“The Kingdom Is Now, Come, Follow Me”
by Bruce J. Johnson
I read a quote this
week that was attributed to Goethe:
“Nothing is worth more than this day.”
And another, I’m not
entirely sure of the author:
“I am not afraid of tomorrow, for I have
seen yesterday and I love today.”
(William Allen White)
As we gather here
this morning, the focus of our faith and worship challenges us cast aside all
the distractions and consider how much we appreciate today and its
opportunities. Nothing is more important than today and what we do with it,
especially in terms of our faith and how we choose to show it.
Every time the
traditional epiphany lessons about the call of the disciples come around,
that’s my sense of their importance--- Life and happiness, meaning and purpose
are all about the importance of what’s happening ‘today’- whether we can see
and hear and respond and make a decision or re-confirm a decision that we will
believe in him and follow him, that we will draw upon his teachings and share
in his vision for the world--- no matter what.
This year, we have
the Markan account of Jesus’ calling of the first four disciples.
“Now after John was arrested, Jesus came
into
the gospel of God, saying,
The time is fulfilled and the
And passing along by the
And immediately they left their nets and followed him.”
In Yeshua of
Nazareth, a wonderful little book from which I have quoted before, Richard
Chilson describes that moment this way:
“Follow me.”
No greater introduction than that.
A hint of something better down the road.
An invitation to adventure.
An offer of a new purpose in life, hazy at best.
No money back guarantees, no assurances,
No display of credentials as to why we should trust him.
Just that call breaking into our fishing.
That’s often how it comes.
Out of the blue, yet curiously close to us,
Touching our deepest yearnings.
No time for careful consideration, and weighing the alternatives.
Just that dare to follow.’
(p.
31.)
These words remind
me of something Helen Keller once said:
“LIFE IS EITHER A DARING ADVENTURE
OR NOTHING.”
Much is being made
these days about our culture’s preoccupation with what is called “Extreme
Living” – whether by direct participation in what is called ‘extreme sports’
such as climbing and flying, mountain biking and white water rafting or by some
type vicarious participation through television (The Fear Factor, Survivor)
movies or books, more and more people seem to be in search of something because
their lives are something less. James Meigs, however, writes that extreme
living:
“… isn’t about risk or thrill seeking or proving your mettle.
It’s about going for something
with all your heart.”
(“O Magazine, July 2002, p.35)
Maybe our first disciples
could be counted among those committed to extreme living with their whole
heart.
Now, I need to tell
that there are some biblical scholars who claim that it didn’t actually happen
that way. They have even attached a name to what Mark could possibly have done
in giving this extraordinary account.... that is, reducing the story to its
barest bones--They call it “TELESCOPING” --- Probably, they say, Mark has
telescoped events that occurred over days, even weeks, into a moment. Jesus
actually spent hours with them convincing them of the merit of his movement,
and giving them the spin for the homefront, that is, selling the crazy idea to
family and neighbor.
“YOU’RE GOING TO DO WHAT? GO WHERE? WITH
WHOM? WHY?
These scholars claim
that all this was omitted so that Mark could press what he thinks is the real
point to any response to Christ’s call.... the response of faith is not one
that is ever reasoned out ... it happens
in a moment in a person’s life when something just clicks, connects and
compels---- when the heart senses that truly:
“If there is a Kingdom God and I want and I
need to be a part of it and its time may just be now—today!
I want to remind you
again that in the New Testament, two Greek words are used for our word TIME.
One is CHRONOS from
which we get the word chronology-- days, months years, calendars, clocks, the
steady predictable tick-tock of time. That’s where most of us live for most of
our lives. Getting up in the morning to the ugly sound of alarm clock, going to
work, getting the kids to school, trekking them around to practices, lessons,
doing homework assignments, writing sermons and then bedtimes at a reasonable
hour.
The other word for time is
KAIROS which means special time, the right time, a time in which your whole
life is caught up in a moment,
everything crystallizes, all and everything,
or so it seems, hinges on whether you say “YES’ OR “NO.”
There are some
traditions that believe that every opportunity for worship is a “YES
OR NO... a time set out between the end of one week and the beginning
of another to hear anew Jesus saying
“The
In today’s lesson,
Jesus calls fishermen from their work by the sea to join him in inaugurating
God’s rule, two pairs of brothers working together in a family cooperative in
the
They make the choice
of letting go of the things that we trust most for our sense of identity and
purpose and security, and trusting in God and what God chooses to reveal to
them about life and death, about justice and charity and of course, about the
resurrection life.
Of course, the deal
this morning is whether or not --- today—is but another day when He breaks into
our fishing and we, yet again, have to courage to re-up for the adventure of
believing in the gospel and living the ‘extreme life’ of Christian faith with
all our hearts.
Nothing is more
important than “today’ and ‘now.”
AMEN