Mark 1:14 - 20
Did you ever think about how there are two ways to approach life; one is to hang on to what you have, and the other is to progress forward by leaving things behind. It’s true. I can give you a short and incomplete summary of some of my own losses as I moved forward in life. I grew up in Montana and never in my early life had any notion that I would leave the state. But I did; I went to college and Medical school -- and even then believed I’d return someday to live. But I had to choose, and I chose other things over returning to live there. When I was in college I thought about being a professor and getting a PhD. But I gave that idea up because I couldn’t do that and go to medical school. When it came time for speciality training I gave up surgery and neurology in favor of medical oncology. And so it goes. You move forward by giving up options, which is another way of saying, by making choices.
And I can think of people who have not been able to move forward because they haven’t been able to choose. I think of an elderly woman I used to visit before covid came along and you could barely get into her house. She had stuff everywhere and no one to give it to. She had no use for most of it which you could tell because of the layers of dust. And I recognize a little of that in myself as well; I have a large number of tools that I’ve collected down through the years, including a 50 year old Black and Decker jigsaw that my wife got me before our third christmas as a married couple; I used it to build a doll cradles for our two small daughters for Christmas. But even now I can’t go into Rocky’s without feeling the tug of getting another tool.
The people who heard Jesus had been anticipating the day when God would finally come to rescue his people. They lived in a state of tension -- there was now, and there was the world to come. The prophets of the Old Testament dwell on that and insist that God will come to rescue his people. John the Baptist has been proclaiming that the time is imminent, and Jesus takes up the mission, saying that the time is actually here. We have left the old world behind and we are now in the world in which God is breaking through. And Jesus demonstrates that he is the breaking through -- he is the one who brings healing, who opens the eyes of the blind, who binds up the lame, who raises the dead. Anyone who has been listening to the prophets who are being read in the synagogues every Saturday could recognize this -- if they opened their eyes.
And that’s kind of what Jesus means when he says “repent and believe in the good news.” Because Jesus knows that there must be a change in the way we think if we are to take advantage of the kingdom which is at hand. The kingdom is there for the taking -- but choices have to be made. That’s why Mark places the calling of Peter and Andrew, James and John, right after this proclamation.
Mark’s first readers must have been astonished that these four men left everything to follow Jesus. And as you know, there is a very different story of the calling of Peter and Andrew in the gospel of John. We could try to resolve these differences, but it isn’t important. Mark is emphasizing the urgency of answering Jesus’ call. John, who has Andrew going to his brother and saying “we have found the Messiah”, wants to illustrate how the good news is passed from one follower to the next.
Jesus tells Peter and John that he will make them fishers of men. When we hear that we think Jesus is making a play on words, but Mark wants us to remember that this is fulfilling a prophecy. The prophet Habakuk compared the people in need of redemption to “the fish of the sea...without a ruler” and Jeremiah has God saying “Look, I will send many fishermen… to catch them.” Finally, James and John, like Peter and Andrew, must make choices. The four leave behind their boats, their professions, their security; and Mark emphasizes that James and John leave behind even their father to follow Jesus.
So where does that leave us on this third Sunday of Ordinary time? If we want to move forward in our spiritual lives, in our journey to Jesus, we have got to make choices, some of which will hurt, but all of which will make us uncomfortable. It’s not easy to develop new habits and get rid of old ones. Maybe you need to spend less time on the internet and more time with spiritual reading. Maybe you will have to put weekly or monthly reception of the sacrament of reconciliation on your day planner or in your scheduling app on your cell phone -- and then do it. Maybe if you’ve grown cold toward the Eucharist, you need to make a visit to the blessed sacrament part of your routine, or the prayerful reception of the Eucharist once or twice during the week as well as on Sunday. Maybe during this year of Mark you might commit to reading the gospel of Mark, a bit at a time, to really get to know the one he is writing about. But you have to make choices. And you have to leave behind something when you make choices. You have to shake yourself up. Because progress means letting go of some things to pursue other things. And the kingdom of Heaven is here, at hand, but only for those who choose to leave things behind, to make choices, to repent.
