On First Blush

Epiphany 4 - Mark 1:21-28 - January 31st, 2021

The Lord Be With You.

A parable …

There once was a great chef who everyone vied to work for and had a reputation for very unusual meals that were always fawned over and exquisite in taste. When asked, by reporters, about how he could create such masterpieces, the chef told them that every meal starts from scratch but all people see is the final result. He then took the reporters back to his kitchen and introduced them to the workers and showed them all the initial ingredients. He pointed out that even though each individual item, by itself, does nothing to contribute to the overall dish that comes out of the oven, it is with the combination of each of the items and the team work of the workers that the dish becomes something memorable and a delight. On one table might be a tomato and an onion and some lettuce as well as other items. Apart, they are OK but put together they make a salad that everyone talks about and wants more of. So it is with the people in the kitchen. Alone, they are just ordinary people all going about their jobs but put together, they combine their talents to produce a meal that everyone will talk about too. So it is with you and me. Alone, we are limited to ourselves. Together, we can change the world.

Here ends the parable.

So, imagine if some total stranger came up to you and said, “Drop everything you’re doing and follow me.” Imagine if you’re just finishing your day, walking out to your car to go home and this guy come up to you and tells you to follow him and he will make you preachers or apostles or fishers of men or anything else. Or even you’ve just come from a great day of fishing and this happened. Just imagine. What would you do? Would you call the cops? Would you just turn around and shake your head? Would you tell Him to get away from you or would you just laugh it off and say to yourself, “Some people have got all the nerve.”

And, this guy says to do it now. Do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars. Come now. Many that went to Him, He turned away and many who were with Him walked away themselves. John 6 speaks of many who said it was just too hard. Just too much of a commitment. Luke and Mark write of over 70 doing just this. Walking away. So would you? Would you have been among those 70? Or, would you have been like Simon and Andrew. James and John. Jesus said make a decision now. It sort of reminds me of this story.

You know, a good example of not second-guessing or not taking action on your decisions come from legendary football coach Paul “Bear” Bryant. After a tough loss on Saturday, Coach Bryant went to the barber shop for a haircut on Monday morning. After a few moments of silence, the barber said with some disgust, “Coach, I don’t believe I would have put in that young quarterback just because the starter was not doing well. The turnovers of the young guy cost us the game.”

Coach Bryant nodded and said, “Well, you know, if I’d had until Monday to decide, I don’t think I would have either.”

But, put yourself back in the place of Simon and Andrew. James and John. They just got in from a day of fishing. Then this guy comes up to them and tells them to leave everything they’re doing and follow him. Follow him to an unknown destination. Doing God knows what. With God knows who. He’ll make them fishers of men. What do you think that even meant to these guys? Fishers of men.

It’s amazing that they just didn’t turn their backs on him and tell him to go away. Could any of us have done the same thing? Carol, what about leaving the mill? TJ or Kate, what about leaving the farm? Carol – what about stopping your work? Can any of us, here, think for a moment what we would’ve done if the same thing happened to us? But these guys, and many more, did just that. Left everything and everyone and followed Jesus. You know, we read these passages and I’d bet that none of us have put ourselves in their place. Leaving our jobs. Our livelihoods. Our families. To go off into some unknown to do unknown things with unknown people. But that’s just what these guys did. They left everything. James and John, they even left their father while the father was still in the boat. Everything.

And they suffered for it. Almost all of the disciples met with death. With beatings. With betrayal. Almost all of them, that answered the call of Jesus, put it out there so that you and me could sit here this morning and see that the truth of what Jesus spoke about holds up even under the most stressful of times. They heard Jesus telling them that even though they were just ordinary men, they would become extraordinary creations of God.

But you might wonder to yourself, how would I respond to that calling? You might be sitting there and saying to yourself that a calling like this is for someone else. Certainly not me. I can tell you that God has got it all figured out and His ideas cannot be broken. I can also tell you that God does not send you alone. He sends support. Always. We may just not see it but that has more to do with our own limited visions and capacity to understand than it does with God’s plan for each of us. We get so wrapped up in our own lives that we cannot see the proverbial forest for the trees and sometimes it takes someone outside our sphere to make what God has in mind more clearer.

There’s an old story of when a Jewish man died and left his seventeen donkeys to be divided among his three sons. One was to get one-ninth; one was to get one-half; and the other was to get one-third of the donkeys. But seventeen donkeys aren’t divisible by three or even by two. The sons argued long and loud about how to divide the donkeys.

Finally, in desperation they agreed to ask a certain wise man what to do. He was seated in front of his tent with his own donkey staked out back. After hearing the case, this wise man took his own donkey and added it to the other seventeen donkeys.

This confused the young men until he gave one-ninth of the eighteen – or two donkeys – to the first young man. Then he gave one-half – or nine donkeys – to the second young man. And finally, he gave one-third – or six donkeys – to the third young man. Besides that, he still had his own donkey left.

The brothers were so engrossed in their own short sightedness that they failed to realize that their point of reference was too small. The sum total of their fraction was one-eighteenth too small. The wise man saw this controversy from a more enlightened view. His momentary sacrifice of his own donkey provided a solution for the brothers at no cost to himself.

Folks, we need to remember that sometimes there are solutions to our problems that we just can’t see. That’s why we need others. That’s why we need the church. That’s why we need to pray. When we allow others and especially God to enter in with a differing viewpoint, it may be the very viewpoint that extricates us from our problems and conflicts.

Jesus called those first disciples in pairs. Twos. Like Elisha and Elijah in 1st Kings 19:19-21. And like Elisha and Elijah, the disciples dropped everything because a calling like this was a direct calling from God, Himself. It’s divine. And in this calling, Jesus gives a share of His own ministry and mission to these guys. Something that they could do that came from deep within their very souls. And that’s what Jesus did when He spoke to them. Reached down deep within their souls to a place that was yelling to get out.

Touched them in a place that they hadn’t been touched before and everything within them was grabbing ahold of those words, Follow Me, and clamoring to move each of their footsteps a little bit closer to the one Savior. The real one who told them, without words, that they had finally met their destiny. And you should be sure that Jesus is touching you in the part of you that’s waiting to hear. Waiting to meet up with Him. Waiting to hear those word, Follow Me.

That’s kind of what happened to me. God reached down inside of me and turned my world upside down. Forever changed how I looked at everything around me and listened to what was being preached to me. Forever changed my life permanently then and is still changing my life even today. Now, like those first disciples, my life still has its ups and downs. Still have those worldly pulls that leads me in all sorts of directions. Doesn’t eliminate any of the hardships. In fact, some of them become larger. Harder to overcome. That’s inevitable. We’re all in the world after all. And there’ll always be the pulls of this world.

Because, after all, why would Satan waste his time on those who are already in his corner. In other words, Satan is gonna go after those that he can’t already count on being against God. You know the folks I’m talking about. The ones that say they’re agnostic or atheistic. The ones that turn their backs on the person sitting right next to them because they say the government is gonna take care of them. The ones that say one form of evil is OK and make excuses for it while choosing control and fear to be their guidelines over others. Do as I say, not as I do. You know the ones I’m talking about.

But it’s the ones that have just docked their lives that seem to get the grief. And that’s the way this world works because it’s fully controlled by Satan, himself and he ain’t gonna go down without a fight. Folks, Satan’s always telling you to give up because he’s gonna take care of you. Reminds me of the old saying, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” I think we hear it more today than we’ve ever heard it in the past.

But Jesus is here to help you to become something you’ve never even thought about. He’s here to speak to you about being an extraordinary disciple in ways that you couldn’t even imagine. He’s here to lead you, by the hand, into a new dimension of yourself. All you and me gotta do is to open our ears to the calling He has just like the calling He did with Simon and Andrew and James and John.

They were no different than you and me. They knew something in their lives didn’t make sense. They looked around and saw the overreach of the Roman rulers just like we see today in our rulers. They heard of the one-sided laws that gave one part of society a pass on evil while condemning the other unselected or unfavored group like we hear today. They lived with the constant fear of some official coming along and taking, by force, their businesses, their livelihood just like what we live with today. They lived just as we live today. They didn’t even need a social media to tell them of all that was happening, they knew it because each neighbor would tell the other.

The main difference between then and today is that when we do talk to our neighbor it’s usually about stuff that’s not going right. Usually about stuff that’s beyond our capability to effect change. Outside our immediate grasp. We don’t tell our neighbor the flip side of the coin. That the Good News is here, has been here, and always will be here regardless of what those in power want us to think and know and see.

Folks, today, now, is our chance to become something more than what we are or have been. It’s our chance to move from the ordinary to the extraordinary but we can only do that through the acceptance of Jesus as the Christ and latch onto that to know that our futures are wrapped up in the propagation of His truth and Good News. That we cannot do it on our own and that should cause us to look and see that what He’s asked of the first disciples, He’s never stopped asking of us. His disciples too.

Brothers and sisters, our time has come. The world is telling us to ignore what the good book has to say because it’s outdated and outmoded. It’s got legalism in it which hurts the feelings of some in society. They tell us that this Gospel has apparent contractions in it which makes none of it reliable. That’s what this world is saying and those in power are telling us that they have all the answers to our problems. They have the solution to all our woes just give it all over to them. They are from authority and they’re here to help. But the real fact of the matter is that the very answers they want to sell to us as the Gospel are broken at their core simply because they’re from broken individuals and certainly not the true answers that our real Gospels tells us about.

Folks, now’s the time to take hold of the person sitting next to you, living next to you, is in line at the grocery store in front of you and hold on because Jesus has said that He’s coming back and to be prepared. Part of that is to try and make sure that all those you love and all those you know are ready and prepared too. It’s a strange time in our day. Depressing for some. Dangerous, even, for some. And cautious for others. But in each of our hearts is the one still voice of Jesus trying to bubble to the top to cement in your minds that He is the truth and the way and that no one goes to the Father except through Him. That’s the way it is whether we like it or not.

Folks, you can turn into the extraordinary just as the chef made the cake from simple ingredients with the help of others. Just as the chef turned ordinary parts of everyday items into something to be marveled at. Let yourself be changed into something that’s good to the eyes and ears of our Savior by letting go of what this world wants to convince you of and hang on to the truth of what our Savior has shown as the real facts. You can choose to follow this world with its broken promises or the heaven that’s never ending and will always bring truth. Turn from the ordinary to the extraordinary. It’s your choice. It’s your time. Something to think about! Something to pray about?

Can we pray? …

Father, in heaven, we are your disciples. Help lead us to become all that you created us to be. Help us to extend our welcoming arms to those who are searching for the light in this darkened world. Help us to rise above the worldly fray and to see the heavens that are laid out there in font. Father, we pray for your guidance and your direction in our own worlds so that we can be the ones that leave our own nets and follow you to lift up our community and this world so that all your people can see your truth and your mercy and your grace. We pray this in the name of your son, Jesus the Christ.

And all God’s people said – Amen?!

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