Mark 1:14-28

      07/13/11                          Mark 1:14-28                       GUMC Youth

    Tonight we continue on our journey through Mark and we again have three things going on that, at first glance, don't seem like they have much to say to one another.  The first thing that we have is Jesus starting his preaching ministry in Galilee, then we hear about how Jesus called four of his disciples and they dropped everything and followed him, and finally we read about how Jesus went into the synagogue where he taught and both amazed the people and greatly upset the unclean spirits.  Let's take the stories one by one and then see how they all fit together.

    First, after John the Baptist is put into prison, Jesus comes to Galilee and begins to preach.  Now, for most of us, if we don't know where the Jordan River, where Jesus was baptized is and if we don't know where the region of Galilee is, this statement doesn't really make a lot of sense.  But I've got a map to kind of show you what this means.  Down here is the Jordan River.  Way up at the top of the nation of Israel was the region of Galilee.  John was captured and put in prison in Jerusalem, the capital of Israel, which is down here and then, only after that took place, did Jesus go north and start his ministry.  We are going to come back to the map of Israel over and over again because Mark uses geography theologically in a way that the other gospel writers don't.

    So Jesus goes about as far away from Jerusalem as he could go without leaving the country, and begins to say, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel."  This has puzzled a lot of people.  After all, what does Jesus mean when he says that the time is fulfilled and that the kingdom of God is at hand?  Lots of people have pointed to passages like this and then to the two thousand years that have passed since Jesus was crucified and say, "If the kingdom of God was so darn close and if the time was fulfilled, why doesn't it seem that the kingdom of God is here?"

    You know, we can't really find too much wrong with this kind of reasoning, since we would be hard pressed to say, when we look around and see what's going on in our world today, that the kingdom of God has really come in fulness.  After all, there are wars, people are dying, some people don't have enough to eat.  It seems that everywhere we look, we see brokenness.  And here is Jesus, two thousand years ago, saying that everything is fulfilled and that we need to repent and believe the good news.  It can sometimes seem like a bit much to do that, especially when we look around and things don't seem to be getting any better.

    I think part of our problem is that it is very easy for us to be confused as to what the "kingdom of God" really is.  A lot of people, when they think of the kingdom of God, think of it as perfection on earth, where everything is just as it should be.  For some other people, the kingdom of God is understood as heaven, where we go when we die, and has next to nothing to do with how life on earth is.  If we think like this, then the only way we will believe Jesus is if we can look through history and see, in general, heaven on earth.  But we don't see that, do we?  We see strife and sin and anger and bitterness and destruction, just about anywhere we care to look.  Does that mean that Jesus is completely wrong?

    I don't think so, and the reason I don't think so is because I think that we need to look at Jesus' words in a very different way.  The Greek used here to say that the kingdom of God is at hand has the sense, not only that the kingdom of God is right at the door and all we need to do is to open it and it will come in, but also of the sense that it is already here, right here and right now, right in front of your faces.  On the one hand, it doesn't seem like that would help, because we can see that the world was still broken when Jesus said that.  However, maybe Jesus isn't talking about an event or a series of events.  Maybe he was talking about himself?  Maybe Jesus himself is the kingdom of God that is at hand.

    It seems to me that things would make a lot more sense if we thought about the kingdom of God as Jesus, rather than trying to invent beautiful scenarios that we pretend are what the kingdom of God is like.  Jesus is the one from heaven who came down to earth to be with us, and Jesus is the king of heaven.  If this is what is going on, then Jesus is saying, "Hey everyone!  Repent and believe the good news, because I am here; God has come among you and this is a good thing!"  To see how good a thing it really is, we need to remember all that Jesus said and did.  He healed the sick, he raised the dead, he restored sight to the blind, he calmed the seas and he fed the hungry, to say no more.  This is the kind of stuff that Jesus is telling people about.  This is why they should believe the good news.  This is why they should repent.

    But what does it mean to repent?  What does it mean that one of the first words that comes out of Jesus' mouth in his ministry is to repent?  In our society today, we tend to think of "repent" as an angry kind of word, one that is trying to tear people down and make them feel bad.  This isn't helped by the fact that we tend to hear the word most often when angry people who are picketing one thing or another have it written in huge letters on a sign while shouting terrible things at people. 

    In the secular Greek word, the word translated as "repentance" meant "to realize too late," that is, to have regret, or to change one's mind.  When it was used in the Jewish communities, including when Jesus used it, it had a much stronger meaning.  It didn't just mean, "change your mind" or "feel bad about what you've done."  Instead, it had the much bigger meaning of "change your entire life."  It isn't really enough to just change what you think, though that is important.  You can change what you think about a particular thing or situation and yet never do anything about it.  To repent means to be converted, to not just stop doing certain things or to stop thinking certain things, but to stop being a certain way.

    But what are the kinds of things that Jesus is asking us to repent of?  I have met people who are convinced that, when Jesus asks us to repent, he is trying to get us to live with an unhealthy restriction on the good things in the world, that he simply takes things that are no problem and then labels them "sin" so that we feel bad by doing perfectly normal and healthy things.  But what are the kinds of things that Jesus is asking us to give up, or rather, who are the kinds of people that Jesus is asking us to stop being?  He wants us to stop being the kind of people who hate God, who define good and evil by what we feel at the moment, who engage in destructive practices and relationships, who have, for one reason or another, gotten ourselves so that we hate ourselves and others.

    And what does it mean to repent of those things and to believe in the gospel, in the good news?  It means that we finally stop believing the lies that the way things are are the way things will always be, that they are how things are meant to be.  It means that we become the kind of people who believe in our hearts that living lives that are characterized, at every moment, by love for God and neighbor, is better than living consumed by hate and suspicion.  And, when I say "better," I don't mean just that it is better in the same way that good is better than evil.  I mean that it is simply a better way to live, a way of living that brings more joy and more fulfillment.

    The point is that the kingdom of God is not something that just dropped out of heaven for us to enjoy or even something that we work really hard and establish for ourselves.  The kingdom of God that has drawn near is Jesus Christ himself.  There are some who make fun of the church for still believing in the coming of the kingdom of God when it has been two thousand years, and God has not brought his work to completion.  And yet, it seems to me that the amazing thing is not that God's kingdom has not been brought to completion, but that God came among us so long before he brought it to completion.  The fact that God didn't keep away, even until now, is an amazing sign of God's grace.  In fact, when we look at what Jesus says, 'The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the good news," it seems that we can't really repent or believe until we have been confronted by Christ.

    I want to spend the rest of this message thinking about the other two stories in this passage.  First we have Jesus walking up to some poor fishermen on the shores of the Sea of Galilee and calling to them.  We know they are poor because they have to stand on the shore to cast their nets.  The Sea of Galilee is big enough that, if you could afford a boat, you used it.  Jesus calls out to Simon and Andrew and says, "Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men."  They immediately drop their nets and follow.  He then went and did the same thing to James and John, who were probably wealthier, since they had a boat and some hired servants.

    Why did they leave and follow Jesus?  There are lots of reasons, not least is the fact that they are being given a chance to follow a Rabbi, which was a respected position and because Rabbi's, in general, didn't call their disciples, the disciples picked their Rabbi.  Clearly, Jesus was an amazing person and they had never seen anyone quite like him before.  But I want to look at what he says.  He says, "follow me."  That sounds pretty ordinary, but, when we understand it in its first century context, we realize that it doesn't just mean "follow" like "following the leader."  It meant, "Come behind me and follow in my footsteps; go where I go, do what I do, think what I think, and say what I say."  When Jesus, like the other Rabbi's spoke of following and discipleship, it was a radical thing.  Discipleship is not just something you talk about, not just something that you do halfway, it is a total commitment, something that impacts absolutely every aspect of your life.  Jesus was asking these men to come and be a part of something that was so big a deal that they simply could not continue to do what they had always done.  They had to break ties with friends and family and follow this teacher to the very end.

    The other scene we have is Jesus teaching in the synagogue.  The people were amazed, for Jesus as one who was authoritative, and not like the others who taught.  However, in spite of the fact that he was well received, there was a man with an evil spirit, who started screaming at Jesus, saying, "What business do we have with each other, Jesus of Nazareth?  Have you come to destroy us?  I know who you are - the Holy One of God!"

    I don't want to try to explain all the details of a theology of exorcism.  However, what I do want to do is highlight the different reactions between the four men who became disciples and the evil spirit.  We need to always remember that, when Jesus says something, makes a statement or commands someone or something, he isn't casting a spell, as if there were something magical about his words.  When he says something, if something happens, it isn't because they had absolutely no choice but to do what they did, but because Jesus Christ is who he is, the Son of God made human flesh.

    Jesus, the kingdom of God drawn near, provokes responses from everyone he meets.  What those responses are depends on who he encounters.  Simon, Andrew, James and John, when they meet with Jesus and at the sound of his voice, drop everything they are doing, and walk away from their jobs, their friends, and their family, in order to follow him.  When the unclean spirit came into contact with Jesus, his only response that he could make was to cry out and be in conflict with Jesus.  From the very first moment, the disciples knew that they were going to follow this man to the end; from the very first moment, the unclean spirit knew that he and Jesus were on opposite sides and nothing could reconcile them.

    What this means is that Jesus is a line in the sand, a line that divides people into two groups:  those who follow him and love him, and those who are hostile to him.  Now, it is important to remember that I did not say that Jesus' words were the line in the sand.  Jesus says a lot of things that all kinds of people can get behind.  He tells us to love one another and to help those who need help, and things like that.  Lots of people say things like that, and all kinds of other leaders make some of the same things the center of their teaching.  What I mean is that Jesus, being who he is, the Son of God among us, the personal presence of God in the midst of his people, the Creator in the middle of his creation, is the line in the sand.

    The question that we need to ask ourselves is, "Which side of the line that Jesus makes are we on?"  Are we people who would drop everything, even the things that are the closest to our hearts, to follow him, whether it is easy or hard to follow him?  Or are we people who will insist on our own way against his way, who are determined to set ourselves against God's grace and mercy, who know just who Jesus is and who reject him anyway?  This is a serious question.  Jesus Christ will be first in our hearts and lives or else we have nothing to do with him.  God has come to meet with us, to release us from our captivity to the things that destroy life, and to bring us good news.  Let us take a few moments and reflect in silence and in prayer.  Let us pray.

    AMEN