Being God’s People
You don't have to be a parson to be God's person. Every one of you is someone God yearns to work through. Wherever God has placed you in this world, whoever the people are in your life that you are interacting with on a daily basis, go be God's person for them. And bring God's love to them. And invite them to imagine a transformed world and a transformed life.
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[00:00:00] I pray that God's word is spoken and that God's word is heard. Amen. Amen. And please be seated.
So I love when our electionary authors serve us up a delightful and delicious contrast. And that is what we had this morning. We had this beautiful story, uh, which I promised you last week, didn't I? We heard John's call narrative last week, and we heard Mark's this morning, and they're really different.
One of the ways they're really different is that John has had time to spin a good yarn, right? He's had time to work in all the details and, and all the fun narrative glosses, and it's just, John is a poet, and, and Mark has no time for that. Mark is getting down to business. If you find details in Mark, it's extraordinary because really he doesn't want to waste a word.
He's got a sense of urgency. You almost get a sense that [00:01:00] he is running out of breath. He is teaching and telling the story so quickly. It's one of the indicators if you were to just pick up a, a scroll or open the Bible and if you saw the word immediately, you would know you were either in Mark's gospel or you were in part of Matthew and Luke that they borrowed from Mark.
That is the big clue. "Immediately," that word, or "at once," shows up in Mark all the time because Mark's sense of urgency is very, very real. And I love it because he, he goes and he finds Simon and Andrew where they are. He meets them where they are, um, but, but after proclaiming that the, that the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe the good news.
By the way, those are the first words of Jesus in the whole gospel according to Mark. He has said not a word until that moment. It's only the 14th verse of chapter 1. He's already been baptized. [00:02:00] He spent two verses in the wilderness. I mean, 40 days. Mark's getting down to business. He hasn't even given Jesus anything to say till this point, and when he does, it's this incredible statement that even though he hasn't done anything in ministry yet, the kingdom of God is at hand, and the time is already fulfilled.
And the fun thing, um, some of you like it when I geek out on the Hebrew and Greek, and this is one of those moments. Um, the verb used in this part of, of Jesus, um, uh, proclamation is a completed action that has an ongoing effect. So the time is fulfilled, and the impact of that is going to be ongoing. The kingdom of God is at hand, already here, and the impact of that is ongoing.
And so he goes and he finds Simon and Andrew and he's [00:03:00] about to make it real, right? And he says, "follow me!" And, and I love this, they don't stop and make a pro and con list. They don't do a Google search. Jesus of Nazareth. They don't ask their friends, what do you think about this guy from Nazareth? They just go.
Immediately. Same with James and John. They leave their nets, they leave their father, and they go. There is no time to waste. Let's contrast that with our brother Jonah. Who, let's be honest, might be a lot more like us. I love how our lectionary editors, by choosing to start this reading [00:04:00] exactly where they do the first verse of the third chapter, encapsulate everything that has gone before in the previous chapters.
Then God called to Jonah a second time. Right? For those of us who are familiar with the story, evoking everything that has happened already.If you have time today, rainy afternoon, make yourself some hot cocoa, cup of tea, cup of coffee, put up your feet, and read the whole story, because it is worth it. But you may remember, God had already called Jonah once to go to Nineveh, to proclaim, um, God's desire that they repent, and Jonah will have nothing to do with that, and here's why.
If you can imagine a city that represented the worst wartime atrocities imaginable rigged upon a defeated population. Are you with me? Imagine God [00:05:00] saying, go to them, I want to be merciful to them. Go to them so they can repent so I don't destroy them. We can understand why Jonah's like, no, no, them? You're going to try to be compassionate to them because I'm going to bring the message that will bring them that compassion?
Forget about it! And he, he goes the other way. Finds himself in the belly of a fish for his efforts. Three days in the belly of the fish. He gets what? Vomited up on the beach? And that's where we start our reading today. Got called to Jonah a second time, as you can see Jonah cleaning himself off. "Go." So he goes, he's, you don't get the sense he's particularly happy about it.
Nineveh is described as being enormous, unimaginably huge, three days walk [00:06:00] across. He doesn't even go to the center of the city, he only goes one day into the city. Third of the way there. Repent or God's gonna destroy you. Okay, God, I did it. And what happens, the missing verses are amazing, so I do encourage you to go ahead and read the missing verses.
Not only does the king call the whole city to repent, but even the critters do. All creation associated with Nineveh repents and is saved. And Jonah stains in character. Jonah's not really happy about it. I mean, they did what he asked, but he goes off and he sulks. It's a great story. Rainy afternoon. I commend it to you.
But here we, we see the contrast, don't we? We see Simon and Andrew, James and John, responding immediately to the call of God [00:07:00] to be God's people. And to fish for people, Jesus uses language that, that meets them exactly where they are. And we see Jonah, not having it. And eventually he lets God work through him.
And God's work is done, but who wants to end up, as one of my friends in Maine, Sue Poulin would say, as puke on the beach? Nobody, right? Nobody. Jesus wants to work through us. God yearns to transform this world. And God is calling each and every one of us where God finds us to be God's people in the corner of the universe where God has placed us.
Isn't that amazing? Every single one of us has had our part of the universe entrusted to our care to share God's love. It's astonishing. [00:08:00] It's beautiful, maybe a little frightening, but our psalm gives us a place of comfort. For God alone my soul in silence waits. Maybe that can be our mantra as we listen for those opportunities to be God's people.
You don't have to be a parson to be God's person. Every one of you is someone God yearns to work through. Wherever God has placed you in this world, whoever the people are in your life that you are interacting with on a daily basis, go be God's person for them. And bring God's love to them. And invite them to imagine a transformed world and a transformed life.
Maybe, even, maybe even, share what that transformation and love has meant to you. [00:09:00] Maybe even invite them to share what you experience here. God is ready to work through you. God is ready to meet you exactly where you are to work grace and love through you.
