I wonder how many of you are old enough to remember the refrain: "Time Gentlemen, please!" I don’t mean the phrase you might here on an English sitcom but the Aussie Pub cry that once rang out every night at 6 o’clock. It’s a bit before my time I hasten to add, but it was the phrase that engendered what was known as the 6 o’clock swill. It required an instant response. The pub was closing and if you wanted to finish your drink you’d better do it right away. Immediate action was required.
Well today we hear a similar cry, though it has nothing to do with drinking beer, you’ll be pleased to know.
Jesus begins his ministry with this clear announcement: "The time is fulfilled." That is, it’s complete. We’re at the end of the line. Notice that John, the one who’s like Elijah, has finished his ministry. Mark wants to make it clear that the time of the Old Testament prophet is over. Now a new era, a new message has arrived.
And in a sense, even as Jesus begins his ministry it’s as though his work is already finished. Now nothing more remains to be done. Jesus, the Messiah has come and God’s plan hurries to its intended conclusion. It’s as though Jesus coming is part of a single event: his incarnation, his death and his resurrection all flow together into the one moment in history when everything comes to its natural conclusion.
But if that’s the case then Jesus’ coming means that this moment, right now, is the appointed time, the time of decision
Not that Jesus is saying anything new. His message is the same as John’s: "Repent and believe the good news, believe in the gospel." As we saw a couple of weeks ago this is an eternal message. But it’s an eternal message given new weight by Jesus’ appearance on the scene. John preached repentance for the forgiveness of sins, but now Jesus preaches repentance and an entering in to the gospel. Notice it’s not just believe the gospel, but believe in the gospel. He invites his listeners to enter into the mystery of God’s son become human, to enter into the mystery of Jesus taking our place, taking our sin upon him so we could be freed from the punishment we deserved.
This is a message for all people, yet at the same time it’s a message directed to individuals. So it can be an uncomfortable message to hear.
I think most of us would prefer to hear generalities rather than a specific call. We’re happy with the statement that all Christians should be generous. When we hear this as part of the pack, part of the herd, it’s not so confronting. With a herd mentality we can simply lump all Christians together and hope that our particular lack of generosity might be overlooked. But when I’m told that I need to be generous with my small income, my small amount of wealth, my few spare hours, I get a bit uncomfortable.
Jesus begins preaching to the crowds just as John had, but then one day as he’s walking along beside the Sea of Galilee he sees two brothers, Simon and Andrew, who are casting a net into the sea and he focuses his call on just them. He says "Follow me and I will make you fish for people." Suddenly his message has become very personal, very costly in fact. He calls them not just to repent but to put that repentance into action. They’re to turn away from their current way of life and become Jesus’ followers in the most literal sense. In fact isn’t this how it mostly happens in Jesus ministry? He tells people to give up everything so they can follow him. He warns those who are getting enthusiastic that to follow him means giving up the comforts of home, giving up family and friends, giving up the excuses that we’re so quick at coming up with in order to avoid the cost of discipleship.
Jesus is doing more than just calling people to follow him though. You all know where this story is heading don’t you?
They’re called to become his apostles. He’s building a team to continue the work when his part is finished.
You see, Jesus could have gone on preaching the gospel on his own for the rest of his life but that wouldn’t have been enough would it? He would still have died and risen again. He would have paid the price for all our sins. But that would have been it. The message would have ended there. No, Jesus was setting out to rebuild the people of God. He was planning to build a new Israel, a people who’d fulfill God’s plans for the world. He was calling men and women who’d form the nucleus of that people and who’d pass the message on, pass on the call to become his disciples.
So he calls Peter and Andrew, then James and John. He calls them to a new vocation: no longer to be fishermen catching fish for the markets but to be those who bring people into God’s kingdom.
And what’s their response? Immediately they left their nets and followed him. James and John, just down the lake a little, immediately left their father in the boat with the hired men and followed him. One of the things we heard in the Bible studies at Summer under the Son this week was that the call of God is always in the present. Yes there’s a future aspect to it: "I will make you..." But the call is to act now. "Time Gentlemen please!" Now is the moment when we’re called to respond to Jesus’ call.
And by the way, can you see what it is that makes them into disciples? Is it their innate character, their personal spirituality, their great potential, their leadership qualities, perhaps? Well, no. In fact the account we’re given is so lacking in references to their personal attributes that we’re left wondering whether their choice is just random. Whether Jesus just happened to see them working at the edge of the sea and decided to call them to follow him. Well, we can’t make that assumption either. But what we can say is that the important element in both accounts is not their personal attributes but the call of Jesus. Jesus’ words to them immediately result in them dropping everything and following him.
What is it that makes disciples today? Do we need to be looking out for those who have the necessary characteristics to be good followers of Jesus? Should we be looking for people who are already attuned to spiritual things, open to the supernatural? Should we be looking for people who are naturally kind and warm hearted, whose lives will reflect God’s love for others? No, neither of those characteristics will help. You see, the same thing makes disciples today as made them in this instance. The word of Jesus, the word of the gospel is what makes disciples. It’s when people hear the call to follow Jesus that the Holy Spirit begins his work. This is what Paul reminds the Thessalonians of in 1 Th 1:5-6: "our message of the gospel came to you not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction ... 6And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for in spite of persecution you received the word with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit."
In Jesus’ day, students would come to a Rabbi asking to study with them and the Rabbi would say "Follow me" which meant come and live with me, join my school. Being a student was always a residential arrangement, living in the Rabbi’s home. The big difference in this account is that here it isn’t the student asking to follow the Rabbi, it’s the other way around. Jesus is calling these men to follow him, to give up the rest of their lives to be his disciples. Jesus comes as Lord and King. So the initiative lies with him. We mustn’t ever think that we became Christians because we decided it was a good thing to do. It’s always God who first calls us out of the world to follow Jesus. This is what Jesus reminded his disciples in his final discourse in the upper room, John 15:16: "You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last."
So can you see that Jesus isn’t calling them to be saved. It’s true that John called people to repent for the forgiveness of their sins but Jesus doesn’t say that to these men. Nor is he offering them an end to all their troubles. He isn’t offering them joy beyond all telling as some evangelists do. No, when Jesus calls Peter and Andrew and James and John he simply calls them to follow him, to learn from him. He promises to teach them a new trade. And can you see the trade that he’s going to teach them? He’s going to teach them how to fish for people. He takes the language they understand and transforms it into a whole new way of thinking.
I imagine if they’d been builders he might have said something like "I’ll teach you how to build my kingdom". If they’d been farmers he’d have said "I’ll teach you how to sow the seed of the gospel." The point was that he was calling them to a new work that would give them a reason for living, that would bring a new purpose to their life. He was going to give them a life that was catching. He was offering them the opportunity of being part of a new movement; a movement of God’s Spirit that will in the end take over the world. But this isn’t just a movement based on a great cause. No, it’s a movement that begins with the personal call to follow Jesus. It’s a call that involves not just a single act of agreement. No. He calls them to follow, to walk with him. Later he’ll talk about taking up our cross to walk with him. And he calls them to a life that has its purpose focussed on reaching those outside.
In our world today this is absolutely counter-cultural isn’t it? In a world where personal, individual significance is prime, Jesus points us away from ourselves. He calls us to follow him so we can bring others into his kingdom.
Do you remember the comment I made earlier about the personal nature of this call. This call to discipleship, this call to be part of the Jesus movement, to bring more and more people into God’s kingdom is still being made today. Jesus calls you and you and you and you to be his disciples. This is no general call to arms addressed to the whole flock. This is an individually tailored call to serve God with all you have and all you are.
It isn’t an easy calling. James and John are called to leave their father and the boat and the hired staff and go with Jesus. They’re leaving behind their loved ones and their livelihood in order to follow Jesus. Not that everyone is called to do that in a literal sense, but there is a sense in which we’re all called to put those things in second place in order to be Jesus’ disciple.
When I was about 18 our youth group went to a big rally to hear a famous American preacher whose name I’ve forgotten, though I thin it may have been J. Oswald Sanders. I don’t remember his name but I do remember the thrust of his message. He put to us the question: "are you willing to serve God for the rest of your life?" It’s a good question isn’t it? Are you willing to drop everything else in order to be Jesus’ disciple? Well, I went forward with lots of other young people to commit my life to serving God. It was only then that I realised that the organisers were actually hoping to get people to sign up for full time theological study with a view to full-time Christian ministry and that certainly wasn’t what I was committing my life to. Not at that stage at least. But I realised they’d got their categories wrong. I was committing my life just as much as those people who were offering for full time ordained ministry. I was committing my life to serving God in whatever capacity I could, both in my secular work and as a lay leader in the Church.
You see the call of Jesus to these four men was a call to full-time ministry, but that isn’t the only sort of ministry he calls people to. The people we’ve commissioned today have committed themselves to serving God at St Thomas for the rest of this year at least. The important question for each of us is whether we’re willing to make his service the priority in our life. Is following Jesus more important than building your career, than raising your family, than finding the perfect house, or the perfect partner, or the perfect car? And are you part of Jesus’ mission team sent out to bring others into God’s kingdom?
Over the next five weeks we’re going to be following a series on discipleship, in our English speaking congregations at least. I hope I haven’t stolen too much of Bill’s thunder for next week when he does the introductory sermon in the series. But I hope that as we think about what it means to be Jesus’ disciples that you’ll remember that the call to discipleship is a call that needs to be responded to now. Next week may not do. And it’s always a personal, individual call to you and to you alone. It’s not something that you can ignore because others have taken it up already. No-one else can answer this call for you. Each of us is called to walk with Jesus, to learn from him and to do our part in bringing others into his kingdom.
Finally let me suggest that if you want to be someone who can catch people then you need to think about the sort of bait you’re using. That is, are they attracted to Jesus because of what they see in your life, in your family, in your church. Are we giving the world clear evidence that God is at work in our midst today. Are we presenting such a compelling case by the way we live and speak that they long to know this God that we worship? This is what the call to discipleship is all about. It’s a call to proclaim the gospel and it’s a call to follow now.
For more sermons from this source go to http://stthomasburwood.org.au
