|
First
Reading
|
Psalm |
Epistle |
Gospel |
| Jonah 3:1–5, 10 |
Psalm 62: 6–12 |
1 Corinthians 7:29–31 |
Mark 1:14–20 |
There is something about this particular Gospel passage that always rubs me the wrong way. I can picture a Saturday morning after a heavy snowfall. My children and I are all clearing the driveway and walks, because the snow blower is not working. We are beginning to make some progress when two neighborhood children come up and announce “our Dad is taking us to Cornell Plantations to go sledding. It’s really great there. Can you come?” Of course I cannot refuse, and soon the neighbor’s minivan pulls up, filled with every other child in the neighborhood, collects my children, and off they go, leaving me alone, with three snow shovels planted in a snow bank. In some sense, I think I know how the father of Zebedee must have felt when Jesus called his sons.
Yet this story is not about Jesus calling potential disciples to desert their responsibilities and run away from their everyday tasks. I suggest that Mark the Gospel writer used this setting on the shores of Lake Galilee not so much to convey a complete historical incident, as to stress that God seeks to enter our life right now and be a presence among us today. God's wisdom isn't confined up the hill among the stacks deep inside a library. God's love isn't holed up in an inaccessible monastery in the Himalayan Mountains. God's spirit is immediate, among the fishing boats, the hot dog stands, within the shopping malls and even among parents and children shoveling after a snowstorm. God seeks to make a difference in our life today.
Now this belief is harder to accept than we might first believe and especially difficult to convey within our secular society. For we like to think that if we are allowed to, we can do most things pretty well all by ourselves, without any outside help or inference, thank you. God’s presence becomes virtually irrelevant. It is like the story of the pious preacher who advised the New England farmer over a field fat with giant stalks of corn, “My what you and God have accomplished!” and the farmer retorted, “Eh-uh, you should have seen it when only God was working this field.” There is something unnerving about God's presence making a real difference, beyond our control.
Yet once we understand that God is on our side, rather than a hostile critic, then gifts of the Holy Spirit become easier to accept. God is like a good coach. Good coaches know their teams are not going to win every game. Yet if their teams go into a contest eager to compete, searching for any breaks that may come, they will play better, up to their potential, and even enjoy the contest. No one likes exams or facing an operation, but going to the hospital or into an exam with a positive attitude is much better a negative one. No, a positive attitude won't give assured results or provide you with answers you don't know and haven't studied, but it may help you to make connections with what you do know. It is even far easier to repair a snow blower when we are calmed down than when we are convinced inanimate objects have conspired against us.
While we were growing up, we probably remember someone saying, “Don't eat all that candy or it will spoil your supper.” Undoubtedly if we eat a quarter pound of chocolate candy right before a dinner, it doesn't matter whether supper is pot roast, crab imperial or tofu, it won't taste right. There is nothing wrong with the pot roast, it is the after effects of the sugar that corrupts our own taste buds and satiates our stomach. In similar fashion, certain forces in our world often corrupt our appetite and spoil the wonderfully good things of God's creation. The call to discipleship is not a call away from family or work or the world. It is an invitation to leave empty and unnourishing calories behind, an invitation to taste the real food of vocation, of play, of family, of love, of forgiveness and grace. In a sense Jesus is the world's first great gourmet cook. Jesus' cooking brings out all the variety of flavors and spices of humanity. Jesus invites us to God's feast, telling us to cut out eating just the candy, eating only the junk food of old life. Jesus calls us in the midst of our busy days, “Leave lesser things behind, come to my table and immediately you will taste the delicious flavor of new life.”
And
I offer this to you in the name of the Living God, Amen.
