No Time to Waste

 

Sermon Mark 1:14-20 January 24, 2021

No Time to Waste

In the last ten months we have been jumping to schedules and radical changes and learning new ways that have been more than we could handle at times. Nothing before us has been like the way we are living now. 

I watched a Wheel of Fortune show last night that was from Feb 2020. It was so weird! They were standing close to each other and they were spinning the wheel with their bare hands. I was shocked.

And then I realized, oh my gosh-we’re now looking at everything pre-covid era and post-covid era. It’s been a real ride of radical change. Nothing before has turned us to quick thinking actions on our feet that we could be prepared to make. Everyday we keep thinking we have a routine until the call comes to say schools are shut down again. And then the call comes to say they are open again. 

Who in their right mind can keep a schedule like that? 

For some, perhaps life is a perpetual hamster wheel and each day is a desire to fill the moments with something to do. It has been a frustration of how to stay energized and part of the everyday life while staying at home.

We’re all realizing though, that there is no time to waste.

Each day there is new learning, new teaching, new methods. The miracle of new networks of friendships have developed in order to navigate in this way of living we never saw coming.

Thank God for the quick thinkers!

Thank God for the problem solvers!

Thank God for the unflappable mama bears out there!

What these mamas have done is no short of a miracle!

They remind me of the disciples who answered the call of Jesus.

Jumping out of a stable setting and running to something and someone most uncertain because the love in the call was so great-that’s the miracle…

In today’s text Mark, the gospel writer, doesn’t skip a beat to introduce us to Jesus. Jesus is baptized, sent into the wilderness and when he emerges from the wilderness we read that John has been arrested. In the same breath of the gospel writer’s announcement of John’s arrest he writes that Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the ‘good news’.  There is no pause for sorrow for John or even for Jesus to acknowledge the passing of the baton.

For Mark, the movement of the power of God is urgent, radical, and forward moving. The calling of the disciples as an opening act for the ministry of Jesus will give the disciples the authority they need to carry on after Jesus is gone.

Jesus comes to Andrew and Simon first and calls for them to follow him and fills them with a promise of a new vocation. His call to them implies a radical break from their former way of living. Immediately they left their nets and followed Jesus. Jesus places the same call on James and John who not only leave their nets but leave their father as well.

A radical departure indeed. 

They dropped everything and turned to a new way of life. 

Not unlike what so many of us had to do ten months ago and keep doing everyday!

We often get hung up on the ability of the disciples to have the will and the obedience to leave everything behind. But, if our focus is on what they did, then we miss the point of the power of God to change us and to turn us to a new way of life. 

Jesus CALLS them and they come running because Jesus’ call is undeniable and irresistible!

Barbara Brown Taylor suggests we’re missing something if we lay our focus on the yes of the disciples. 

“If we spend all our focus on what the disciples 

gave up and how they were so saintly and self- sacrificing 

we really miss the point of the message. 

These verses are about the miracle of God’s work 

in God’s encounters with people. She says, 

“the power of God to walk right up to a quartet 

of fishermen and work a miracle, 

creating faith where there was no faith, 

creating disciples 

where there were none 

just a moment before.”

Yes, God is at work with miracles within us. Jesus is calling us and we are without any apprehension following him through all that faces us because we understand the power of God.

Kate Huey suggests that we also get hung up on the idea that this disciple making or disciple becoming is something that we do. 

We think if we fix ourselves or shape our lives; 

if we determine our destinies, 

or take hold of the future 

then our independent choice of becoming a follower of Jesus is how we please God. 

But, it is God who works power within us 

and we can’t resist but follow. 

It is beyond our choice but a force so strong we know its right.

Taylor reminds us, “What we may have lost along the way is a full sense of the power of God – to recruit people who have made terrible choices; to invade the most hapless lives and fill them with light; to sneak up on people who are thinking about lunch, not God, and smack them upside the head with glory" (Home by Another Way). Whether we're ready or not, God acts.

I honestly believe God has acted in the lives of our saints during these radical times. 

We could not be here today in a secure and strong congregation 

without the miracle of God’s presence 

among us to stir us to action. 

The miracle is that God stirred our hearts 

to give us the strength to say 

that we would be the church through all times. 

God called us out of the darkness around us 

and puts us to work. 

We responded not out of our own ability but the 

strength of Christ within us.

At the PEVA Zoom presbytery meeting yesterday, I learned of all the ways the churches in our presbytery also heard God’s call to them that there was no time to waste. They turned to offering ministry and mission in their communities to meet the needs of many. They redid their food pantries and their child care. There was so much retraining and learning to work together with new technologies and assisting the home bound. Each church had a miracle story. We have our miracle stories.

You see when Jesus comes along and calls to us from the seashore, 

we drop everything and run to him knowing there is no time to waste. 

We are the church because the miracle of his call is still at work within each of us. 

We are the church because the power of Christ is irresistible! 

You see mamas know that when there is a challenge in front of us 

we don’t run and hide, we run to it for the sake of our family. 

Jesus called those disciples and they went running to him. 

They ran to him not because they were leaving anything behind 

but because they were running to him knowing it would be for the sake of many.

The little diddly put together to encourage the church in 2003 at First Pres in Harrisonburg, VA goes like this.

I am the Church

My church is composed of people like me. We make it what it is.

It will be friendly if I am friendly.

It’s pews will be filled (that’s online pews too), if I fill them.

It will do great work, if I work.

It will make generous gifts to many causes, if I am a generous giver.

It will bring people into its worship and fellowship, if I bring them (online too).

It will be a church of loyalty and love, of fearlessness and faith, and a church with a noble spirit, if I, who makes it what it is, am filled with these traits.

Therefore, with the help of God, I shall dedicate myself to the task of being all the things I want my church to be.

 When we see the face of Jesus and hear his voice, there is no time to waste. We come running to shore and follow him. 

Let each of us today heed his call and follow. 

There’s no telling how our lives will be. 

There’s no time to waste. 

Amen.

Resources: NIB Gospel of Mark Pheme Perkins; Barbara Brown Taylor; Working Preacher-Kate Huey 2012

Property of Monica Gould sharing is permitted but not to be reprinted without permission. 

The Cost of Yes

 

Sermon Mark 1:1-14 January 10, 2021 Baptism of the Lord Sunday

The Cost of Yes

Disbelief occurred on Wednesday. The Capitol building of our United States was assaulted as the joint chambers were getting ready to certify electoral votes. For some they were grateful for the riotous behavior. They were feeling their voices were being heard. There was cheering across social media stating the joy they had in the take back of a country headed toward totalitarianism. Others though, were shocked that our nation could become so unstable in her democracy that a revolutionary coup was trying to take place. 

The insurrection has cost us as a nation. 

It has cost us as a people. 

It has cost us as a community and as neighbors and as people of faith.

I realize that on Thursday as I went to exercise and other places throughout the day, 

not one of us spoke of what happened. 

When 9/11 occurred, we spoke about it for weeks and months in shock and horror about what happened. 

But Thursday, all voices around me were silent about what had happened on Wednesday.

In less than 20 years we do not speak (except in media platforms) openly about our concerns of government, of social behavior, of faith, of security, of anything beyond TV shows.

Our opinions, our values, our thought processes of any subject are constantly rejected, mocked, yelled at, and even assaulted. We have never in our lives been so constrained in our ability to speak than ever before. We demonize anyone and everyone whose ideas are different from ours. 

How did we come to this?

As I studied Mark’s opening gospel message over the last few weeks, I was reminded again and again, the cost to Jesus for his Yes to God. Jesus stood before John the Baptist and said yes to a baptism of the Holy Spirit that would thrust him into the world of hate, envy, sin, evil and strife.

Who in their right mind would consider doing anything that would cost them their life?

And yet, we witness that there is always a cost to yes. 

There is always a cost to the who and what we say yes to. 

And if we choose to say yes, 

we best be prepared to know the truth 

of what we have made our allegiance to. 

If we say yes to Jesus we best be prepared 

that it is a costly yes. 

It is not a yes, of when we feel like it or something that looks good on a resume. 

It is a yes that takes over every ounce of our life, 

even our breath- if we are serious about it. 

How do I know this? 

I have Jesus as my example. 

An encounter with Jesus cannot be undone. 

The presence of the Spirit is something so powerful it changes us. 

It sets us out into a risky, scary world 

where we are to go and proclaim him, 

not deny him, 

because we trust he is guiding us.

We witness in this first chapter of Mark that Jesus joins the line of people standing at the edge of the river Jordan. He along with others are waiting for this new amazing fiery preacher man to baptize them into a new life. 

The people coming to John the baptizer were willing to accept the sin in their life and to reject it and to repent, to turn from their ways, and begin to live a new life saying yes to God. 

Jesus comes behind them and also rejects sin and turns to the life God sent him to live. He turns to the life that will lead him to death. He paves the way for his followers. 

He shows them that YES has a cost. 

It has a cost that began with the words of God calling him beloved Son and then immediately he was confronted with his yes by being tempted in the wilderness. 

The angels ministered to him and he was refreshed by the Spirit and ready for ministry.

Jesus came to preach the truth of God’s love. 

AND To preach the truth of love: he suffered, he was mocked, and he died. 

The cost of yes to be a follower of Christ, to speak the truth of God’s love is not cheap (as Bonhoeffer says). 

To be a follower is to risk our very life to say yes to Jesus and to live a life in the fullness of discipleship.

In every century beginning with the first disciples, the followers of Jesus were undermined at every turn. Here we are 2000 years later and we are grateful for their YES! They were undeterred in their willingness to preach the truth that Jesus is our God incarnate, Emmanuel with us, our Lord, and Savior. Can we still proclaim him like this outside of a Christmas service? Can we proclaim him above all other Gods? Or is that unsettling for many? We can gather and agree to coexist with other religions without religious persecution. But, that doesn’t mean we cannot share our faith and live our faith openly.

The gospel of Mark gives us a taste of the haste of the ministry of Jesus. In every generation there is a haste for his ministry. It takes us through his life with attention to his purpose and mission to share the truth of the kingdom of God and for those who hear of it to embrace it urgently for salvation is near.

As we read scripture we are influenced by our experience. 

The lenses of our reading for understanding are framed by the templates of our prior reading and the world of our learned experiences. 

It is important for us to constantly test our understanding as we pray with an open heart trusting the Spirit to reveal God’s insight for that text before us.

The approach to reading and studying scripture should match that of the Bereans who we read about in Acts chapter 17 as soon as it was night, the believers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. ¹¹ Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. ¹² As a result, many of them believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men.

The ability to discern and search for truth is key to our yes to faith.

We must ask questions. 

We must research. 

We must scrutinize. 

In our search for truth we have the opportunity to be open to the joys of growth in faith. We will receive strength in our resolve to proclaim what we believe.

When we have a handle on our yes as a follower of Christ it becomes the rule by which we make our way in all other aspects of our life. If our yes to Jesus as a follower is wishy washy, if it is on shaky ground, if it is only when we feel like it, then all other ideals will supersede our following Christ. We will end up chasing after an ideal that sucks us away from any yes we ever made to the discipline of faith in Jesus.

You see in this 21^st century we can’t escape the influence of radical ideals who have gone before. 

History books and other texts have been rewritten and altered. 

We will be confronted with the teachings of Karl Marx, Malcolm X, Stalin, and many others. We best know our own constitution and democracy were influenced by Toqueville of France.  Karl Marx called religion the opium of the people. 

He was successful in stealing the hope of heaven 

from the faithful 

by mocking the very truth 

of their ability to transcend difficult times. 

He succeeded in dividing people into groups of hate and sedition. 

He is only one example of the effect 

how 

one man’s 

writings and propaganda 

can have on a large scale.

Marxists were successful in pushing the ideal that it is human effort that make humans make history. 

Writers, philosophers, theologians, idealists 

make their mark on our conscious and our outlook. 

What they contribute forms a template of influence. 

These sources enter into our psyche as we relate to Jesus and can distort us.

Christians have no choice but to wrestle with the dominant culture of their time in every time. H.R. Niebuhr

As nations struggle; 

As governments rise and fall, 

it is the Christian responsibility 

to study the struggle 

and make choices 

of who we say yes to. 

We make sure that in every oath we take: 

baptism, 

ordination, 

marriage, 

public office, 

confirmation, 

membership; 

that we are willing to live by the YES to those oaths. 

Our words and our yeses hold us accountable to God and to each other.

Cheap grace, as Bonhoeffer said, is the deadly enemy of the church. 

I would add that a weak yes to Jesus is the demise of our strength as a church and as an influencer in society. 

As followers of Jesus we don’t want to impose our faith on others for fear of offending them. If the grace we believe is truly as costly as Bonhoeffer says, only those who truly want to take the risk will say yes. It won’t offend anyone. The gospel doesn’t offend because in Romans 1:16  For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. 

Good news of love and new life is never offensive. We just need the courage to speak what we believe. Perhaps we can really believe the intensity of God’s love for us as we witness the heavens tear open for Jesus as the Spirit descends and declares him a beloved Son at his baptism.

How can we live the Christian life in this modern divided world? 

We remember our baptismal vows and rejoice in them. They give us the ability to live the costly grace in our everyday life. We make sure our yes to Jesus is above all other yeses. We believe in sin and the need for forgiveness. We believe in repentance and the truth of forgiveness. We believe in the new life given to us as followers of Jesus. We believe it all and allow it to rule our life and guide our ways.

When we can do this then we can come together to seek to find a way to talk about all of our life and our different ideas and our different choices. It has to start with us. How did we get to this? I’m still learning. But, I know one thing for sure. In Jesus Christ I have the courage to engage with each different thought as we seek to put Christ first with our yes. There is a cost. There is always a cost. Let us be willing to seek to serve and witness the heavens open to us calling us beloved as we go forth. Amen.

Property of Monica Gould sharing is permitted but not to be reprinted without permission.

Resources: NIB Gospel of Mark Pheme Perkins; Christ & Culture by H. Richard Niebuhr; The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer; Live not by Lies by Rod Dreher