Called to Serve (Mark 1: 14-20) 1/22/12

            

Here’s some breaking news. Yesterday’s Galilean Gazette reports that the new Messiah sensation Jesus picked up four disciples while strolling up the shore. At least that’s the way that local reporters Matthew, Mark and Luke see it. In fact, Mark tells us that these four fishermen just left their families and businesses and followed the guy without so much as a goodbye. We think there is more to this than the Gazette reported. One of those fishermen was a fellow named John and he tells it a different way.  He says that Andrew and Peter were at Bethany a couple days after John the Baptist baptized this new fellow Jesus, and that they followed him and so did Philip and Nathaniel, so that when they turned up here at Galilee, there were already at least four disciples.  It is speculated that Jesus is organizing, calling a core group of followers. Surprisingly to this reporter, he seems to be calling people from every day life rather than trained religious leaders. We reached a member of the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem, but he declined comment at this time. So there you have it. Stay posted for more disciple news.

Calling. Webster says it is a strong inner impulse toward a particular course of action, especially when accompanied by conviction of divine influence. How about fisher of men? Know anyone by that job title?  Today we’re going to learn a little about Andrew and Peter and James and John and, in so doing, we’re going to learn a little bit more about calling. It’s not just for New Testament apostles.

I have a friend who is retired…sort of. He still works, delivering prescription medicine to shut-ins. Another friend bakes a couple hundred cookies every week to deliver to a nearby prison on Sunday.  A third spends hours every week organizing, ordering and cooking meals for church meetings. These activities provide a chance to visit with or do for folks who don’t get to socialize very much. Right here in Rocky Creek, a church member notices a tenant’s health failing and brings this information to the attention of the Pastor and the session. The man’s family receives attention and food and clothing and love from caring Christians.   Men and women in this very church spend week after week, month after month for years playing the piano, the organ, holding choir practice, teaching Sunday school, organizing youth programs and camps and ball teams, holding church workdays. That sounds like calling to me.   

 Ever notice that when you meet someone who is on fire about

something, chances are he or she was on the way to something pretty

good before they got interrupted. Calling signals change. It’s not like a job or even a hobby. It’s more like a tugging at the heart that won’t go away. Hardly ever does it come at a convenient time. It takes us into a zone where we don’t have control, where it will become part of our life until finally, it will become part of how we are defined, how we see ourselves.  God is in the calling business, but he usually doesn’t call someone who has nothing to give up. The Bible is full of such examples. Abraham gave up his country. Moses gave up the throne of Egypt. Elisha gave up 12 yoke of oxen, a pretty penny’s worth in his day. Matthew and Zacheus gave up lucrative businesses. The calling of God is sort like Baskin and Robbins ice cream. It comes in lots of flavors, but its all ice cream. Some of us are called to serve in pulpits, some in choir lofts, some in weave rooms and some in classrooms. No matter what the venue, no matter what the dress, we who are God’s people are called to serve. Theologian Maynard Gutzke reminds us that

Jesus is still calling people to follow Him. To follow Jesus

does not mean one must go to Africa as a foreign missionary,

or to a seminary to study to be a pastor. Being called of the

Lord actually extends to every believer and means that the

believer comes to Him from wherever he has been and turns

himself over to Him.  (Plain Talk on Mark, p. 19)

In the Gospel of Mark, John the Baptist has been thrown in

prison by Herod. We don’t know exactly where Jesus was at the time, but he makes an announcement. He announces that the kingdom of God is near and that the time has come to repent and believe the good news. He takes a walk by the Sea of Galilee. Luke calls it the Lake of Gennesaret and John later refers to it twice as the Sea of Tiberius. Regardless of the name used, they are the same body of water. According to Mark, he sees the fishermen Simon and Andrew casting their nets into the lake. Apparently they are working from the shore and probably using a net called an amphiblestron. It is shaped like an umbrella and is not very big. It can be used from the shore. Jesus says “Come, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Mark says they left their nets and followed him.

          Jesus walks a little further and sees James and John in a boat. Maybe they have a bigger operation than Peter and Andrew. After all, these brothers actually have a boat. Their father Zebedee is also there, so this looks like the family business. They are preparing their nets, which are probably the other kind of net in use at the time called a sagene. This is a bigger, trawl net to be used from a boat.  Mark tells us that on the call of Jesus, they left their father in the boat with the hired help and followed Jesus. The whole group went on to Capernaum, probably about a ten mile walk.

          Whether they knew Jesus prior to this day or not, whether they were familiar with his claims or not, these men knew little by way of fact. As we have noted before, it is the event and not its details that we must understand when we read God’s Word. The event here is that when these men were confronted with that tugging of the heart that we identify as a call, they answered. It was not convenient for them. It must have looked pretty ridiculous to Zebedee and those other fishermen on the coastline that day to see these men following almost a total stranger. There was no explanation. There was no contract or trial period to get your money back if you’re not 100% satisfied with the product. There was just answering the bell.

`        Wow! Think about that one. Could you do that? I hope I could, but I really wonder if I would have done the same thing. I know I have been called, but I didn’t just up and leave my family to answer that call. Sometimes when I’m so immersed in my studies that I’m practically unresponsive, they might argue with that, but at least I am physically present. Those were special times, and I have no doubt that there was something special about the voice of Jesus, or the look he might have given. But we also know that when we receive that special tug at our heartstrings, it is without question the voice of God calling us to serve, to enter into discipleship with the Master.

           One of the things I love about Mark’s gospel is the urgency of it.  He uses the word “immediately” at least eight times. Mark is the shortest gospel. Everything is hurried.Mark himself is in a hurry to make us understand the identity of Jesus. He wants to convince us that this really is our Savior. The very fact that Mark gives us a gospel is a testimony to calling. Mark was not a disciple, Neither was Luke and yet, they are two of the four Gospel writers. The great theologian Augustine said it this way: “The Holy Spirit willed to choose for the writing of the Gospel two [Mark and Luke] who were not even from those who made up the Twelve, so that it might not be thought that the grace of evangelization had come only to the apostles and that in them the fountain of grace had dried up (Sermon 239.1).

          So we look at this immediate and total response from these men and we admire it. We cherish their commitment; their decision to act with significance and loyalty on so little information.   But what does it mean to us? How will we respond to the call we hear? As I said earlier, Jesus is still calling people to follow him. Our style of service is as varied as the number of people who belong to God’s church, but our commitment and our direction should be easy to see. We serve the God who created us and we do so in love.   We have the words of Jesus himself in Matthew 20 to instruct us:  “…whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve…”

          As God’s people, we are all called to serve. Over time, the details of the call may change, the location of our efforts may move, but the call remains. He calls you and he calls me out of his love for us.  We should answer in the same way.