“What
Happened?”
A sermon on Mark 1:14-20
preached
by Rev. Aaron Fulp-Eickstaedt
at
on
“Only fifteen percent of American congregations
have grown by even one person in the last five years, according to the Parish
Paper newsletter.” (1) That was the first sentence of a recent
The editorial went on to offer some
reasons for churches’ decline and plateau, but it suggested that perhaps the
main one is that clergy and lay leaders fail to put evangelism on their congregation’s
agenda. There are a host of reasons
for this: from the negative images some of us have of people who have witnessed
to
In this church, I suppose we’ve put
evangelism on the radar screen, but that’s mostly been in the form of discussions
among a few of us about how we respond to visitors once they come through
our doors, and in the mailing of brochures, introductory letters, and newsletters
to folks who move into several local zip codes.
Those things are surely worthwhile, but they don’t really get to the
core of evangelism—which is sharing Jesus
There’s a reason he was doing so—and
that reason goes beyond the crisis of declining or plateaued membership in
so many churches. The reason is, that
as Presbyterian-flavored
The first chapter of Mark doesn’t waste
much time getting us to that call. John
appears, preaching in the wilderness. Jesus is baptized and then tempted in the desert.
Bang, bang, bang. What it takes Matthew and Luke four chapters
to do, Mark accomplishes in thirteen verses.
Then all of a sudden, John is arrested and Jesus begins his public
ministry in
That’s the Reader’s Digest version
of what is already a pretty abbreviated story. But how rich in insight it
is. This week, as I pondered
that article in
First, those first four disciples are
necessary. Notice again how
quickly Jesus moves to calling them. Right
after Jesus starts proclaiming the
There’s a wonderful tale that I’ve
shared from this pulpit before about one of the angels greeting Jesus after
he ascended to heaven. The angel asked
him about how his work was going to continue now that he was up there. And Jesus said, “Well, those surviving eleven
followers that I left behind, they’ll continue what I started.” The angel said, “What if they fail? What if they don’t work out? What then? Surely
you have a back up plan? And Jesus
said, “Nope. There is no back up plan.
Those guys are it.”
Now we know from scripture that those
eleven, together with some other followers (women among them), stuck with
it until the Spirit was poured out at Pentecost. And the Spirit empowered them to carry on
Our task hasn’t changed friends.
Just like in the first century, if the good news of God’s love in
Something else occurred to me about
why disciples like you and me are necessary in God’s plan. That’s because God wants us to know the joy
that comes along with sharing the good news of God’s love. That’s why we’re necessary. Maybe God could do it without us. But God wants us to know joy. That’s why we’re necessary.
The second thing to note about those
first four disciples is that they are ordinary. They are just fishermen, out on the lake, trying
to make a living. They were most likely
not educated, nor were they wealthy. They
were just regular guys, common people. They probably weren’t even the best fishers
of fish out there on that lake and here Jesus was calling them to be fishers
of men.
Why’d Jesus start with ordinary folks
like that? Why not start with the chief
priests and the scribes, the wise and learned Pharisees, the trained ones
who spent their days delving into God’s law?
Why not start with them? Why
start with four common, smelly, uneducated fishermen?
Here again, there’s a point to be made
about Jesus’ mission—the good news he came to proclaim and the good news we
try to share from this pulpit week after week after week. The point is this: you do not have to be extraordinary for God
to love you and use you. In
See, God’s love for us—and for God’s
world—has nothing to do with our achievements, our socio-economic status,
our profession, our intellectual prowess, or even our morality. It is based in God’s grace—the grace that Anne
Lamott says “meets us exactly where we are and loves us too much to let us
stay that way.” (2) That’s good news. Those four fishermen heard that news and they
got out of their boats and started to follow the one who would make them fishers
of men.
The wonderful Latin American hymn, “Lord, You
Have Come to the Lakeshore,” the first verse of which the choir will be using
as a benediction today, puts these words in the mouths of the fishermen. “O Lord, with your eyes you have searched me,
and while smiling, have called out my name.
Now my boat’s left on the shoreline behind me, now with you, I will
seek other seas.”
Why’d they leave their boats? I suppose we could come up with a number of
reasons, but I like to think it was because of the way Jesus looked at them.
They were more than ordinary fishermen to him.
They were precious children of God.
How many people had walked by those four (maybe even good religious
folks like the Pharisees) and failed to see them as anything more than the
function they filled? But Jesus looked at them and valued them as
more than what they did. He loved them—not
for what they did, but for who they were: precious children of God—and he saw them transformed
into what they would become in God’s plan.
It’s not just first century fishermen
that long to be looked at that way, friends. It’s the single mother waitress struggling to
make ends meet, with all kinds of trouble and without a whole lot of support
structures. It’s the kids in
That’s a message that some people are
literally dying to hear—they’re dying to hear it—and one place they
can hear it is in the church. Sometimes
I wonder if we don’t take the message a little too casually—if we don’t take
it for granted—those of us who have grown up in a church setting. Sometimes I wonder if we’ve really gotten it—or
perhaps we’ve grown immune to it, this message of grace. Maybe little doses of it make us immune. I don’t know.
But it’s what we have to offer the world—it’s what makes
Jesus looked on those four fishermen
in love and he invited them (not forced them) to follow. He didn’t berate them. He didn’t threaten them. He simply loved them and said, “Come and follow
me.” There’s a lesson for evangelism
in that, too, I suppose.
Which brings us to the third thing
that the text suggests about the four fishermen, and that is, they were willing. They were willing to follow. They were willing to do the work of being fishers
of men and women. They made that choice.
One way we know they were willing is
because they immediately got out of the boat. They could have waited around. They could have said, “Well, you know, get back
to us on that Jesus, we may go. We
may not go.” But they immediately got
of the boat and followed. They heard
“Come and be fishers of men,” and they got out and they did it. They were enthusiastic about it. They were willing.
Which raises a question.
What about us? Are we willing? Are we willing to get out and be fishers of
men and women?
And lest you think that’s not a Presbyterian
idea (there’s certainly plenty of scriptural basis for it), but lest you think
that’s not a Presbyterian idea, listen to these words from our Presbyterian
Church U.S.A. Book of Order:
First, the responsibilities
of elders. A.
A. Not b, not c, not f, not i, not z.
a. to
provide opportunities for evangelism to be learned and practiced in and by
the church, that members may be better equipped to articulate their faith,
to witness in word and deed to the saving grace of Jesus
That’s A.
Here’s what our Worship Book says.
The middle part of the Book of Order. (W-7.2001):
God sends the church in the power of the Holy Spirit
a.
to announce the good news that in
b.
to tell all nations and peoples of
c.
to proclaim in deed and word that Jesus gave himself to
set people free.
d.
to offer in
e.
to call people everywhere to believe in and follow Jesus
f.
to invite them into the community of faith to worship
and serve the triune God.
Let
me close with these words from John Buchanan’s editorial:
“
In Jesus’ name. Amen.