Sermon Title: "Called to Follow"
Date: January 25, 2009
Minister: Rev. Charles E. Ensley, Jr.

Lesson:  Mark 1:14-20

They already had jobs when he came along and asked them to join him.  They had been in a variety of careers for years, thought they knew where they were going, had perhaps even advanced through the ranks.  But there was something about his invitation to follow him into this great venture that lay ahead that they just couldn’t resist.  They resigned from what they were doing, gave up careers that were stable, and moved from their secure homes to a new location.

You probably think I’m talking about Jesus’ call to his disciples to follow him.  Well, I will, but I’m really talking about the president’s new cabinet.  Every four or eight years, whenever there is a change in the presidency, the president-elect begins to select people to be his closest advisors, the secretaries of a number of cabinet positions.  In last Sunday’s L.A. Times inaugural edition, there were pictures and a listing of the 14 cabinets secretaries selected so far—as least half of whom have now been approved by the Senate—and other key advisors.  Some of them were representatives in Congress or the Senate; some were governors or business executives.  They each gave up their former positions of responsibility, perhaps even taking a reduction in salary, to serve in this new administration.

How different is that from those whom Jesus called?  One big difference in following Barack Obama to Washington is that he was a known figure.  He had been a member of the Illinois state senate before election to the United States Senate.  His views on many important matters facing our nation and world were known when he asked them.  And by then, he had been voted into this nation’s highest office by a majority of the electorate.

Contrast that with Jesus.  In each of the gospels, at the beginning of his career—today, we are still in the first chapter of Mark—this unknown man from Nazareth walks along asking people to follow him.    He was not a known, successful politicial figure elected by anybody.  He had no established ministry.  Yet how compelling he must have been in his invitation!  He simply commanded them to come, follow him, and he would enable them to gain a far greater catch than the fish in their nets. 

Jesus was doing his own “fishing” for people when he came upon Simon and Andrew, and invited them to join him in his work.  James and John were next, leaving their undoubtedly astounded father by the boats with the hired help as they, too, set out after Jesus.  Traditionally, many readers of the gospels assume that these fishermen were poor, destitute individuals with nothing to lose who follow Jesus to try and break the monotony of their everyday lives.

A close reading of Mark reveals quite a different scene.  The truth is that these four fishermen were likely quite prosperous.  We learn later that Simon and Andrew had a house and an extended family (Mark 1:29-31) and that James and John, along with their father Zebedee, were wealthy enough to be able to hire additional help for their fishing business.  Chances are that with this kind of background these men may have had some education.  These weren’t desperate drifters with nothing to lose, but well-established businessmen in a culture where prosperity and family were everything.  Following Jesus, then, was no small disruption of their lives but a complete change of course.  Throwing in with Jesus meant throwing out their security, their reputations and their livelihoods.  (It does sound a bit like Washington, doesn’t it?!)

Was Jesus looking for a cheerleader, a role model, a security expert and a technical advisor?  The political and religious establishment would come to think of him as a radical subversive — an ideological terrorist.  But Jesus wasn’t looking for a weapons expert, defense secretary, press secretary and so on.  Rather than looking for specific role definitions, Jesus wanted people with just one primary qualification for discipleship: a willingness to follow, regardless of cost, regardless of what they would have to sacrifice.

Sure, the disciples would take on different roles within the group as it formed around Jesus.  Simon Peter would become the leader, spokesman and conscience of the group; John would be the “beloved” disciple and closest friend of Jesus; Andrew may have been the hospitality coordinator, and so forth.  Regardless of his role, however, each disciple shared a common trait:  They said “Yes” to Jesus’ invitation to follow him, gambling their own futures on his vision for a new way of relating to God and to others.

Mind you, they didn’t exactly understand the ramifications at first.  Mark is pretty hard on the disciples, who seem to be a bit slow on the uptake at times when trying to grasp what Jesus was teaching them.  The courage that they displayed that day on the lakeshore would dissolve into panic in the Garden of Gethsemane, yet they would be recovered by the resurrection and would move the kingdom message out into the world, a move that would cost most of them their lives.  Without their spreading the message, the Christian church would not exist today.

Imagine Jesus walking into an office building, a factory or a grocery store today and tapping a secretary, a welder or a checkout clerk on the shoulder saying, “Follow me.”  Imagine the looks on the faces of his coworkers when the employee walks out, leaving the Harrington file open, the doors of a new car un-welded and the groceries un-bagged.  We have a hard time fathoming that kind of response and would probably chalk it up to some kind of cultlike mind control on the part of the spiritual guru making the call.  We like the idea of religious devotion to a cause, but only insofar as it doesn’t get in the way of our “normal” lives.

For nearly five months, the members of our Associate Minister Search Committee have been reading candidates’ profiles.  That’s no small task:  there’re usually 20 pages apiece, and last weekend they received seven at once.

What a varied lot those candidates represent.  Some took what used to be the normal, standard route to ministry.  At some point they sensed a call to ministry.  They graduated from college, and then immediately enrolled in seminary.  In the old days, you could look in the denominational yearbook at the year of their ordination and calculate their age.  If they were like me, it was college graduation at 22, seminary at 25, and then ordained after receiving a call.

But that’s not the path taken by all the candidates.  Some of them had successful careers in other fields, just like Jesus’ disciples or members of President Obama’s cabinet.  Some had not been active in churches in their youth, and only came to the church later.  Some did not sense a call until later in life, many times after they began a family, or their family was even grown and gone.

But the bottom line is all the same.  Just like the disciples, they heard the call to follow Jesus at some point in their lives, and for many, it meant giving up the security of their profession and home and established routine, leaving it all to enter seminary, and ultimately to seek a call to ordained ministry.

Now, as I have said many times before, using the word “ministry” does not mean to imply only ordained clergy.  The disciples were not seminary-trained nor ever ordained.  They were ordinary persons who sensed there was something more they could do in life.

Jesus calls each of you to follow him in your own unique and individual ways.  For those of you I know well, I have seen and experienced you answering the call as you coordinate or work on a myriad of mission projects;  as you spend your Thursday evenings and early Sunday mornings rehearsing music to sing in worship;  as you leave worship and give up hearing the sermon so you may teach Sunday School, or give up hours to teach Bible studies or advise a youth group;  as you spend months worth of Wednesday nights to serve on a search committee.  You may not have realized it when you accepted, but it was the very voice of Jesus calling you to follow.

But we must realize that following Jesus is all about disrupting our normal lives.  Being a disciple means being willing to drop our own agendas for life and get on board with the agenda of Jesus of bringing about his kingdom here on Earth.  We’re not called to simply be advisers and supporters of Jesus, but true “friends” and investors who stake our lives and livelihoods on his vision for the world.

Whatever job we’re working at, Jesus challenges us to see our primary vocation as being followers, spiritual workers who are fully invested — body, mind, spirit, money, time — in serving him, often by serving others.  Have you responded yet to his call?