Fishing for People—Lectionary Reflection for Epiphany 3B (Mark 1)
Mark 1:14-20 New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the good news of God 15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”
16 As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea, for they were fishers. 17 And Jesus said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of people.” 18 And immediately they left their nets and followed him. 19 As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. 20 Immediately he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him.
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One
thing is for sure. Mark generally gets right to the point. We’re still in the
first chapter and we’ve watched as John emerges on the scene and preaches a
message of baptism and repentance to prepare the way for the one who will
baptize with the Holy Spirit. Then Jesus comes along, gets baptized by John,
and is commissioned by God, before being tested in the wilderness. That’s the
first thirteen verses of Mark’s Gospel. Now, we read that John has been
arrested and Jesus headed to Galilee. Once Jesus, now fully baptized,
commissioned, and tested, gets to Galilee he is ready to proclaim the good news
(evangel) that the kingdom or realm of God has come near. So repent and
believe. While Jesus’ message and method seem to parallel John’s, it seems even
more urgent. That’s because the time is drawing near. There’s no time to waste.
So, get on board the train to God’s realm! Now, you might be wondering what
this kingdom of God involves. That’s something that has yet to be fully
revealed, but Jesus will reveal elements of meaning as we move through the
Gospel of Mark. It might be helpful at this point to note that the Greek word
translated as kingdom is Basilea. It can also be translated as empire.
Considering the larger social-cultural context of Jesus’ ministry, whatever he envisions
as to the nature of God’s reign/empire/kingdom it stands in contrast to the
Roman Empire. But one thing is for sure the starting point of joining the
movement toward God’s reign on earth starts with repentance and belief, but it
also leads to the transformation of lives and the larger community. While that
transformation is not complete, it has already begun. That Jesus announces and
embodies the reign of God now and in the future, that good news will lead in
the end to his death on a cross.
I need to say something about these
two words, repent and believe. Repentance involves a recognition that one has
taken a wrong path in life and has decided to go in a new direction. It’s much
more than saying I’m sorry. It’s a reorientation of one’s life in relationship
to God. When it comes to repentance, one might want to consider the lectionary
pairing of the reading from Mark with that of Jonah
3. Though Jonah is a reluctant preacher, he eventually goes to Nineveh,
where the people hear the message of possible destruction and repent with
fasting and sackcloth. When they respond positively to the message God decides
to refrain from destroying the city. Now it’s true that Jonah isn’t happy about
God’s change of mind, but the reading does illustrate what happens when we
respond positively to God’s calling to change heart, mind, and life.
As for belief, when Jesus uses the
word “believe” (pisteuete) he isn’t envisioning a person signing a
doctrinal statement. Instead, Jesus invites people to entrust their lives, and
their futures, to God and God’s realm. That’s what repentance leads to. That’s
the message—the kingdom is coming so decide where you stand before it arrives.
The time is now, so get on board!
As Jesus moves through Galilee, he
recognizes the need to build a team that can help him get the word out. So,
when he came to the Sea of Galilee he ran into Simon and his brother Andrew.
They’re casting their fishing nets because fishing (for fish) is their
vocation. Since the Gospel reading for the previous week (Epiphany 2B) involved
the calling of these two brothers, it’s worth noting the difference. In John’s
Gospel, Andrew and Simon appear to be disciples of John the Baptist. They’re
hanging out at the Jordan when they join up with Jesus (Jn. 1:35-42). This is
just a reminder that you can’t simply combine the Gospels and tell a coherent
story. Each Gospel tells it differently and John’s version is quite different
from the Synoptics. Nevertheless, Jesus sees these two brothers casting their
fishing nets. Jesus says to them: “Follow me and I will make you fish for
people.” You know how to fish for fish,
so how about people? As is so often true in Mark’s Gospel things happen
immediately. There’s no room for contemplating the pros and cons of following
Jesus. When he calls you jump to it.
In keeping with Mark’s methodology, Simon and
Andrew immediately drop their nets and follow Jesus. But Jesus isn’t done. As
he continues walking along the lakeshore, with Simon and Andrew in tow, he
comes across another set of brothers. These brothers, James and John, the sons
of Zebedee, are sitting in their boat mending their nets. Jesus called these
two brothers to join him, and they got up and left their father along with the
hired hands holding the nets. Like Simon and Andrew, they immediately follow Jesus.
We should note that while you might not get rich fishing on the Sea of Galilee,
you could make a good life for yourself. They were, you might say, small
businessmen. Following Jesus meant risking everything they had built—their
nets, their boats, their families.
The immediacy of the call and the
response on the part of both sets of brothers suggest that they obeyed the call
before fully understanding what it meant. With that in mind, William Placher
points out that Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his Cost of Discipleship, wrote
that here we see obedience to Jesus come before faith is fully developed. So,
he writes:
So often Christians think that, if only we had a deeper faith, like those we most admire, we would go out and feed the hungry, serve the gospel. Bonhoeffer insists that we should not try to cultivate our faith so that some day we will be able to obey. Rather, in obedience we will find our faith growing. What we first need to do, this story tells us, is to follow Jesus [Belief, Mark, p. 36].
It is clear from reading the Gospels that it took time for
the disciples, whether the twelve or others, to comprehend what Jesus was about
and thus to find their faith in him and the God revealed in and through him.
Jesus will add more members to his
team, but it’s important to note that Jesus discerned that he needed a
community to help him with this work of God. In the case of these four
disciples, Jesus doesn’t give them any time to think it over because he isn’t
one to wait around for procrastinators. Nevertheless, he wants to build a team
to help with the work of God. You might call this a company of preachers, whom
he will train/prepare and empower so they can assist and expand his ministry of
proclaiming the good news that God’s realm is drawing near.
At this point in the story, Jesus
doesn’t send his gathering team (just four members at this point) on an
assignment, he has defined for them their vocation. For the immediate future,
the team will tag along and learn from Jesus what this kingdom message is all
about. Later, after he has gathered his full team of twelve disciples, he’ll
send them out in pairs to do some preaching. That is fish for people (Mk
6:7-12). It’s possible that Jesus organized a larger team, though Mark
doesn’t mention them. Luke tells the story of the seventy-two (or seventy) disciples
whom Jesus sent out to the entire region where he intended to go (Luke
10:1-12), but again Mark doesn’t mention the larger team.
That the twelve spent time with
Jesus before being sent out suggests that while the call comes quickly, time
still needs to be spent in preparation. That means getting to know the one who
calls (Jesus) and the message (the realm of God). Since tradition suggests the
twelve spent three years with Jesus, the traditional seminary education is laid
out over three years. So, just as Jesus trained/discipled the twelve, the same
is true for his modern followers. Of course, following Luke’s lead and other
stories present in the gospels, could it be that the team is much larger than
twelve and that the team might include women as well as men? Although the
accepted ending of Mark lacks resurrection appearances, the Gospel of John
suggests that Jesus commissioned Mary Magdalene to preach to the Apostles (Jn. 20:11-18).
So, what is our calling—not only as
clergy but as the people of God? How might we serve as fishers for
people, inviting persons to change the course of their lives by entrusting them
to Jesus in preparation for the coming of God’s realm? Of course, we might
first need to be caught in the net of the Gospel before we turn around and cast
nets to catch others for the realm of God.
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