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Life before God's invitation

I wonder if you can imagine yourself in your daily life. What do you do Monday to Friday? - work at a check out, in a factory, teaching students, cooking the dinner, shopping, gardening, reading a book? Imagine that into your domestic or work space Jesus appears - Jesus is there just a few metres away and he’s calling you ‘Follow me’.  

Imagine Mary before she was surprised by the annunciation, what was she doing? Imagine Joseph as Mary came to talk to him to tell him the news, what was he doing; imagine the inn keeper who opened the door; imagine the shepherds as they were out on the fields tending their sheep; imagine the wise men before they saw the star. They all had a ‘normal’ before something strange and mysterious happened to them. And they are judged on how they respond to that mystery and that invitation.

-‘be it unto me according to your word’

These narratives tell us, as the incarnation reveals to us, that Jesus/God appears in our normal ordinary world. Jesus meets the ordinary person in their ordinary lives and makes an invitation -he presents a new reality and says: do you want to help me in this work? ‘ ‘Follow me and I will make you fish for people’….

It might be easier to keep on fishing, keep on shopping, keep on reading, keep on cleaning, it might seem easier to look away, to not notice that someone in the near distance is calling you, is looking at you, is inviting you, is asking you – it’s perhaps simpler to imagine that it’s not you that’s being addressed. But,

What if like Simon, Andrew and James we should respond to this stranger who is calling us? We should get up, leave our dishes, leave the check-out, leave the book and follow?

Most of us no doubt at some stage have taken that step, listened to that voice and had the courage to get up and follow. But, I wonder if Jesus has more to ask of us, more to show us, more to invite us to see?

He did with Martha, who wanted to draw her sister back in to domestic tasks, but Jesus said no, she has chosen to follow that call, to take the time to listen.

The Christian journey is one of continuing encounter, continuing relationship with God and a daily opportunity to look beyond the surface realities and domesticity of our lives. Jesus takes the disciples on a journey, one that is compelling, often confusing, dangerous, miraculous, frightening, remarkable and life shattering. Like the first disciples Jesus invites us on a similar journey – his voice and his call is as much historic as it is present and the proclamation and announcement of the good news ‘that the time is near and the kingdom of God has come near, repent and believe’ is just as compelling as well as necessary today, as it was for the first disciples.

Mark’s Jesus is one who doesn't hang around waiting for people, he makes an invitation and then is gone; he’s got a whole new world to proclaim. The frightening aspect of the Gospel I suppose is that it can easily be missed, because God turns up with an invitation, but then he is gone. For us as Christians our vocation is to keep following, keep up with that voice and keep saying yes to that invitation. For Jesus asks us to be co-workers for the spreading of the good news, co –workers in announcing the new order, fellow travellers who will see something new, who will enter into a different world, who will be challenged and who will be transformed. As we hear again that story of the first disciples, we are invited by God to remember our first response to his call and reflect upon our own faithfulness. Are we still letting the mystery and the strangeness transform our reality? Or have we fallen back into the familiar every day? 

Preached at St Maries as part of Christian Unity Week, 2015

RC Lectionary

Mark 1: 14-20

The Beginning of the Galilean Ministry

 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.’ 

Jesus Calls the First Disciples

 As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake—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.








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