Meditation on Mark 1:14–20
First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown
Pastor Karen Crawford
Jan. 21, 2024
I’m back! It’s good to be home with my flock. How have you been? Traveling to Austin was, once again, an adventure. It was sleeting on the morning I left from MacArthur Airport. I couldn’t see out my window on the plane, at first. We de-iced, took off, landed at BWI.
I changed planes, but they were running behind schedule because of weather. When I landed at the Austin airport, and took an Uber to the seminary, I arrived about an hour later than I expected. It was night, and I was worried that I would be stumbling around a deserted campus, fumbling for the security codes for the doors, and struggling with my suitcase up and down dark stairwells. I had reached out to a classmate from Canada who arrived the day before. She said she would meet me. But she wasn’t there where we agreed to meet because I was so late. She had gone back to her room. When I stepped out of the Uber, a man in the shadows asked, “Can I help?”
I said yes, without thinking, without knowing who he was. I was just so grateful! He came closer and I introduced myself as a Doctor of Ministry student looking for my housing. We stepped into a lighted doorway, and I realized he was the president of the seminary! He was one of the angels watching out for me last week!
He unlocked the doors and led me to where I needed to be—and there, at the table with our nametags and directions, was a fellow student whom I knew from Minnesota, with my friend from Canada, waiting for me. More angels would help me on that night—and on other occasions that week, when I felt a little lost.
They escorted me to my housing—one took charge of my rolly bag down a steep flight of stairs. My room was a converted garage that was nice, except for the large cockroach that visited me in the bathroom. But it made for a great story, shared with my classmates, one of whom had stayed in the same converted garage last year—and was also visited by a large cockroach!
I enjoyed my teacher, Dr. Jeong, a New Testament scholar. He is from Korea. He shared a story about his two young children—one born in Korea and the other in New Haven, CT, when he was a grad student at Yale. His daughter was jealous of the son born in this country because he was an American citizen. When Dr. Jeong and his wife questioned her more about her desire to be “American,” they discovered that what she really wanted was to be like the other girls in her class; she wanted to be “white.” My teacher said that before he came to the United States to study, earn his Ph.D., and teach, he had never been considered a “person of color.” He didn’t think of himself that way. “In Korea,” he said, “Everyone looked like me! We were all the same!”
This is how our class, “Wonder and Relationships: Living with Others,” began. This was one of the best classes I have had in the program! I was challenged with our Bible study and exposure to the most recent scholarship on biblical interpretation. And I learned a few more things about myself. I realized that my confidence and passion come from my faith and my call—that’s good, right? But that I am not always aware of the gifts God has given me. I am able to see and appreciate God’s gifts in other people, but I don’t always notice them in me.
At an evening reception for teachers, staff, and doctoral students that week, one of my favorite professors talked with me for a long time and asked why I was so “self-diminishing”? I told him that I am always afraid I am not going to be able to do the work. In the end, it always works out; I do well. “You can write,” he said and laughed heartily, as he often does. “I don’t know what you are worried about.”
As I prepared this message for today, I was thinking about what he said—and how my faith story is probably closer to Jonah’s—at least the beginning part when he runs the opposite way—than to the fishermen in the gospel of Mark. I probably wouldn’t have abruptly left my job and family, no matter how compelling and charismatic our Savior could be. Would you?
Jesus had come to Galilee after John the Baptist, his relative, was arrested—and he wasn’t proclaiming a message of revenge for the injustice that was happening. Scripture says he was “proclaiming the good news of God,” calling people to repent and believe! He was totally focused on the purpose for which the Lord had sent him—calling people to turn away from “prior trusts and loyalties,” return to their faith and their God, “for the kingdom is at hand.” (Rev. Dr. Lee Barrett, Feasting on the Word, 286.)
The four fishermen drop their nets, immediately, to follow him; James and John, sons of Zebedee, leave their father and family business without so much as a “Goodbye, Dad.” It’s a sacrifice not just for the disciples who leave, but the families left behind.
It’s remarkable that the disciples don’t say anything in this passage. Simon will be talking more later, so much so that we might wish, at times, that he would stop talking. But here, he and the others are silent, showing, perhaps, that the important thing is what they do and not what they say. Only the words of Jesus are recorded. Lee Barrett, a theology professor at Lancaster Theological Seminary and a friend, says, “Drawn by his summons, they follow Jesus BEFORE he has performed any spectacular miracles that could serve as validating credentials.” (Feasting on the Word, 286). As Swiss Reformed theologian Karl Barth wrote, they are “elected to discipleship simply through the fact that Jesus claims them.” They aren’t anything special! Not really. They don’t have any education, training, or experience to be Christ’s followers, to join him in his ministry. They know how to fish, that’s all! And there were many fishermen like them living on the Sea of Galilee.
Professor Barrett says, “When Jesus declares that now they shall be fishers of people, their new status is anchored in the fact that Jesus has fished for them; Jesus is the ultimate fisher, and they are the netted fish. In the obedient responses of the two sets of brothers the reign of God is actualized in the present.” (286)
God’s Kingdom is breaking in—when ordinary folk answer the call to discipleship. French theologian John Calvin said these guys were, “rough mechanics.” God called “rough mechanics like Simon, Andrew, James, and John in order to show that none of them are called by virtue of his or her own talents or excellences.” (288)
Friends, “Jesus met the disciples right where they were every day, out by the sea, doing their jobs.” Sometimes we think we have to listen for God’s call “only in special places. We think we will meet God only at a special retreat …or on the top of a picturesque mountain. We … don’t think to listen for God in the ordinary moments of everyday life. This passage reminds us that God is calling to us right here and right now. God shows up in the work we do every day. Jesus even uses familiar language when he calls the first disciples. He doesn’t strip them of their entire identity as fishermen. Jesus uses what they already know and understand and shows them that they can use those skills to bring a new kind of life into the world.” (Daily Disciplines, Jan. 20, 2024.)
Away in Austin, I had time to consider my call and my strengths and weaknesses at night in the converted garage with the occasional cockroach visitor. I have thought about what my professor said since then, about my self-diminishment in the classroom. And I have decided that it has been useful for me in ministry. Seeing others as more important than I makes me a better pastor, a more caring and compassionate person. Doesn’t Christ call us to deny ourselves? If we become puffed up, arrogant, and proud, then our ministry is about US and is no longer ministry.
Today, after worship, we will have the honor of voting for those whom the Nominating Committee has prayerfully chosen and invited to serve our congregation as servant leaders. Our elders, deacons, and trustees have answered the call to follow Jesus by serving our congregation. This is my message for you—our elders, deacons, and trustees. You are not alone in your service. There are angels who will help you in the darkness all along the way, especially when you are frightened, insecure, or generally out of your comfort zone. It’ll happen! But God will provide for you. You will be able to do what the Lord has called you to!
And if you become discouraged or frustrated, ask for help. Tell someone you trust how you feel, then let them help you. Remember the fishermen whom Jesus selected to be his disciples. Jesus didn’t just call one fisherman. He called 4. With the calling of the first 12 disciples, the first Christian community was formed. In the gospels, Jesus never sent out any of his disciples to minister alone!
Although I chose “Fishers of People” for the title of this message several weeks ago, I now prefer the image of discipleship as net mending, not fishing for people. When Jesus called the first disciples, two of the brothers were mending nets on the shore. We aren’t trying to bait and hook or toss a net to capture souls. We are seeking to repair what is broken with relationships in the world, beginning with ourselves, our families, our church family, our communities.
Net menders are peacemakers in a world that so often desires to categorize and label, create divisions and factions, and stir hatred, animosity, and prejudice. We don’t want to be like THOSE people, we say. But we are called to find our identity and unity in Christ alone, not by comparing ourselves to other people, but seeking to be like Him. Christ prayed that his disciples would be one and urged them to love.
My friend, Lee Barrett, offers this as we seek to be faithful in today’s world:
“Like the (first disciples), we are called not to the enjoyment of a private salvation but to a public vocation…Like them, we can find our inadequate attempts at ministry transformed by grace…Just as it did for the disciples, the command, ‘Follow me’ points to the way of the cross for us. Just as it did for the disciples, the ominous reference to the arrest of John the Baptist warns that we, too, are called to a life of risk, insecurity,” and self-denial. (288)
Christ invites us to join with the earliest disciples—four who fished on the Sea of Galilee—as menders of nets, healers of brokenness, shiners of Christ’s light, and laborers for peace, justice, and reconciliation. You and I: we are netted fish! Christ, the ultimate fisher, has claimed us as His own!
Let us pray.
Thank you, dear Lord, for claiming us! The work isn’t always easy; yes, sometimes it’s scary and uncomfortable. We are grateful that we have your everlasting presence, and we have each other; we are never alone in this calling. We pray for those who haven’t yet felt you claim them, haven’t yet experienced your peace or that sense of belonging to a church family. Give us opportunities to minister to them. Help us, Lord, to shine your Light and be our best selves, reaching out to neighbors with kindness. Make us to be menders of nets, laboring for the healing of the world. Amen.
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