The Third Sunday after the Epiphany

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The Third Sunday after the Epiphany, January 22, 2006
Jeremiah 3:21-4:2, I Corinthians 7:17-23, Mark 1:14-20
St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, West Valley City, UT

Our Gospel reading today is another “calling” story, Jesus calling Simon Peter, Andrew, James and John from being fishermen to being fishers for people. We often think of “call” in terms of a church or religious setting, a “calling” or “ministry.” Sometimes, however, the image of the church setting is not that positive.

I just finished an intriguing little book written from the perspective of God talking about God. It was a light, easy, and at times funny book of God answering questions about God. In the part about church was this description of how too many people see the church: “...how often nowadays Christianity is considered as little if anything more than a repressive, fear-based, guilt-driven, woman-hating, sin-obsessed, money-hungry, homophobic monolith of an institution led by a sanctimonious, hypocritical windbags shrilly braying about who and what [God does and does not] approve of, and what [God intends] to do about it,” (Penguins, Pain and the Whole Shebang).

I know this is not your view of the church, especially your church. But, “out there” it is the view too much of the time I fear. So, how/why are we called to it?

I do contrast with a wonderful book I highly recommend, Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott. She honestly and humorously writes of her faith. She writes about leaving church one day in tears, so moved by the service and music. She notes that she experienced “something like having a cat” watching her: “I felt him sitting there on his haunches in the corner of my sleeping loft, watching me with patience and love.” She notes that she felt the “cat” follow her home from church, running after her. “I began to cry and left...and I raced home and felt the little cat running along at my heels, and I walked...under a sky as blue as one of God's own dreams, and I opened [my] door...and I stood there a minute, and I hung my head and said, ‘. . . I quit.’ I took along deep breath and said out loud, ‘All right. You can come in.’” (Traveling Mercies)

That rings very true to me. God's love and grace as a constant and annoyingly persistent at times. I did not have the image of a cat. I'm more a dog-person, but I do have the image of God continually reminding me of his presence. Lamott's language of God is as good as any in using a wonderful metaphor of the presence of God in our lives.

Which brings me back to our Gospel and Jesus. I started by saying this was one of the “calling” stories, calling of disciples. But there is something very, very important that happens before the call that is easy to miss: Jesus' first words.

Mark is the first Gospel written. And here are the first words of Jesus recorded in any Gospel. So far Mark has talked about Jesus and we have heard God talk to Jesus at his baptism, but now Jesus takes center stage with his first lines. We hear the Son of God talk for the first time.

“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” The first recorded words of Jesus the Christ. Here, I believe are strong hints as to what his vision for his community would be like, what eventually would become the church.

“The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God has come near.” We really don't have an English equivalent for the Greek kairos time, or opportune or proper time. It is not chronological time, it is the time, it is the right time, the proper time. It is not a time of day or year as it is a time of opportunity and fullness.

Our English for the kingdom of God likewise does not due justice to the term. Kingdom for us represents a geographical presence and governance, i.e. the kingdom of Spain. The Greek basileia is more active and dynamic with the understanding of a reign of God or setting of God's rule, not geography or politics.

“...repent, and believe in the good news.” This announcement of the fulfillment of kairos requires a response. Repent: Metanoia, a change of heart, a turning around, a new perspective. To enter into the kairos of the kingdom requires a new perspective, a new world view, a new way of being. This is new stuff, it requires a new understanding of self and of the world and of God.

Then, “believe in the good news.” Trust in the word of God given by Jesus. Believe. This is not an intellectual understanding as much as a personal commitment toward the future. This moves us to hope, the “confidence that God is for us, the trust that God cares for us and guides our lives, and the conviction that God wants us to share eternal life with the risen Christ in the fullness of God's kingdom,” (Mark, Sacra Pagina).

This I believe is the vision of Jesus for us in his community, the community we now call the church. May you hear those words of Jesus: See the time is right for you, the reign of God is right next to you, that close. So make some changes in how you do things, turn yourself around to a better place. Continue to trust in my unqualified love for you.