It's a Miracle!

The Holy Gospel According to St. Mark, the 1st Chapter

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom 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 fishermen. And Jesus said to them, “Follow me and I will make you fish for 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.

People don’t normally read this story as a miracle story but I think this may actually be Jesus’ biggest!  Calming storms and healing sick people is impressive... raising the dead is also pretty amazing... but getting fishermen to give up fishing!?  THAT would take a serious, all-out, no-holds-barred miracle from God and yet, THAT is exactly what Jesus does!

People who fish are passionate.  People who come from fishing families have a passion that has been cultivated in them for generations.  Pa Karas, my great grandfather came from Bohemia, in what is now the Czech Republic and settled in the upper peninsula of Michigan.  He fished the Escanaba River.  My grandfather, after coming back from World War II built a camp that became their retirement home on that river.  My father grew up fishing that river and I learned to fish in that river.  In the summers, we would sit out on the deck, watch the water and wait for the trout to rise.  Once they were feeding, we would make our way down to the river, slowly wading out to make the perfect cast.  I tell you that, because years later, after my grandparents had died, the property was divided among my dad, and his brother and sister.  My uncle owned the piece with Camp and the deck and then, when he was dying from cancer, he decided to sell his portion to a non-profit river conservation group.  His decision was logical.  No one in the family had the funds to fix the well, septic system, the roof or to do what was needed to deal with the bats at Camp.  It was logical.  It made complete sense and I hated what he did with all my being.  

After that, we couldn’t stay at Camp any more and we couldn’t sit on that deck.  My dad and my aunt still had the rest of the property so it was decided to build a new deck, but the new deck was 400 yards down stream.  It wasn’t right.  It was only 400 yards down stream on the same stretch of river but it felt like it was in another world.  And the old deck... the right deck... was still there... but now it was forever, out of reach.  We fishermen don’t like to leave our special spots!  We don’t like to give up what we know… what we're comfortable with… what's been in our blood for generations.  On the old deck I knew where the fish would be.  I knew how the currents went.  I knew how to fish for fish THERE.  Those 400 yards of change were for me, about 400 yards too many!  

Jesus was asking Simon and Andrew, James and John to do nothing less than leave all that they knew, all that was familiar, the place and the profession that gave them and their families life and had for generations!  Getting them to leave THAT must have taken a miracle!  But wait! There's a second, even more amazing miracle at work in this story.  We miss this second miracle even more than we miss the first one.  We believe that Jesus is calling the disciples and us to something wonderful... eternal life, salvation, a mansion in a city paved with gold... and we believe that we too are asked to sweep up in a net, all the people of the world we can, so they too can enjoy this wonderful vision of heaven.  The trouble with that notion is that isn’t what Jesus said or what Jesus meant.  Jesus said, “The time is fulfilled; the Kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the Good News” and then he said he would make them “fish for people.” 

The Kingdom of God coming near isn’t a net lowered from heaven to scoop the faithful up to heaven.  The Kingdom of God is THIS world... OUR world, drown to the way it currently works and raised to once again work the way God created it to work in the beginning.  It’s Mary’s Magnificat… God's vision of the world that Mary proclaimed... becoming a reality in our world.  It’s the proud scattered in their plans, the powerful brought down from their thrones, the lowly lifted up, the hungry filled with good things and the rich sent away empty.  

Jesus was calling the disciples to follow a path that would seek to change the way the world worked which sounds nice, but it was a path that had already landed John the Baptist in jail.  He was calling them to follow The Way, which sounds good, but The Way leads to the cross.  He was calling them to “fish for people” which sounds nice, but wasn’t ever about “saving souls” but was actually a reference to the passages in Jeremiah, Amos and Ezekiel where “hooking fish” is code for bringing judgement against the rich and powerful.  Jesus wasn’t asking them to help guide a few people to escape this world and “get to heaven,” Jesus was asking them to join him in God's revolution!   

You see, the twin miracles of this story are that FIRST, Jesus was able to get fishermen to follow him along The Way.  Fishermen... people who are only slightly less stubborn and set in their ways than Lutherans and Episcopalians!  Jesus was able to get THEM to follow him... THAT was the first miracle!  The second miracle though, is that Jesus got them to follow him, not to something easy, shiny, comfortable or familiar, but that Jesus got them to follow him on The Way... The Way to join in God’s revolution... The Way to change the social and political reality of the world... The Way which led Jesus to the Cross. 

Jesus doesn’t invite us to follow so that we might “get saved”... Jesus is calling you and me to follow The Way and The Way is a path that calls us to die... like John the Baptist, like Jesus, like Simon, Andrew, James and John.  It is the path that we celebrate in the waters of Baptism, where our former lives... our lives that lean on power, wealth, privilege and power are drown and remain there at the bottom of the font while our new lives are raised to live in a new way… a way of peace, justice, compassion and generosity right here in THIS world.  It is a path that calls us to die to ourselves and our personal wants, desires, privileges and preferences and then rise to be a part of bringing in the Kingdom of God... our world made over into the world God intended it to be in Creation.  

In this story, Jesus has asked us to leave what we know and love and all that we find familiar and comfortable.  THEN he asks us to follow him on a path, not to a comfortable escape, but to revolution... to daily die to the ways of the world and rise... rise and live as if the Kingdom of God was fully here... while all around us it is all too clear that it still has a long way to come.  What Jesus is asking us is going to take not just one miracle... but two!  The Good News is that Jesus has already worked those miracles in each and every one of us, right there in the waters of Baptism… now our calling is, together, to put one foot in front of the other along that Way, in that Truth and toward that Life!  Amen.