Mark 1:14-20
Repenting and
Following Jesus
James Sledge January
21, 2024
I once saw a cartoon that featured a white
dog with black spots that was wearing a robe and standing in a pulpit, speaking
to a congregation of similar looking dogs. This dog is a pointing finger into
the air while waving a Bible like book, and yelling, “… and he said unto them:
‘Bad dogs! No, no!’” Below the cartoon the caption read, “Hellfire and
Dalmatians.”
This cartoon came to mind as I read the
opening of our gospel reading for this morning with its call to repent. I could
easily imagine that preacher dog saying, “Bad dogs! No, no! Repent!”
Repent sounds like something a revival
preacher would shout or that a street preacher would yell at passersby. It
sounds like a call to turn from your evil ways and walk the straight and
narrow, and it can mean just that. But that’s not the only meaning of the word
our Bible translates, “Repent.”
The word translated repent means to change
one’s mind or to have a change of heart, to turn from what one was doing. Often
this is used in a negative sense as in repenting of one’s sins, but in the
Greek version of the Hebrew scriptures that was the Bible for the first
Christians, including the gospel writers, God is said to repent about something
God had planned to do. God had a change of heart about punishing and instead
decided to show mercy. The issue wasn’t God’s initial plans being bad or
sinful. The issue was God’s mercy eclipsing any desire to punish.
And so I wonder if perhaps we shouldn’t be
thinking about repentance when we hear the story of Jesus calling the first
disciples. After all, the calling of Simon and Andrew, James and John, are
introduced with Jesus opening his ministry saying, “The time is
fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the
good news.”
It’s easy to imagine that Jesus’ words are
not addressed to us. After all, we’re already believers, but I wonder if those
first disciples may be instructive for us here. Following Jesus required them
to change their plans, to turn from what they had been doing. In a very real
sense, the had to repent of fishing. I’m pretty sure that is no indictment of
fishing, but following Jesus was not possible for them without this change,
this turn away from something else.
Every call invites us into something new,
but that requires leaving something else behind. Discovering something new, something better,
something more meaningful, means moving away from something else. It does not mean
that previous thing was bad. But the new, the better, the more meaningful
cannot happen without this move, without repenting.
You cannot discover the joys of adulthood
without leaving behind childhood. You cannot give yourself to another in
marriage without, as the old wedding vow says, “forsaking all others.” Ties to
parents and old flames must recede. Every new thing requires taking a chance, a
leap of faith that this new thing is worth repenting and leaving behind the
old.
Jesus says the
coming kingdom, God’s new day, requires repenting, letting go of old ways.
God’s new day doesn’t look like the societies or governments we humans devise,
and Jesus says that becoming part of this new thing requires turning away from
old things to embrace the wonderful newness of God.
Some years ago, I read a story about a boy
riding a Miami city bus back in the days of segregation. He and his brother
took the bus to their downtown church for children’s choir. The return trip
home coincided with the workday’s end, and the bus would fill with domestic
workers and day laborers returning home from a hard day’s work. The boy,
William, noticed that many of these workers had to ride standing the entire
way. This was the days when people of color had to ride in the back and give up
their seats to whites.
Bothered by this, William felt called to
do something. He was white, but he took a seat in the back of the bus and
remained in it until all the seats in that section were occupied. Then, when a
Black woman got on, he would get up and give her his seat.[1]
William engaged in the sort of repenting
that I think Jesus calls us all to do. The segregated bus system was not his
doing. In a very real sense, this young boy could have simply ridden up front
without doing anything wrong. But the call to move the world toward God’s new
day requires turning away from the old and the comfortable. It requires a
certain risk or leap of faith. William moved out of his comfort zone and toward
something new, one small step toward a world a bit more like God’s coming new
day.
Repenting, turning and moving toward God’s
newness must have come naturally to William. Years later he would be
instrumental in helping his downtown Miami church merge with another, becoming
a multi-racial congregation known for its ministry to the downtown homeless at
a time when many other congregations fled to the safety of the suburbs.
But what of us? How are we called to
repent, as individuals and as a congregation? What are the things we must leave
behind in order to move toward the newness of God? They needn’t be bad things
but simply things that must be left behind in order to follow Jesus.
Jesus says that the kingdom of God has
drawn near, but the world still looks very little like that new day Jesus
proclaims. Most of us are deeply embedded in that world that isn’t as God
intends, and I wonder what things each of us might turn away from in order to
live more in accord with the ways of Jesus.
And what about this congregation?
Presumably the day is not too far off when a new pastor will arrive, and I feel
confident in saying that she or he will call the Meeting House to repent in the
same way that those fishermen did.
Invariably, every congregation settles
into patterns and rhythms and activities that have become comfortable and
second nature. They feel good and right, but that does not mean that they
assist the church in being the body of Christ, in calling individuals and the
world to become something new, something more like what Jesus envisions.
When that new
pastor arrives, she or he will bring a new perspective that may well recognize
the need to turn away from some old, established ways in order to faithfully
follow Jesus. That does not mean those old ways were evil or wrong any more
than fishing was evil or wrong for Simon and Andrew, but it may be that
following Jesus requires letting them go, requires leaving old comfort zones
and beginning something new.
This sermon began with a cartoon, so I
think I’ll share another one. This cartoon features a group of people seated
around a table with a blackboard on the wall with the words “Pastoral Search
Committee” written on it. The people have sheets of paper in their hands,
perhaps résumés of prospective pastors.
One of the committee members is speaking
and says, “Basically we’re looking for an innovative pastor with a fresh vision
who will inspire our church to remain exactly the same.”
This cartoon bounces around online because
of the kernel of truth found in it. Very often, the last thing a church wants
to do is change, to repent. Churches do not change easily and not without a
great deal of deliberation and hand wringing over all the possible
ramifications of the change.
But our scripture says of those fishermen
Jesus calls, And immediately they left their nets and followed him. If you
ever sit down and read Mark’s gospel from start to finish, you might notice
that one of his favorite words is “immediately.” He uses it so much that
translators sometimes decide to leave it out. Lots of things happen immediately
in Mark’s gospel, but almost nothing happens “immediately” in church
congregations. Most of us church folks tend to be careful, cautious sorts. We
do things deliberately, after much consideration and debate. We don’t like to
be hurried or to do things immediately.
This sort of caution has a great deal to
recommend. It keeps us from doing things impulsively or chasing after every new
fad. But I wonder if it doesn’t make it very difficult for us to repent, to
turn away from the familiar and move toward the newness Jesus calls us to be
part of and to show to the world. I worry sometimes that if Jesus passed by and
said, “Follow me,” I’d say, “Could you leave some material with me, and perhaps
a link to your website. Let me look it over, consider the financial
implications, and I’ll get back to you.” And Jesus would go on his way without
me.
The world is not what God longs for it to
be, what God dreams it will become. You and I are not what God longs for us to
be, and the Meeting House is not what God dreams it will become. There is
something better, more wonderful in God’s future, in our future. And Jesus
calls us into that future saying, “Follow me.”
And immediately they left their nets (their past, their comfort zones,
their carefully crafted budgets, the way they’d always done it, their tried and
true) and followed him.
[1]
Cynthia Weems in “Reflections on the lectionary,” The Christian Century Vol. 129, No. 1 (January 11, 2012) p. 21
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