Council Sermon 06 III Ep B

The gospel tonight is Mark's account the call of the first followers of Jesus.

This is the year we read from the Gospel according to Mark as our primary Sunday Gospel reading. As Mark is the shortest of the four gospels, the readings are interlaced with selections from John¹s Gospel.

Mark's writing is brief and action packed. The word "immediately" occurs over twenty-seven times in the gospel.

Mark does not linger over his stories. The picture Mark presents is like a black and white Brownie photograph. John's Gospel is like an impressionist painting. In the spirit of Mark's directness and abruptness, this sermon might follow that same path.

The Gospel according to Mark is a story which begins with a statement: The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the son of God. "The beginning of the gospel" The story does not close with "The end of the Gospel of Jesus Christ." It just ends. The story actually does not end. By our baptism we enter into this story which continues to this very day, to the end of time, and beyond.

The Gospel is "good news", but the word means imperial good news, Good News from the Emperor of Rome. Good news from the Emperor might proclaim, "The Emperor is coming." Or, "We won the war." Or "the Emperor is sending loans and grants to start new businesses so that we can all have jobs with good wages, health insurance, and fully funded pensions." Good news indeed.

There is urgency to the whole story.

Jesus is baptized by John the Baptist and immediately driven into the desert to be tempted by the devil and ministered to by the angels. Not much detail there. You fill in the details, like Matthew and Luke do when they tell the story.

Then Jesus calls the first four of his followers: James and John, Peter and Andrew. Immediately (there is that word again) they leave their nets and follow Jesus. They walk away from their jobs and their communities to follow Jesus. Three of these men will be with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.

We are all called to follow Christ. We accept that call at our baptism, and we reaffirm that call at our confirmation.

Some will hear the call clearly, sharply. The voice of God. The boy Samuel, in the Temple, heard the voice of God calling him, "Samuel. Samuel."

When John Newton, whom we remember for writing the hymn "Amazing Grace," heard the call to follow Jesus into mission the sensation was so strong that it drove him to his knees.

Sometimes the call is subtle leading. In the story of Ruth, Ruth goes out to glean, "And as it happened, she came to glean in a portion of the field owned by Boaz."

"And as it happened," that is Bible code for the gentle, subtle hand of God leading us.

Some are called to come and some are called to go. The fishermen were called to leave their families and their jobs and go somewhere else.

Now let me tell you a story of someone who heard the call to follow Christ by staying in place.

William Wilberforce was an eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British politician. Born into a wealthy family, he was educated at Cambridge and subsequently elected to Parliament. In 1784 Wilberforce had a strong conversion experience, feeling the call to follow Christ. He became a committed Christian. Wilberforce seriously considered resigning from Parliament, but his friends dissuaded him. They urged him to use his newly found faith in Parliament. (Sometimes God speaks to us, all us, through other people.)

Wilberforce worked tirelessly on the promotion of overseas missionary work, public education, the right to vote for Catholics, and parliamentary reform. Wilberforce is best remembered for his opposition to slavery. Our Book of Lesser Feasts and Fasts speaks of Wilberforce's "persistent, uncompromising, and single-minded crusade for the abolition of slavery and the slave trade." The slave trade was abolished in 1807. Slavery itself was abolished throughout the British Empire in 1833, just one month after Wilberforce died.

Wilberforce followed Christ and carried out God's call to mission by staying where he was and living out his faith by his work in Parliament.

We all are called to follow Jesus into mission.

Whether we are called to go to someplace new, like those first apostles, or called to or stay; whether the call is loud or subtle, we are called to a life of ministry of service, of giving, a life of mission. This manner of life gives thanksgiving to God who gives us all.

If we as a community of Christians do answer the call to follow Jesus into mission, it will not guarantee that that we will flourish. To paraphrase St. Paul, "One plants, another waters, but God gives the growth." However, if we do not answer God¹s call to mission we will not grow.

So the question for us, as Christians and as Christian communities is, "To what mission is God calling us?"

Reflect, pray, and get to work following Christ into mission. Immediately.

Finally, my friends in Christ, never forget that God loves you more than you can ask or imagine.

Amen.