are good enough.

3. Neither caregiving for children nor God’s beloved gathered in a parish is easy and comfortable This speaks for itself. Percy’s book reveals the frank reality that parish life as well as home life isn’t easy, and it certainly isn’t comfortable. I believe Percy exposes that our church structure has gone too far the way of corporate thinking. As a priest, I am called to support my people, to encourage them toward the liberative word of God that is Christ and to make time and space for them to be nourished by the presence of the Spirit in word and deed, in the pews and at the table. This is an inverted corporate structure; I am not a religious tyrant with everyone having to serve me or needing to placate my bloated (narcissistic?) ego. I serve my congregation by teaching, preaching, and leading worship (i.e. making space regularly for each beloved to come into an encounter with God in the event of faith); my congregation doesn’t serve me. I think we’ve too frequently gotten it wrong and have harmed one too many of God’s fold while we’ve been in pursuit of what feeds me most, what is best for me, what keeps me most comfortable. Here the fruit of liberation that is love that first loves us comes to the surface; we are to love others as we have been so loved by God, and, often, as God has loved us. Luther exhorted preachers to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” Percy’s text, What Clergy Do, is that good word that rattles the cushy seat of the priest and wakes them up, summons them out of comfortability, and prepares and equips them for the hard work of “good enough.” And therein Percy, after afflicting the comfortable, comforts the afflicted like the excellent teacher, scholar, and pastor she is.

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I Walk in Translucence

I walk in translucence
live within substance
thick and transparent;
material iridescence.

Things feel neither this
and definitely not that.
Chaos feels normal now,
so too: one step at a time.

Definitions feel too heavy
and desperately craved.
Reaching back fails, yet
Straining forward is loss.

My vocation is pointless
rendered to dust by those
who care more for their own
spirituality than the story.

I’m embarrassed to don
cloak and collar; a cloth
representation of violence,
an archaic cairn of lost ways.

No one looks for a priest
anymore; a bygone call
ushered eras ago, long since
silenced by human stubbornness.

The Church is dying…
I need to touch the host
The people are perishing…
Where are my robes.

Ethical praxis amounts to
nothing more than matching
colors of reds, purples, greens
and the occasional pink.

Forming opinions on things
that bring not life but perpetuate
death and night among the people,
stealing life; irony: we think we live.

Reigning top-down in fluid fear
making our own bodies the apex
of the entire structure and story.
Grandiose expressions of pomp.

Bloated ego mixed with adorned
body, ready for worship blurring
distinction of my body and Christ’s.
My body wasn’t broken; his was.

Jesus died held on wood by nails,
stuck to an instrument of death
designed by the state to kill those
threatening their claim to power.

Jesus died held on wood by nails,
identifying with every oppressed body,
the same who watched on and listened
as those with more hubris mocked him.

All who found themselves trapped as he
watched as this man, God of very God,
refused to play the way those in power
wanted him to play; he chose another game.

Not strength, but weakness.
Not power, but compassion.
Not authority, but solidarity.
Not death, but life.

He died not in fine robes, but stripped naked.
He died not on rare stone, but simple wood.
He died not with fanfare, but ridiculed.
He died not for himself, but for the people.

Is this not the story of the church?
Is this not the fabric that is the
material of my call and my life as
a priest in this church, in this story?

Yet things feel neither this
and definitely not that.
Chaos feels normal now,
so too: one step at a time.

I walk in translucence
live within substance
thick and transparent;
material iridescence.

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God’s Near

Sermon on Mark 1:14-20

Psalm 62:6-7 For God alone my soul in silence waits; truly, my hope is in him. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold, so that I shall not be shaken.

Introduction

I never paid much mind to the impact of my voice. I spent a lot of time not wanting to talk in public. I was safer staring out the window of the backseat of the car as a kid, retreating to the back of the classroom and hiding as a student, and sitting in the pew furthest back as a new Christian. I’ve only considered my voice to be merely a voice to me and my inner circle but lacking weight apart from carrying words into the air. I didn’t put much thought into the reality that we come into the world knowing one voice well: the voice of the one who carried us for a little over nine months. It’s the first voice we know; the second being that of the other parent but in a muffled way. I recall with clarity the screeches of my babies quieting across the OR as soon as I spoke: it’s okay little one, mama’s here.

I put even less thought into the impact the voices of my children would have on me. I recall vividly standing amid a large group of moms at a birthday party for Jack when a child’s yelp and cry sounded from across the park where dads and kids were splashing in a shallow creek. We all went quiet listening. And then I took off. No other mom ran, just me because it was my kid and none of theirs. I knew that voice because it was the voice of my child, and he needed me.

While I learned something about the power of my voice by becoming a mother, this knowledge isn’t relegated to motherhood. The voices of siblings, cousins, nieces and nephews, grandparents and grandchildren, friends, lovers turn our heads and bring warmth to our insides; it’s their voices we miss terribly when they walk this timeline no more. We also love and miss the sound of the barks, meows, oinks, baaas, maaas, neighs, and moos (etc.) of the animalkind we care for.

Mark 1:16-18

And while passing by alongside the sea of Galilee [Jesus] saw Simon and Andrew–the brother of Simon—while throwing nets into the sea; for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, “Come (!) behind me, and I will make you to become fishermen of people.” And immediately they dropped the nets and followed him.

(Mk 1: 16-18, translation mine)

Mark wastes no time getting us from the announcement of the divine son Jesus the Christ (1:1), into the waters of the Jordan (1:9-11), dropped into the wilderness temptation (1:12-13), and to the calling of the disciples (1:16-20) by way of briefly articulating the good news (ευαγγελιον).[1] The thrust of chapter one is the announcement that the ευαγγελιον has come into the world; it’s this good news that John the forerunner of the Christ proclaimed waist deep in water, and Jesus, the Christ, fulfills[2] as the divine herald.[3] For Mark, the content of the ευαγγελιον: “…the time has been fulfilled and the kingdom of God is has come near; repent[4] and believe in the good news” (Mk 1:15).[5]

Mark isn’t mindlessly rattling off details about the beginning of Jesus’s ministry; Mark is writing to disciples who are presently facing persecution and is eager to show them what it means to be a good disciple. Thus, the calling of disciples accentuates none of this is their doing but God’s. Mark’s people heard the voice of God call them and responded rightly[6] by following just like Jesus’s disciples did. Therefore, they like these men, are with Christ amid the suffering and persecution. Mark establishes that faith and following are inextricably linked; hold steady, little church, Mark maternally comforts, keep the faith; God hears your cries and comes; God is with you.

God has heard the cries of God’s people; the good news is on the move.[7] And where does it go? To the downtrodden and exhausted. Jesus goes neither to the religious teachers and elders nor to those who are wealthy and lead, but to the simple men, throwing simple nets, to catch fish.[8] Jesus goes not to the temple but to the sea. Jesus goes not to the powerful rulers but to the powerless ruled—from these he calls his disciples; to these the kingdom of God comes near. It’s here among this imperfect, rag-tag, group of laborers smelling of sweat and fish and sea where the kingdom and kingship of God is secured.[9]

Jesus doesn’t ask them to follow; he commands it.[10] It’s a command commanding the action in its entirety (now): Come behind me! (Now!) Unlike other rabbis who were sought by future students, Jesus calls his disciples to follow him.[11] These disciples will ask not: can I sit at your feet, rabbi? Rather they will have to self-reckon: Will I come behind Jesus? Will I follow Jesus? The crux of the predicament being the necessity of an overhauling and upending of their lives as they know it. Simon (Peter) and Andrew, as well as James and John (vv19-20) are called into apprenticeship that demands leaving everything they knew as is to become was in order to embrace what will be.[12]

This is the core of what it means to “repent” (μετανοιετε) proclaimed in the good news. It’s not about some verbal “sorry” or about professing how wretched you are. Instead, it’s about being called to reconsider things, to change your mind/purpose in the world, to align with the will of God and not the will of humanity—these two things rarely aligning (if ever). Jesus tells Peter and Andrew they’ll no longer fish fish to eat but fish people out of harm’s way. If they follow their lifestyle will change.[13] If James and John follow, they’ll leave behind their father and his way of life.[14] These fishermen are the epitome of what it means to repent and believe: they heard the voice of love—who spoke the cosmos into existence—and they turned, dropped their nets, and walked with God. To repent and believe is not about verbal self-flagellation because of God’s wrath in some desperate attempt to make God love you. It’s about being made aware God’s love comes to you lovingly calling you into God’s presence like a mother seeking and calling her beloved child to her bosom. It’s okay little one, mama’s here.

Conclusion

Simon, Andrew, James and John heard love call them into love’s presence and couldn’t do anything else but drop their nets and follow love. They didn’t follow an abstract concept of elusive warm feelings, but a tangible, fleshy, active, living and breathing love walking in the world. They won’t follow perfectly, but perfection isn’t the point; Love walking in the world is. It’s this living, breathing, active love they’ll proclaim after Jesus leaves and sits down at the right hand of God. It’s this living, breathing, active love that’ll cost them not only their livelihood, but also their life breath as they proclaim a love that upended and overhauled their society and their status-quo. Following this active, living, breathing love and asking the self-reckoning question that day on the shore, changed not just their lives but the lives of many others.

This love, this active, living, breathing love set the world in motion, keeps it in motion, and comes near and calls us today. The same love that walked along the wet sand of the sea of Galilee, walks on the frozen ground of this Ute land at the base of the National Monument calling us. We are the sought, the Beloved. And, we, like the disciples, must ask the same question: will I come behind Jesus? Will I follow after Jesus?

To follow will upend your life; to follow love, God, Jesus, will overhaul everything you know to be true about the world. If you drop your nets, you’ll walk away from that which is rendered “what was” to embrace “what will be.” The encounter with God in the event of faith—working out through “repentance” and “believing”—is death to the old age and old person and new birth into the new age as a new person (not as “sinless and good” but as “new and filled with divine love of God’s spirit”). The kingdoms of humanity rage against the way of love of the kingdom of God. Paul exhorts the Corinthians to behave as if God’s eternality eclipses the mortality of our human institutions.[15] He asks them to follow love so that through them and by them something new comes forth from death. “For the external structures of this world are slipping away,” (7:31b).[16] It’s okay little ones, Paul comforts, God’s near. The new age is populated with new creations perpetuating love and life and light into the world and letting that which is of the old age slip away so that something new can be built in its place, letting the divine phoenix of life break from the ashes of death.

[1] RT France The Gospel of Mark NIGTC Grand Rapids, MI: 2002. 88. “The narrative moves on rapidly from scene to scene, carrying the reader on by its own momentum rather than by any formal structural markers.”

[2] France 90, “For now the reader is expected to know it already, or must simply take it on trust. There is no place here to spell it out, since John himself is no longer in focus, and to delay over the details of his story at this point would distract attention from his successor, who now takes, and will retain, his place in centre stage. The role of the forerunner is over; the time of fulfilment has come.”

[3] France 90-1, “There is an important element of continuity between John and Jesus. The same participle κηρυσσων which described John’s ministry (v.4) now describes that of his successor, and at least one of the elements in that proclamation is the same…[the overlap being the ‘forerunner motif’] but also the messianic herald of Is 40:9 52:7; 61:1 whose role is to announce ευαγγελιον…and who is himself the Spirit-endowed Messiah.”

[4] Μετανοιτε (first principle part: μετανοεω) in v.15 it is an imperative 2nd person plural verb: a command to repent. The verb can also be translated as: you change your mind/purpose. It can also carry the idea of changing the inner person in regards to the will of God. It’s as if you were going in one direction and you are caused to change your direction.

[5] France 90, “Verses 14-15…play a crucial role in Mark’s story, as the reference point for all subsequent mentions of the proclamation initiated by Jesus and entrusted by him to his followers. Here is the essential content of the ευαγγελιον to which the people of Galilee are summoned to respond.”

[6] France 93, “With the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, therefore, a new era of fulfilment has begun, and it calls for response from God’s people”

[7] France 90, “Down there, people had had to make a special journey to John, but now Jesus is going to where people are, in the inhabited areas of his own province.”

[8] France 94, “…the Messiah himself refuses to assert his authority by an impressive show of divine…pomp and pageantry. The kingdom of God comes not with fanfare but through the gradual gathering of a group of socially insignificant people in an unnoticed corner of provincial Galilee.”

[9] France 94, “They [the disciples called] may, and often will, fail him and disappoint him, but their role is crucial to the achievement of his mission, for it is through this flawed and vulnerable group of people that God’s kingship will be established.”

[10] δευτε οπισω μου: come (!) after me. Δευτε is an aorist active imperative 2nd person plural verb indicating the action being commanded is being commanded as a whole.

[11] France 96, “Rabbis didn’t call their followers; rather the pupil adopted the teacher. Jesus’ preemptory summons, with its expectation of radical renunciation even of family ties, goes far beyond anything they would be familiar with in normal society. It marks him as a prophet rather than a rabbi.”

[12] France 96, “Simon and Andrew are being called to follow Jesus as their leader, in a relationship which went beyond merely formal learning to a fulltime “apprenticeship’.”

[13] France 97

[14] France 97

[15] Anthony C. Thiselton The First Epistle to the Corinthians TNIGTC 585, “…‘Paul’s point is not the transiency of creation as such….but the fact that its outward pattern, in social and mercantile institutions, for example, has no permanence.’ To combine Barrett’s emphasis on social, political and commercial institutions with the notion of outward appearance with Hering’s ‘disappearing across the stage’ we translate the sentence as For the external structures of this world are slipping away.”

[16] Thiselton 585, “The crumbling of the present world order is indicated by παραγει γαρ το σχημα τοθ κοσμου τουτου…Paul’s eschatological frame indicates a dynamic cosmic process. Hence we translate, For the external structures of this world are slipping away.”

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Called

Luke 5:27-32 (Homily)

“After this he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up, left everything, and followed him.

Then Levi gave a great banquet for him in his house; and there was a large crowd of tax collectors and others sitting at the table with them. The Pharisees and their scribes were complaining to his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” Jesus answered, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance” (Luke 5:27-32).

There’s something about having your name called and such an event comes with a myriad of potential responses: total excitement or complete fear. I remember in high school, in college, and even in seminary, I would sit in the back of the class, quiet, listening and praying and hoping that the teacher would never, ever, ever, ever call on me. (I know, the irony that I’m not a teacher, in the front of the class, incessantly yammering on about ancient texts and dead theologians.)  I remember the panic when a professor in seminary decided he was going to start calling on people to answer his questions rather than wait for volunteers (a means to ensure everyone was doing the reading). I remember my heart stopping as his eyes met mine and I had yet to fully slip all the way under my desk. “Ms. Ellis, please explain to the class Calvin’s view of the response of the believer to God in faith…” Me: blank stare. I literally just stared at him. After an awkward silent stand off, he moved on to someone else.    

And then there’s the good moments when someone calls your name like when your best friend mentions your name or when that person, you know, that someone who you like says it, the person you like “like like,” like a lot. There are people who call your name and you feel warm and your head turns and you move toward them; and there are people who call your name and you shudder and you feel exposed and you want to hide.

Luke 5 is an interesting chapter because it’s primarily about Jesus calling to himself the people who will become his disciples. And when he calls them, the come. What’s really interesting to me is that Jesus doesn’t technically know these people he calls. When he gets into the boat with Simon Peter and tells him what to do with his net at the beginning of chapter 5, there’s no, “Hey, Pete, let’s go fishing…” There’s just: do this, do that, now, come follow me.” And Peter follows. In our text, there’s no, “Hey, Levi, what’s up…how are you? How’s mom?” There’s just: “‘Follow me.’” And, as Luke tells us, Levi “…got up, left everything, and followed him” (v. 28). It’s pretty amazing; just try getting someone to follow you who does not know you by only saying, “Follow me.” Chances are, the person you address will think you are flat out not quite right.

You turn and move immediately because the voice that has called your name loves you. When these people heard Jesus call their name, they heard the voice of love calling them; they heard the voice of God and their heads turned, and they moved toward God.

What’s really, really interesting to me is this: back in Genesis 3, there’s a moment after the fateful eating of the fruit when all things go to heck in a hand-basket, Adam and Eve realize they are naked and feel shame and humiliation, and they hide. Here’s the story,

“Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.

They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” He said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself” (Gen 3:7-10).

In their newfound ability to determine what was good and evil for on their own, they decided that God’s voice; God’s call was not good. They hid when they heard God approach. Hoping and praying that God would not notice them, they ducked behind some trees. There’s a fear and trembling here when God calls the man and the woman out from behind the tree. They’re reluctant to step out into the open.

But when Jesus calls it seems this previous moment of Genesis 3 is being undone. Jesus calls the people, and the people come, they don’t hide, they don’t run, they turn and follow.  Jesus fulfilled the great promise of God to his people: I will be your God and you will be my people. They will be the people who turn and follow God when God calls, not the ones that hide and turn away.

But why this change? Why are the people dropping everything and following Jesus when Jesus calls? Because Jesus is the word made flesh, the love of God incarnate, the loving voice that sounded at the beginning of creation and called everything into existence: the stars, the sun and the moon, the land and the sea, and all of the animals, you and me. This is the voice that is calling these people in this moment, and don’t we know when love calls?

John tells us in his gospel, that Jesus says, “‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him’” (3:16-17). Where before Adam and Eve assumed that God’s presence and God’s call was going to expose unto condemnation and death, Jesus reveals that this divine presence, call, and exposure leads unto comfort and life. Jesus is the word of God that goes forth into the world causing what it desires: “Come and follow me” and the people do.

The one who called Simon Peter the fisherman and Levi the tax collector calls you. You are grafted into this story because Jesus’s call goes forth by the power of the Holy Spirit today: calling, beckoning, you into comfort, into love, into life. The one who spoke the cosmos into existence calls you, lovingly calls you who are the beloved of God. Hear the God of love call you, Beloved, and turn and follow and experience life beyond measure.

My beloved speaks and says to me:
“Arise, my love, my fair one,
    and come away;
for now the winter is past,
    the rain is over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth;
    the time of singing has come,
and the voice of the turtledove
    is heard in our land.
The fig tree puts forth its figs,
    and the vines are in blossom;
    they give forth fragrance.
Arise, my love, my fair one,
    and come away. (Song of Songs 2:10-13)

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