Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the good news of God and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kin-dom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea, for they were fishers. And Jesus said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of people.” And immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. Immediately he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him. Mark 1:14-20
When I hear this story I am drawn to the connection between Jesus’ announcement of his arrival and the words, “the time is fulfilled, the kin-dom of God has come near”. Further, after the announcement and the declaration, there is a call to repentance and a reminder to “believe the Good News”. I truly believe, “seeing is believing”, like Thomas, we need to “see-touch-verify” to find the capacity and passion to live into our vision. For those early followers, seeing Jesus, seeing what he was saying, what he was doing, the effect this had on the world around them, this gave them hope, gave them faith, gave them a purpose. Having seen the vision come to life, they wanted to be part of it. “Count me in”, we might say.
What would make you drop everything and pursue an entirely new life? That’s essentially the scene that Mark describes and, truth be told, most of us — or maybe even more, most of our hearers — have a hard time imagining doing what the future disciples do. The details, as is customary with Mark, are few, which means there’s a lot more we don’t know than we do. Mark tells us that after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee and started proclaiming the kin-dom of God. We don’t know how long this is after his baptism and sojourn in the wilderness. And we don’t know if the connection to John’s arrest is a coincidence or if there is something deeper at stake. We do know that as he passes along the Sea of Galilee he calls out to several fishermen and bids them follow and, without any other prompting, they do.
My sense is these fishers were moved by Jesus, someone about him moved their spirit, they had to be part of his mission. Bible scholars suggest prophets like Jesus were not uncommon, there were many like him, proclaiming a Kingdom, the end is near, God’s presence to be found in some new or old way. The fishers would have heard this before. What would be different about Jesus was the effect his presence had on those around him, how he comforted the afflicted and afflicted the comfortable. Jesus healed, performed miracles, moved people of no means or self-confidence to a belief they mattered, that their life was a meaningful one, that God cared about them, about people like them. And Jesus didn’t just say it, he lived it and the effect his mission had on the communities where he lived, was profound. These fishers wanted in, they were ready to give up everything to be part of it.
We all know that church attendance is on the slide. It has been for about 40 years or so in mainline congregations and is now declining in Evangelical congregations over the last decade as well. There have been lots of studies on what is causing this, and of all the suggested reasons that I’ve come across two in particular have made the most sense to me. First, we’ve moved from the age of duty — where you do things because you know you’re supposed to — to the age of discretion — where nearly overwhelmed with choices about how to spend your time you exercise discretion based on how it helps you make sense of and get the most out of your life. To boil it down to just one sentence: attending church isn’t a cultural given anymore and there are a whole lot more options on how you might profitably spend your Sunday morning.
The second reason I’ve found convincing is that many church-goers haven’t found the Christian narrative a particularly helpful lens through which to view and make sense of their lives. Maybe they don’t know it all that well. Maybe they have a hard time connecting what happens on Sunday to the rest of their week and life. Maybe we as leaders thought it was obvious why the faith matters and so we assumed it was clear to others as well. Whatever the reason(s), folks don’t take the biblical story with them out into the world and, indeed, often find other stories (religious or not) that guide their everyday decisions more directly. And given the same 168 hours in a week that everyone else gets, more and more of them have decided to spend that hour or two in those pursuits that most help them to navigate the other 166.
In most mainline churches there is faithful attention to Biblical scholarship, to proper church governance, to social justice as it related to our current time. There is also community, care for each other, a genuine focus on compassion. I think that’s we are here, why we are part of this mission. But what if we could tell people, “the kin-dom of God has come near”, and offer a tangible example of God’s presence making a difference in your life, another’s life, our community’s life? Would that grab someone’s attention? I think so. I think we need to take the time to a) remember the times in our lives when God’s kin-dom has come near, and b) how we are working together to discern, live into, and celebrate that nearness.
Let’s dig a little more into this text. The direction toward which Jesus points and leads is the "kin-dom of God." The "way" (1:2-3) of this kin-dom, its modus operandi, will be exhibited and given meaning by Jesus as we move through Mark's gospel. "Believe" is a poor translation of the original text. Contrary to popular belief, the word does not mean "intellectual assent" or something like "theological agreement." It should be understood as "faith-as-a-verb." The word should be thought of as meaning "radical trust"--trusting with all of who we are. "Good news" are words which were more frequently used, in the world of that time, to refer to the great acts of Caesar. “Caesar is victorious in Gaul!" In Mark, the "good news" has nothing to do with Caesar, and everything to do with Jesus. The specific content of this "good news" has yet to be described. Whatever it will prove to be, it has arrived in Jesus. Theologically speaking, the first thing Jesus does after announcing the fulfillment of "God's time" and the arrival of the "kin-dom" is to begin assembling a New Community. Put another way, the recruitment of Andrew, Peter, James, and John is symbolic of the "relational" nature of the gospel. "God's kin-dom" has a fundamentally communal dimension. "Come after me and I will make you to be fishers of people." The Greek here means to generate, to make happen, to create "to be." In a fresh act of creation, Jesus will make his followers into "new people" following a new "way" in a New Community. Put another way, "fishers of people" has nothing to do with today's popular notion of evangelism. The idea is assuredly not to go around trying to "hook" people into Christianity so they can be "saved" according to our definitions. Rather, Jesus is telling these fishermen that he has more important things for them to do.
I remember a young mother in a previous church I served, she had a vision of God’s kin-dom coming near. She described it to me one day, we could bring together persons living on the street and those living in the suburbs (where she and I lived, where the church was located), to break bread, share meaningful conversations, and learn from one another. The portion of the church building where the daycare had recently rented space, was now empty. No renters could be found. Why not use this space to create a hospitable and welcoming room where meals, conversations and relationships could be deepened? She felt this was “God-led”, she wanted prayer to be part of this space, she wanted God’s presence acknowledged, celebrated, she wanted us to repent of our silos, and move into conversations with strangers, people who lived differently than our experience. She would later call this “the Freedom Renewal Centre”. From her leadership people came to volunteer, offer food, furniture, their presence, to this initiative. Lots of energy came to pass.
That ministry was so powerful I agreed to take on serving Brunswick Street United and using the money they gave me to support his ministry. I have so many memories of God’s kin-dom come near, I could talk your ear off! But I won’t. When this woman later felt a call to ordained ministry the FRC as we called it, lost a lot of its passion. I am not even sure it still exists. But it did exist, it was real and many people came to feel the power of God’s presence through this witness.
Imagine how many visions God is giving to us now, here. Imagine the kin-dom of God come near, here, now. I can, I do. Pray with me now as we imagine how our visions might come near…