“Called to Follow”
Jonah 1:1-3; 3:1-5
Mark 1:14b-20
Some Bible stories are comforting, encouraging, even inspiring.
Think about how Joseph, once left for dead by his jealous brothers, ends up in the house of Pharaoh and, after some close calls and lots of grace, lands a position of power and influence that enables him to save all his brothers and their father from starvation. How’s that for redemption?
Or think of the hard-working, long-loving shepherd who leaves the 99 well-behaved sheep behind to go out in search of the one wayward lamb. Or how the disgraced Prodigal Son is not simply forgiven by his father, but embraced and celebrated like a returning hero.
These stories give us hope.
And then there are the stories that give us pause, stories that may even scare us.
Think about God telling Noah to drop everything and build an ark. God telling Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. Think God calling Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt.
Think God telling Jonah to go to Ninevah, the capital of Israel’s arch-enemy Assyria, to preach hellfire and brimstone. No wonder Jonah ran the opposite direction!
Think Jesus coming upon some poor fisherfolk hard at work and telling them to forget about fish and, instead, follow him and become fishers of people.
“Holy midlife crisis!” we think. “Am I supposed to drop everything and leave everyone behind to follow Jesus?”
It’s enough to send us running the other direction.
Well, I want to suggest this morning that all of these stories—and especially the stories of Jonah and the people of Nineveh, and Jesus and the fisherfolk—are not so much about us, and whatever inconvenient or dangerous things God might demand of us, as they are revelations about the love of God, how it works in the world, and how we might work with it—for our own sakes as well as for the sake of others.
And because so many of us have been told otherwise for so long, I want to be clear about a couple of things:
First: Unlike Peter and Andrew and James and John, we don’t necessarily have to drop everything and leave our former lives behind to follow Jesus.
Following Jesus isn’t always—or even usually—about making some sort of dramatic break with the way our lives have been. Leaving what was—just walking away—is sometimes the easier thing to do. More often than not, God’s love calls us to stay right where we are, to keep showing up every day to the small things and the big things, to keep learning how to love the people in our lives and the people of our world as God would.
For most of us the life of faith has less to do with a dramatic conversion experience or a sudden major change than with deciding each and every day to live according to the ways of Jesus. Following Jesus is less about doing big things for the love of God than it is about doing all things with and for the love of God. It’s about living each day with a heart open to God’s call, approaching every moment in our lives and each situation in the world wanting to understand how Love would have us live.
Second, God is not out to interrupt or disrupt our lives. God calls us not to be martyrs or heroes but to be partners—holy collaborators with God in building the Beloved Community, casting down the mighty and lifting up the lowly, and establishing the kin-dom of God.
At the same time, God calls us not primarily to use us, but to love us and heal us.
And when God does “call” us to a particular ministry or action, it is not a test of our faithfulness or goodness. God’s movement in our lives is simply a continuation of God’s steadfast love for us and the ongoing work of mercy and grace. God’s call is always toward something—community, justice, peace, healing, relationship, and wholeness. Sometimes we may have to leave something or someone behind to be able to move toward the blessing God has for us and the world, but the essential call is toward love and healing and wholeness.
The grand story of our scriptures tells us that God is forever seeking human partners in the divine work of loving and healing the world. At the same time, God’s particular call is also for our own good.
Had Jonah succeeded in running away from God’s call, Jonah would likely have been filled with shame and self-loathing. Had Jonah succeeded in drowning himself, he would have never come to know the thrill of sharing the good news and seeing an entire nation turn toward God. Given all of Jonah’s resistance, God might have chosen to look for a more obedient prophet for the Nineveh assignment. Instead, having a great fish swallow Jonah up and spit him out was God giving Jonah another chance at redemption.
God’s call on our lives is never only about what’s best for others; it’s always also about what is most healing and life-giving for us.
Peter and Andrew and James and John may have enjoyed their work, but history tells us that in first-century Palestine fisherfolk were near the very bottom of the large category of poor and oppressed people. When Jesus called them to follow him and said he would make something of them, they must have felt seen. Their hearts must have leapt at the invitation to a life of meaning and purpose.
Beloveds, every day presents us with countless choices, opportunities to follow the way of Jesus—the way of self-giving love and community-building purpose—or to go another way. For most of us the other way is not about running in the opposite direction, as Jonah did, but simply not choosing, not hearing the call of love in the needs of the world, not doing the intentional work of keeping our hearts and eyes and ears open to others because we already have a hard enough time dealing with what’s right in front of us.
I get it. Jesus gets it. God gets it.
And still, for our sake and the sake of the world, God keeps calling. Jesus keeps inviting us to follow him on the way of love.
Let’s go with him, shall we?
Today and every day.
He’ll be right beside us.
