Sunday
01/21/18 Freeville/Homer Avenue UMC’s
Sermon Title: “Follow Me”
Old Testament
Scripture: Jonah 3:1-5, 10
New Testament
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 7:29-31
Gospel Lesson:
Mark 1:14-20
Welcome again my friends, my sisters and brothers, on this
the Third Sunday after the Epiphany. Three Sundays after we celebrated those
Wise Men, those Magi visiting Jesus with Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh. They came
in one way, and after an encounter with the living God, with Jesus Christ, they
went home changed.
Sometimes in our own lives we meet people that end up
changing our lives and maybe even changing the world forever. For some of us maybe
it was the first time that you met your husband or wife. In that first meeting you
just knew immediately that this was the person for you. They call it “love at
first sight”. I think that this was true for me when I first saw Melissa, but
she may have needed a little more convincing.
Perhaps we met someone somewhere, hear someone speak, or have
encountered a person that changed us, and perhaps the world. What is it like
when someone suddenly comes into your path, into your space, and changes you
forever?
When I was at my first appointment in the Adirondack
District of our United Methodist Conference, I had the pleasure of serving two
small churches. At one church that I served, we had a very bubbly British woman
named Valerie. She was quite funny, full of life, and just great to be around.
It must have been my second or third Sunday when Valerie first came into the
church. All joyfully she strode to the front of the sanctuary and promptly
asked me, “Are you the new Vicar?” By my second to third week of being the
pastor, I think I just mastered opening my Bible correctly. Further, I thought
quickly, “what’s a Vicar?” So I said to this woman, Valerie, “That depends on
what a Vicar is? Is it a swear word?” She then laughed hysterically and said, “No,
it’s the pastor of a church”. Feeling relieved, I then responded to Valerie, and
said, “Yes, I am the new Vicar”.
In only serving these two small churches in the Adirondack
District of our United Methodist Conference for a short time, I got to know
many of the people in the churches that I served, including Valerie. Valerie
told me about a night, and a person that changed her life forever. You see in
the late 1960’s in the city of London, England there was a young American
Evangelist named Rev. Billy Graham that came to speak to massive crowds about
Jesus Christ. Valerie told me that night, that the Crusade for Christ she
attended in London, changed her forever. She told me that on that night, God
used Rev. Billy Graham to change her heart, her mind, to ask Jesus Christ for
forgiveness, and on that night she became a new creation in Jesus Christ. On
that night she a joy and peace that she had never known before.
This was and is to me a powerful story. I don’t believe that
things like this happen to us every day, but maybe, possibly in own our lives
we will encounter one or more people that will profoundly change us, and maybe
the world.
This morning in the gospel of Mark, which likely the first
of the four gospels ever written, we have in the very first chapter, Jesus
calling his disciples. Jesus’ disciples sometimes called him “Rabbi,” which is
Hebrew for “teacher” or “master”. These disciples and those who followed Christ
were largely everyday people that were going about their daily lives. In living
these lives though, these first disciples had an encounter with a person that
would change them and the world forever. Like my friend Valerie was changed when
she met Rev. Billy Graham, the disciples, and since then, billions and billions
of people, have been changed by Jesus Christ.
I can’t even imagine what it must have
been like to have meet Jesus in the flesh. To look the living God in the eyes,
and to see him. I would think that the power of love, hope, light, mercy, and
life would be overwhelming in Jesus’ eyes. For those of us that bear the title
Christian, we are making the claim that we have encountered this Jesus. None of
us here today can say that we have encountered this Jesus in the flesh, but he
has been revealed to us through the Holy Spirit. This Jesus for many of us, is
the person of God that we have encountered that lived a life like we live. He
laughed, he cried, he hungered, he thirsted, he loved, he healed, and he forgave.
I wonder, what it must have been like to stand in the presence of living God,
of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ? Having met Christ, having received Him as
my Lord and Savior, I understand so much more now why the mission statement of
the United Methodist Church is, “to make disciples of Jesus Christ, for the
transformation of the world”. We are called to lead people to Christ, and a transformation
in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. Once people are transformed, we
then equip them, prepare them, and send them out to transform the world. For
nearly 2,000 years this is why the Christian Church has existed. We don’t exist
just to have dinners, just to have birthday cakes, we exist for and through
Jesus Christ, for the transformation of the world. When the church looks like
Jesus Christ, we grow and flourish, but when the church looks how we think it
should look, the church suffers and declines.
In this morning’s gospel of Mark reading, we have Jesus
calling Simon or Peter, and his brother Andrew, as well as James and John to “Follow
Him”. We have no evidence that these four men had ever met Jesus before this
moment. In this reading from the gospel of Mark, Jesus also begins his public
ministry. Jesus you see, what an itinerant Jewish Rabbi, or a Pastor. He called
disciples to follow him, and he preached the Good News of God’s coming kingdom.
So let’s pick back up this gospel of Mark lesson for this morning once again.
This is what it says:
“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” (Mk.
1:14-15, NRSV).
So unfortunately, John the Baptist has
been arrested, and he will soon die a martyrs death, as Jesus is teaching and
preaching that the “kingdom of God has come near”. Since the beginning of time, since God first spoke to Abraham and
all others after him, God was revealing Himself to us. God began teaching,
instructing, and thus His kingdom on earth was breaking in. When Jesus comes to
earth, the kingdom of God then comes more fully. The great reformer Martin
Luther had a famous doctrine of there being “Two Kingdoms” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_kingdoms_doctrine).
These “Kingdoms” are the secular “Kingdom of Earth,” and the “Christian Kingdom
of Earth”. God’s Kingdom is breaking in through Jesus Christ, God’s kingdom is
here, and the Church runs the spiritual entity that is God’s Kingdom. At the
same time we have the secular government that rules, representing the “Kingdom
of God,” and the “Kingdom of Earth”. In a similar way, we have the kingdom of
God on earth, and the kingdom of God that is eternal in heaven. God’s kingdom
has broken in through God speaking, through Jesus Christ, and through the power
of the Holy Spirit. The fullness of God’s kingdom however, is beyond this life,
beyond this world. For Jesus said to the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate during trial
to be crucified:
“My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from
this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to
the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here” (Jn.
18:36, NRSV).
So God’s kingdom on earth is indeed
here, as it has been revealed to us, through the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit.
The fullness of God’s kingdom however, is beyond this life, and this world. To
see and to encounter Jesus Christ is to see the kingdom of God, to see the
fullness of the grace and truth of God, and is to see the Father.
So Jesus this morning, is going along
the Sea of Galilee, preaching that the kingdom of God has come near. Jesus is
preaching and teaching people to repent and believe the good news. More
specifically to ask for the forgiveness of our sins, turn from them, and the live
and believe in Jesus and his gospel.
The gospel of Mark reading for this
morning concludes with:
“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” (Mk.
1:16-20, NRSV).
So
again, Jesus is walking along the Sea of Galilee and he is preaching and
teaching that kingdom of God has come near, he is preaching and teaching for
people to repent of their sins, and to believe in him and his gospel. As Jesus
is going along, caring out his divine mission, he sees some fishermen. One
fisherman is named Simon or later Peter, one is named Andrew, one is named
James, and one is named John. Jesus watched as Simon and Andrew casted there
fishing net into the Sea of Galilee with hope of catching some fish to sell. As
this was occurring, Jesus sees them and says to them:
“Follow me and I will make you fish for
people.” And immediately they left their nets and followed him” (Mk.
1:17-18, NRSV).
Shortly
after this, Jesus sees James and John, the sons of Zebedee mending there
fishing nets, to then no doubt cast their nets to fish again. Something about
this man named Jesus, and him approaching was powerful. Something about the
look in his eyes, his love, his presence, his divinity, caused all four of
these men to stop, drop what they were doing and follow him. In fact, the
gospel of Mark once again speaking of James and John leaving the boat to follow
Jesus:
“and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with
the hired men, and followed him” (Mk. 1:20b,
NRSV).
These
men, simply got up, left everything and followed Jesus Christ. They did this
for three years, until Jesus was crucified, died, buried, and resurrected. They
then went on to be the first leaders and saints of the Christian Church. These
were the first people that met and testified to the truth that Jesus Christ was
the Son of God, God in the flesh. They testified that this Jesus Christ came to
earth to love, heal, forgive, and to die for us. They believed this so
strongly, that according to Christian Church tradition all but he disciple of
John were martyred for the Christian faith.
Being
a Christian, means that we have been transformed by the love, the power, and
the grace of Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit. This transformation, this
love, this grace, and this power and sharing it with others has always been the
bedrock of who have been as the Christian Church. Or as I heard it put once, “the
gospel is one hungry man telling another hungry man where he can find bread”.
My
brothers and sisters, Jesus Christ and his gospel are the hope of the world,
and when we are transformed by Him, and when we live out his gospel, the church
grows, and the community and the world is transformed. All this happens when we
place Christ at the head of the church, when we seek him. When we do this, our
agendas, our power seeking, and our ideas fade behind Christ and his agenda to
transform us, and the world. All of this starts with warm outstretched hand
from Jesus Christ asking us, saying to us, won’t you “Follow Me?” Amen.
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