Third Sunday after Epiphany – Jan. 22

Pastor Franklin Wilson

Jonah 3.1-5, 10; Psalm 62; 1 Corinthians 7.29-31; St. Mark 1.14-20

“God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did  not do it.”

“For the forms of this world are passing away.”

 “And Jesus aid to them, ‘Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.  And immediately they left their nets and followed him.”

“And immediately they left their nets and followed [Jesus].”  “Immediately” is a word I associate with movies like the Bourne Identity.  In such stories, “immediately” is generally desirable.  In life however, things generally take time.  Even the explosion of a volcano like Mt. St. Helens—perhaps the most naturally calamitous event to occur in relatively close proximity to me—even the cataclysmic explosion of a volcano can take more than a century (sometimes two or three centuries) to develop.  But in stories, and especially children’s stories, such events are “immediate,” they happen instantaneously, with swift action, one event following quickly upon another.

This may account in part for the style in which much popular news appears—a series of disparate events rapidly narrated in quick succession leaving little time for questions of meaning.  The news—or at least our current consumption of it—whether in scrolling bands on a screen or in tiny vertical snippets running down a page of newsprint, the page itself a series of advertisements for everything from hearing aids to gutter helmets—the news seems to reflect a child’s immediate view of the world.

What, then, of the “good news”?  At least St. Mark’s version seems to fall precisely in this pattern of one event falling quickly upon another: hence, Mark’s preference for a little word often translated as “immediately,” but which might also be rendered as “straightaway,” or “directly.”  Mark employs the word some 40 times in 16 short chapters.  In other words, Mark’s very vocabulary conveys a quick succession of events so characteristic of a child’s way of seeing things.  This, in turn, may relate to the skeptical views with which critical readers regard the Bible in general and the New Testament in particular—as fiction more akin to fairy stories than anything well educated people might seriously consider.

Take, for instance, today’s account from Jonah in which the Prophet announces to a massive city that in forty days God will destroy it.  Then all the people—from the king on down—repent, and (in 10 short verses) God changes his mind, deciding not to bring about the calamity he had threatened.  The story bears an immediacy seldom seen in actual events.

Then, of course, St. Mark’s account of Jesus calling the fisherman moves even more rapidly:  Jesus says, “Come, follow me”; and the fishermen immediately leave their nets and follow him.  Jesus speaks; they follow. No discussion, no question, no reflection, no negotiation.  It’s like the account of Genesis 1 all over again:  “God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.  There was evening and morning, day one.”  Bingo, bango, bongo: Punkt.

Sophisticated skeptics read such texts and wince.  Who but a child could find such stuff believable?  Nonetheless, a question needs to be asked:  “What’s to believe?”  That God created the universe in six days?  Or that God created the universe by means of the Word?  What’s to believe?  That Jonah proclaimed divine judgment and everybody immediately fell in line?  Or that God changed his mind?  What’s to believe?  That Jesus magically enlisted the fishermen’s immediate response? Or that the words spoken by Jesus bear a parallel with the creation of the universe?  Such that whether you go with a fundamentalist 6 day scenario or a sophisticated “Big Bang” theory, you end up mystified either way.  How is it that a “Big Bang” is any less mysterious than six days?  Not that I would advance a quantitative understanding of creation per se.  But only that a “Big Bang” raises its own set of questions, even if of a different order: who or what, for instance, did the banging?  And where did the bang stuff come from?  Which seems, at least in part, the point of Genesis 1: God did the banging; the same God who changed his mind.  The same One who walked the Galilean shore, and commanded fishermen to follow.  Whether Big Bang, change of mind, or command to follow, each evidences a directness parallel to if not identical with a child’s sense of immediacy.

The very immediacy of things defies us; it muddles our sophisticated understandings and skeptical explanations.  Immediacy prompts the question, “Why?” Why did the people repent?  Why did God change his mind?  Why did Jesus call fishermen?  Why did they drop their nets and follow?  It all seems so childlike.  Perhaps it is.

On a day in which we present bibles to children, it may prove helpful to recall that the biblical narrative’s goal is not to create sophisticated skeptics, but faithful children of every and any age.  It is true that both skeptics and faithful children ask “Why?”  And it’s also true that a certain kind of skepticism may be a necessary element in the development of maturity.  But that’s partly the point: the biblical narrative seeks the development of mature children with respect to all narratives, and not merely biblical ones; the development, after all, of mere immature skepticism is no great achievement.  Truly mature people of any age may once again obtain a proper form of childhood wonder.

The immediacy of biblical accounts invites the kind of  inquiry, the kind of “why?” that leads to the openness of wonder—as a when a child first asks about the stars, the sky, the ocean, life and death.  Where do they come from and how do they work?  Why are there stars?  What makes the sky?  Where does the ocean come from?  Why do both  blood and ocean taste of salt? Why do the fishermen leave their nets and follow?  Why must we die?

It is good to wonder why, because as St. Paul reminds us, “The forms of this world are passing away.”  It is commonly suggested that children merely accept things as true.  There may be some truth to this, but not the whole truth.  It is also true that little children, once they have got past the “No!” of being terribly two, little children will also ask “Why?”  Children want to know why things are the way they are; and more than that, they want to know that there is something to be said in response to their inquiry.  For a little child, it really doesn’t matter what is said, but simply that an answer is given—and that an answer is given fairly directly.  Over time, the answer will change, must do so, or the child will no longer listen—and shouldn’t be satisfied—precisely because the forms of this world are passing away.  Amid such terrible flux, the Christian news declares that there is One who remains constant—the very One who changed his mind—whose constancy took the form of a Galilean Jew calling fishermen to follow—and they did—this Crucified and Risen One also calls us in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.