Mark 1:14-20
14
After John was put in prison, Jesus
went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. 15 "The
time has come," he said. "The kingdom of God is near. Repent and
believe the good news!"
16 As Jesus walked beside the Sea
of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake,
for they were fishermen. 17 "Come, follow me," Jesus said,
"and
I will make you fishers of men." 18 At once they left their
nets and followed him.
19 When he had gone a little
farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John in a boat, preparing
their nets. 20 Without delay he called them, and they left their
father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him.
“So, how’d it go?”
After leading a session meeting, returning from a job interview, taking
my son to his first basketball practice, leading a funeral, a first counseling
session or playing a round of golf I am often welcomed home with the question, ‘How did it go?’
I like this question.
It shows interest and involvement.
For someone to ask how things went they have to know that something was
going on. The asker, in a sense was
involved in the event, if even from afar.
Also, it offers a chance for me to share my experience. Very often it is in the process of this
sharing that I realize things I could have done better or appreciate things
that went well. ‘How did it go’ is a
good question.
It is such a good question that I can’t help but wonder if
every there was such a cosmic scene in the heavens. I hope that you won’t think me sacrilegious
to imagine God the Father asking such a question of God the Son. Picture, if you can, God sitting at the
kitchen table in the heavens, perhaps he is working the crossword puzzle from
the The Kingdom Times or maybe
playing a game of cribbage with God the Spirit.
Being of the same nature, it would be hard not to look at one another’s
hand. As the Father counts his cards we
hear the front door open and shut. We
hear the jingle of keys on the dresser and perhaps the sound of a bag being placed
on the couch followed by a long slow exhale.
The Father and the Spirit pause realizing that the Son is home. There is quiet and then the question, “So,
how’d it go?’
What kind of response do you think they might hear? What do you think Jesus would say? Let me offer a few options.
a.
I could tell you, but if you’re anything like
the folks I’ve been working with for the last 30 years you’d never believe me.
b.
Let’s just say that I’m glad to be home
c.
Things looked really dark for a while, but after
Sunday things really turned around.
d.
It was a good way to travel once, but next time
I am definitely going first class.
Such a scene may sound like mockery,
but it is not intended to be. Sometimes
I really do wonder if God ever evaluates, or to use a biblical term judges the
progress of the master plan. Are things
going according to schedule or are we off track a little? Did things have to go as they did for Jesus
or could there have been another way?
Such questions are just a few inches shy of wondering how many angels
fit on the head of a needle, but what if we made it a little more
concrete. To do so, one thing we’d have
to know is what Jesus was up to in the first place. Just why was he sent to earth in the first
place? What was his mission?
Such a question could be answered in
a multitude of ways, but this morning, we are going to let Jesus’ words in the
gospel of Mark speak and here is what it says. “After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the
good news of God. So, what was Jesus’ mission? He was proclaiming good news. He is like a boy hawking newspapers on the
street corner, “Extra, extra, the war is over, read all about it.” Or perhaps he is like a little girl who just
got free ice-cream telling another kid, “Hey, go down that aisle, they have
chocolate chip ice-cream for free.” Or
perhaps he is like a visitor from the future telling the people of 1980 that ‘Microsoft
is going to be big you might want to invest in it.” Of course, all of these were good news, but
they were not Jesus’ good news. So, what
was his? Here is what he says, “The time has come. The kingdom of God is
near. Repent and believe the good news!" (Mark
1:14) The time has come. The kingdom of God is near. These two proclamations capture Jesus’ good
news. But, you might be thinking, that doesn’t sound like very good news. I mean it isn’t something to get really
excited about, is it? Let me put it in
different terms.
When I was a kid, December 1st
was the day when things started to change, as it was the day when I started to
seriously think about Christmas. Every
day I’d get the Sears catalogue out and circle toys that I wanted. At school we’d make ornaments and sing
carols. We’d decorate the church. We’d start to hear Christmas music on the
radio. All of these things signaled the
approaching day of Christmas. And of
course, the night before Christmas was the hardest of all because I had total
faith that Santa would come overnight and populate my living room with presents
for me. I was so excited I could hardly
sleep. Do you remember feeling this
way?
Now take that feeling and place it
upon the Jewish people, but instead of a month, spread their wait out to 600
years. For centuries they had heard
about the day when the Messiah would come.
They made things to prepare for the day.
They sang songs that proclaimed that day. They decorated their temple with things that
reminded them of it. And yet, for all of
their preparations, the day never seemed to arrive. And into this anticipation walks Jesus who
finally says, “Its time. Christmas is
here.” Its time, God’s kingdom and
reign and culture and country are here.
Good news! In light of such good news, Jesus offered two tips, two pieces
of instructions. To prepare for
Christmas morning we had to first go to sleep and second get out of bed. Likewise, to receive this new kingdom you
have to put the old one to bed and wake up into the new one or as Jesus put it,
‘repent and believe the good news.’
And so, with that introduction the
question still stands, “How’d it go?”
Did people believe the good news?
The answer to that question varies.
The disciples believed at first. As
you can see by reading the rest of Mark 1 they were willing to leave their
jobs, their families and their homes to follow Jesus. So Jesus succeeded. But not so fast, as the
days passed the disciples struggled to understand and believe in the kingdom
Jesus kept talking about. It was a
kingdom where the first were last and the last were first, where the greatest
were the ones who served. It was a
kingdom that the rich had less of a chance of entering then a camel fitting
through the eye of a needle and one where the poor, the meek, the mourning,
hungry and thirsty are blessed. And
eventually, it became a kingdom that required them to pick up a cross and
follow Jesus on a path of suffering.
These, most likely, were not the presents the disciples had hoped to
find on Christmas morning. By the time
Jesus made it to the cross everyone of the disciples had given up. They stopped believing. So Jesus failed. But not so fast, for three days later Jesus
revealed another part of God’s kingdom.
He revealed that it is even stronger than death. As the song declares, ‘No chilling winds nor
poisonous breath can reach that healthful shore; sickness, sorrow, pain and
death are felt and feared no more.” Once
again, the disciples believed. So Jesus
succeeded. But not so fast. The next test came in whether or not these disciples
would be able to share the good news with the next generation. So, how has that gone?
Like Jesus, they began to proclaim
the good news. The time has come, the
kingdom is near, repent and believe.
Also like Jesus, they discovered that people believed, struggled to
understand, stopped believing and sometimes started believing again. They discovered that the good news of the
kingdom wasn’t just something that you could explain to people, it required sharing
it with the people. If only there were a
time and place for them to practice and share this good news. If only…
Necessity is the mother of invention and the church was born. 100 years ago a seed of that church was
planted here in Manitou. Though its
focus has changed with the times, the underlying mission has remained. We are here to proclaim the good news that
God’s kingdom has arrived in Jesus Christ.
For the last couple of years we’ve phrased this mission by saying that we
‘exist to glorify God by being a community
of Jesus so rich, deep and faithful that it is worth sharing.’ Given the dawning of a new year and the
approach of our centennial it only seems fair to ask, “How’d it go?”
Letting Go
“Repent…” Repentance has such strong
religious connotations that it is often hard to grasp its simplicity. Before it described religious conversion or
even confession, repentance simply meant to turn around or let go. We see this most clearly when Jesus called
his first disciples. “At once,” Mark
writes, “they left their nets and followed him.” Leaving their nets and following Jesus was
another way of saying that they repented and believed the good news. To follow Jesus, they had to let go of the
nets. Of what did we let go in 2011?
After five
years of tutoring over fifty students from Manitou Elementary we decided to let
go of the Kid Reach program. This
decision did not come lightly as I firmly believe God called us to this
ministry. And yet, as both our tutors
and children dropped in number for a variety of reasons, we were forced to
discern if God was calling us to let go, which we did.
Doug and
Geri MacArthur poured their hearts into the ministry of Manitou for over
fifteen years. When the Presbytery was
voting in the late 1990s whether to close Manitou or not, one minister informed
me that his vote was changed by the impassioned plea of our clerk of
session. That person turned out to be
Geri. I doubt that Manitou would still
be here without God’s work through her.
We let Doug and Geri go in the middle of the summer after a long debate
over changes in our denomination. Though
it saddened me to see them go, I respect their decision and trust God will work
it for good.
God
brought us many gifts through our former intern Debbie Cato, but the best gifts
by far are named Tracy and Jessica. They have both been a blessing to Manitou
in so many ways. Sadly we had to say
goodbye to Jessica when she moved to Spokane at the end of the summer. In letting her go, we trust that God continues
to work.
Finally,
we were forced to let members of our community go from this world. On April 9th, we let go of our
beloved Lorna who passed at the age of 86.
On May 6th, we let Max Haller follow his wife Amelia who had
passed less than seven months before. To
paraphrase John Donne, “Any members death
diminishes me for I am a member of the community.” Though we are lesser for losing Max and
Lorna, we hold to the hope of the kingdom that Jesus proclaimed where we shall
meet them some day soon.
Let’s go
“…and believe the good news.” Like repentance, belief is another word with
baggage. We hear it and tend to think of
declarations or statements. Often belief
is just a mental exercise, something we just do with our minds. Once again, Jesus dispels such a notion. When he called Peter and Andrew they didn’t say anything. Instead, Mark tells us, they followed
Jesus. This action, more than their
acclamations revealed their belief. They
moved from ‘letting go’ to ‘let’s go.’
How did Manitou go?
In
February, Debbie Magnusson said let’s go to membership at Manitou. It was a true joy to not only receive her
into membership but to celebrate the reaffirmation of her baptism and faith in
Christ. In the process of letting his
wife and our sister Sandy go, Phil Shackley and I began to talk about the
meaning of baptism. In so doing he
realized he’d never received the gift of baptism. So, in July we had the privilege of
celebrating his baptism.
Each year
I wonder if the Arts Camp will make it.
Each year it far exceeds my expectations and 2011 was no exception. August brought our 4th summer Arts
Camp where over twenty children from the community came to hear how their story
is a part of God’s story. It was a joy
to see members of the church and community collaborate on sharing this story. One fruit of this week bloomed a few months
later when Brenda, the mother of two of our campers, inquired as to how she
might help. From that conversation
bloomed Arte, a Saturday afternoon bilingual art club that prepared for
Christmas. This of course, rolled into
the Sunday before Christmas when we held our first Christmas Variety Show. In that show people as young as 2 and old as
92, from as close as one block to as far away as Russia and Mexico performed
acts as simple as jingle bells and as technical as Beethoven. This, undoubtedly, was another way Manitou
said, ‘let’s go.’
Of course
there was a multitude of other ways Manitou said ‘let’s go.’ The food bank served over 3500 people, the
kid’s choir learned and sang songs, people volunteered to teach Sunday school,
greet people, bring flowers and serve during fellowship time. We prayed for one another in struggles and
celebrated one another’s joys. In so
doing, we became a richer, deeper and more faithful community, one you might
even say is worth sharing. And so how
about that sharing part, how’d it go?
Sharing Success
and Challenge
After 8
years as your pastor I have come to realize that Manitou works best when given
a clear concrete challenge to meet. If
folks are aware of our common goal and given ways to help meet it, then you
will rally to accomplish that goal. When
the Presbytery said you needed to reach out to the community to receive
financial support, you created the food bank.
When we realized the need for a bathroom on the main floor, the church
responded with funding and labor. And
finally, when we took a hard look at the budget in 2008 and realized that the
path we were on would lead us to close the doors in 2012, the people committed
to changing that path. Praise God that
this year, not only do we have no debt, but we have cut that deficit to 1/3 of
what it was; decreasing every year since 2008.
I was especially proud of the church this year when we were looking at
failing to decrease our deficit only to witness folks make end of the year
contributions that made December the month of our largest contributions. When we share our challenges we often share
success, which leads to another challenge.
As I was
putting together the slides for this year, I was disheartened to see that not
only did our worship attendance not grow, but it declined. I have always explained our low membership by
pointing to our increasing worship participation which went from 35 in 2003 to
51 last year. But this year that number
dropped to 46. Though I enjoy playing
with numbers, in my hip pocket I keep the wisdom of Mark Twain who said, “There
are three kinds of lies; lies, damn lies and statistics.” That being said, it is fair to ask if this
statistic reveals any truth. If so, how
are we to respond? Does it matter how
many people gather to worship on Sunday? Does God care? Do we care? Though I am tempted to offer answers, I think
it best to let the questions sit. Then,
when we gather at our congregational meeting we can discern together whether
this is a challenge worth sharing and if so, how?
Salt. Serve.
Share.
Though I
won’t offer an answer to the question on worship, I will offer three
words. During my study leave in Mission
Canada, for some reason I have yet to discern God gave me the gift of three
words; salt, serve and share. Other than
the obvious alliteration I can’t yet tell you the cause or purpose of these
words. Though I have a sense about them,
it is only that. That being said I try
to keep in my hip pocket the wisdom of the prophet Isaiah who said, “The
sovereign Lord has given me an instructed tongue to know the word that sustains
the weary…”[1] I choose
to believe that somehow these three words were given to me that they might
sustain those of us who are weary of the struggle to repent and believe that
God’s kingdom is near. On the flip side,
the words of Isaiah can also be translated to read, “The sovereign Lord has
given me an instructed tongue to know the word that awakens the sleepy.” Perhaps it is also the case that these three
words were given so that they might awaken those of us who have grown bored,
ignored or given up on Jesus’ good news of the kingdom of heaven. I invite you to join me in exploring these
words over the next few Sundays. Perhaps
we will discover together what they mean for us and our community.
So, how’d it go?
Twelve months from now we will
walk through those doors and into these pews to do what we did 52 weeks the
year before and what has been done over 5000 times in the history of this
church. We will gather together to
worship our Creator, our Lord and our Savior.
We were created, the confessions remind us, to glorify God and enjoy him
forever. When we gather a year from now
I will ask, “So, how’d it go?” And what
will we be able to say?
Of
course, all of these entries into this
house of God are just a preparation for our entry into the house of God. When that
day comes we will then be asked in some fashion, ‘So, my child, how’d it go?’
May we live today and this year as a community of Jesus so rich, deep and
faithful that when that day comes we might hear, “Well done my good and
faithful servants.”
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