| January 26, 2003 |
| Jonah 3:1-5 + 1 Corinthians 7:29-31 + Mark 1.14-20 |
| Zebedee sits there and watches them leave;a father who has provided them with everything; a loving home;an education that will feed them and their children some day; boats, nets, and even hired hands to help.Along comes’this carpenter’s son, and they’re gone.Years of patient teaching,and after five minutes’ talk with that man from Nazareth, they’re off chasing a dream. |
| Zebedee stays at the boat.Is it because he was not called? Is it because he was too old?Maybe he could have gone. Maybe he should have gone.Maybe he should have stopped them. Now he has to tell their mother.But maybe he knew all along that there were other things to do than fish. Perhaps the world was getting bigger. The Romans and their ways were changing everything. And so they left him mending the nets. |
| It’s not just a Gospel story. It’s ours as well.If it isn’t boats and nets they leave, it’s the church or school.Those left behind, like Zebedee are left to ponder the truth that God’s ways are not our ways.And so we pick up this Gospel today to ponder the mystery of “Call”, to reflect upon the wonder of our discipleship;and look at the truth. |
| I have begun to believe that this is the mystery of who God calls. It is not Zabadee. He was already successful by the standards of his day: a boat or two, hired hands, at least two sons, and who knows what else? I suspect that he wasn’t called because all of that would have gotten in the way He would have been telling Jesus what to do, how to do it, where to go, and who to talk to Instead, God calls tho e who have nothing to lose, and even less to give. As it turns out, they are lot like that figure from the Old Testament who stands before us today, an unlikely candidate for greatness and God’s work. He is full of opinions, self-willed, talks too much, and is very full of himself. God seems to have a distinct preference for the unlikely Perhaps they are more open to God’s plans than their own. |
| I have begun to believe that the wonder here is that discipleship is not first a call to do something, but rather an invitation into a relationship, a companionship that is wider and more powerful .than family and much more productive than a job. |
| I have begun to believe that the truth we may discover here is that God calls us to be something before we ever do something. Discipleship with Jesus is a relationship that once accepted changes what we do d why we do it. Whether it is Jonah, the sons of Zebadee, or you and me; it’s about relationship first, and then about mission. What the disciples of the Gospel learn, and what Jonah learned the hard way is that the mission is God’s. Excuses, claims of inadequacy, fear, or any doubts about the mission at all are misplaced because they spring·out of the suspicion that we are the ones who will make it work. What we discover in the whole of this Gospel is that messengers, the disciples, are in themselves weak and inadequate. But that’s not the point. The success of the mission has nothing to do with the virtue, the strength, or the lack thereof on the part of the disciple. The success lies in the One whose word sends them forth. |
| To follow Jesus does not mean to “walk behind” in the world from which this Gospel springs. In that world, it meant to “follow” another in an intellectual, moral and religious manner That kind of following grew out of a relationship between the leader and the follower I lik_ to imagine that there were other days in Galilee when the boys came home, and that old Zebadee and his wife welcomed them and listened with great joy to the stories they told and the wonders they saw I also like to imagine that from time to time when they came home and sat ·down at the kitchen table, they brought with them Jesus whose presence blessed that home their work and their love. That day in Galilee, Jesus was inviting the sons of Zebadee to enter into such a relationship with him. When we proclaim this Gospel in this room today, he does the same. |
| • |
| Testament who stands before us today, an unlikely candidate for greatness and God’s work. He is full of opinions, self-willed, talks too much, and is very full of himself. God seems to have a distinct preference for the unlikely Perhaps they are more open to God’s plans than their own. |
| I have begun to believe that the wonder here is that discipleship is not first a call to do something, but rather an invitation into a relationship, a companionship that is wider and more powerful .than family and much more productive than a job. |
| I have begun to believe that the truth we may discover here is that God calls us to be something before we ever do something. Discipleship with Jesus is a relationship that once accepted changes what we do and why we do it. Whether it is Jonah, the sons of Zebadee, or you and me; it’s about relationship first, and then about mission. What the disciples of the Gospel learn, and what Jonah learned the hard way is that the mission is God’s. Excuses, claims of inadequacy, fear, or any doubts about the mission at all are misplaced because they spring·out of the suspicion that we are the ones who will make it work. What we discover in the whole of this Gospel is that messengers, the disciples, are in themselves weak and inadequate. But that’s not the point. The success of the mission has nothing to do with the virtue, the strength, or the lack thereof on the part of the disciple. The success lies in the One whose word sends them forth. |
| To follow Jesus does not mean to “walk behind” in the world from which this Gospel springs. In that world, it meant to “follow” another in an intellectual, moral and religious manner That kind of following grew out of a relationship between the leader and the follower I like to imagine that there were other days in Galilee when the boys came home, and that old Zebadee and his wife welcomed them and listened with great joy to the stories they told and the wonders they saw I also like to imagine that from time to time when they came home and sat ·down at the kitchen table, they brought with them Jesus whose presence blessed that home their work and their love. That day in Galilee, Jesus was inviting the sons of Zebadee to enter into such a relationship with him. When we proclaim this Gospel in this room today, he does the same. |
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