OK, So Now What Do We Do?
Epiphany 3B
Jonah 3:1-5, 10; Ps 62:13-14a; Mark 1:14-20
1/25/2009
Jim Melnyk

Just to touch base for a moment with last week's sermon. Paul Bamford can attest to this. My fortune cookie Wednesday night said, “God will give you anything you want.” Now, about wrapping up the 2009 Stewardship campaign…. Hey, I'm serious! Well, one can hope.
        
Ah, from fortune cookies back to lessons. Jonah, Simon, Andrew, James and John – they each go about it differently, but in the end they all get to the same place. Called by God and either pushed in the right direction with the help of a great fish, or immediately leaving their fish and nets behind, they all get to that glorious place of saying “yes” to God – and then wondering in their own minds or among themselves, “OK, so now what do we do?”
        
It seems to me it doesn't matter if when called by God to follow a certain path we respond immediately, without a second thought, or we wrestle with God like Abraham and the angel or Jonah and his great big fish. At some point, in the midst of our being called, or in the midst of living out our calling as followers of Christ, however we get to where we are, we will find ourselves wondering, “What do we do now?” It's sort of like the joke about what goes through the dog's mind when it finally catches the car….
        
Truth is, though, that before we get to the “so what” of it all we need to accept the call. Had they been contemporaries, Jonah would have readily recognized Francis Thompson's relentless hound of heaven, or John Donne's heart-battering three person'd God. Jonah would have scoffed at Simon and his brother Andrew – he would have snickered at the sons of Zebedee, who left their father's nets and fell in rank between the first two on the heels of a wandering preacher. Jonah could be called the Bible's anti-prophet. He runs from his call. He struggles with his own redemption at the hand of God. He mutters only a few words to the seat of power in Nineveh, the capital of Assyrian power threatening Israel, only to rage at seeing his words bear the fruit of redemption. Jonah gets where he needs to be – it just takes a bit of convincing to get there.
        
But, for Jesus' new-found disciples the call/response cycle is quite a bit different. As one commentator puts it, “When Jesus calls the four in Mark, they drop everything and follow. His summons is minimal and direct. The text, as Bonhoeffer puts it, is 'ruthlessly silent' about any fuller information or their previous knowledge of [Jesus]. They simply let go their nets, their 'worldly' affairs, the security of a family business, and come” (Bill Wylie-Kellermann, Sojourners Preaching the Word, 1/25/2009). It's as if they are living the words of the Psalmist we sang this morning, “God has spoken once, twice have I heard it, that power belongs to God. Steadfast love is yours, O Lord…” (62:13-14a). Some would call the image offered by the Psalmist one of hearing first with the ears, and then with the heart. Yet even with their immediate response, the two sets of brothers later in their calling will wonder just what in the world this Jesus character is up to, and what it will cost them in the end to heed his call.
        
It's a dangerous thing to be seduced by the heart and mind of the Living God, my friends. We never know where such a love affair will take us. I'm reminded of the Hobbit Bilbo Baggins advice to his young nephew Frodo in The Lord of the Rings. “It's a dangerous thing, Frodo my lad, to step out your front door. This very pathway, if you let it, can take you beyond the Misty Mountains to the Lonely Mountain and beyond if you let it. One misstep and you may find yourself swept away to who-knows-where? And what then?” (From The Lord of the Rings – poorly paraphrased, I'm sure) Have you ever felt swept off your feet by God? It is a risky thing.
        
And yet – and yet – and yet – here we are! On some level – more so for some of us and less so for others – we have heard the call of God in Christ Jesus and we have said like so many before us, “Okay, I'm in!” For some of us, like Samuel last week, we're not sure who it is calling us and it takes a few tries on God's part before we catch on. For some of us, like Jonah, we spin about looking for the soundest ship, or the fastest plane to get the hang out of Dodge before God sweet-talks us into something we think – or just know – we'll regret. For some of us, we're as quick a study as Simon or Andrew – James or John – and like them we'll only wonder later what we've gotten ourselves into. God calls and we either hem and haw like Moses, “But Lord, I can't speak so good,” or like Jeremiah, “But Lord, I'm just a mere child;” or we speak out boldly like Isaiah, “Hear I am, Lord. Send me!” We've all gotten here by different routes – but somehow we've all gotten here.
        
We may not even realize we've been called by God to this place. We might not even believe in a God who calls us by name. And yet – and yet – here we are! So, what do we do now? Beats me! Hey – I'm only kidding!
        
What do we do now – now that we realize God has called each of us and we have, realize it or not, responded to that call – even if simply by being here? In the words of the popular Texas Hold'em, I think God would have us go “all in.” We give our whole selves to God. We give our hearts – we give our souls and bodies to God – to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice to God. We commit to living the Good News that Jesus came proclaiming after John the Baptist's death – after all, the fact that we're here means that we probably try our best to honor the teachings of Jesus in our lives – and we commit to proclaiming the Good News of God in Christ as well. That isn't just my job as a preacher – it is part of the “what's next” we are all called to when we accept God's call.
        
In her book, On Your Mark, author Megan McKenna shares some insight from author and theologian Eugene LaVerdiere concerning what it means to be disciples and then followers of Jesus. “Following Jesus is more fundamental than being a disciple,” Verdiere tells us. “Following is a matter of being and living. Being a disciple is a matter of learning…. For Jesus' followers,” writes Verdiere, “following meant three things: being with Jesus, patterning their lives on his life and taking up his mission. For that, they had a lot to learn. To be good followers of Jesus,” concludes Verdiere, “they had to be his disciples” (On Your Mark: Reading Mark in the Shadow of the Cross, Megan McKenna, Orbis Books, 2006. p. 29).
        
So what do we do now? We become, or we continue to be, followers of Jesus the Christ. We find ways to be with Jesus, through study of scripture, through worship, through being a part of the greater Body of Christ – this community at St. Mark's and the church beyond these doors, and through a life of prayer. We pattern our lives on the life of Jesus – speaking and living the love of God to and with those around us. We take up the mission of Jesus – speaking a word of truth to the powers, seeking and serving the lost and those cast aside by society, welcoming the stranger, changing systems that separate, that oppress, or that live off the misfortune of others.
        
As people who through our baptismal covenant have declared ourselves to be followers of Jesus, what do we do now? We look to the continued inbreaking of God's kingdom – God's reign – in our lives and in the life of this world – and we work for its fulfillment. Author Megan McKenna calls this age “God-with-us time” (p. 23). Time to make a difference in this world. Time for “business as usual” to come to an end and the well being of the whole human family to be embraced. Time to proclaim that God's love is not owned by any one denomination – or any faction of any denomination. Time to proclaim that God's love is not owned by any one faith. Time to proclaim that God's love is not owned by any one nation.
        
So, having recognized that we have, indeed, been called to follow Jesus the Christ, what do we do now? Beats me! And actually, I'm not kidding. We each have our own unique gifts – our own particular calling. You may be called to serve on the Vestry – like those we are commissioning today. You may be called to coordinate a Parish Area Care group (PAC), or teach Sunday School, work with youth. Who knows? In community we can each figure out what that calling may be.
        
What we do next may all come under the same general headings of being with Jesus, patterning our lives on his life, and taking up his mission – but we each need to decide what that means in our own lives – how we will make it real for ourselves. So, what do we do now? We follow Jesus! Amen.


©2009 Jim Melnyk