The Third Sunday after Epiphany
Year B

Do Something!

Readings: Jonah 3:1-5, 10; 1 Corinthians 7:29-31; Mark 1:14-20

 During this Season of Epiphany, the readings have reflected the call of God to the people of God.  We have reflected on our need to see God's presence in those around us, and to hear God's call to us and to the church.  Once again this week the readings reflect God's call, this time the call to decision and action on the part of the people of God. That is an important message for this congregation as we prepare for our annual Vestry meeting.  It is an important message as we prepare to meet the challenges of the coming year.

 The gospel passage is a call to decision and action.   Jesus calls his disciples away from their nets.  "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of people."  Who of us could not quote that line from scripture at least in its more familiar version?  Someone reflected that it is probably the greatest of the miracles of Jesus.  After all he called them away from their fishing, and they actually responded.  All joking aside, the story cannot help but speak to each of us.  It draws us in through its very simplicity.   

At the same time, it raises some questions.  How could it be that easy?  How could a few simple words such as Jesus spoke, be heard with such clarity?  Did it really happen that way?  How could anyone respond so completely and so quickly to God's call?  Would you or I have responded as Andrew and Simon did?   

And yet on reflection I can see how it could happen.  I have experienced it in people who have responded to an invitation.  Some people are just sitting on the edge of life waiting for the call to something worthwhile.  If the right person comes along with the right call they are up and away.  It is something they have been secretly longing for.  Life has prepared them for it.  They did not choose it; it chose them.

  Most of us relate more easily to Jonah’s response. He must surely be the most reluctant disciple of all times.  Not only did God have to call him again and again.  It took drastic action on the part of God to get him to respond.  He was called to deliver a message to the people of Nineveh.  It was an important message, life and death.  Unless they turn from their wickedness and repent, they will be destroyed in forty days.  Jonah simply refuses to do as God has told him.  There is no explanation given.  But God does not let up.  Jonah is swallowed by a huge fish.  Then he is spewed up on land.  And still he does not want to deliver the message.  Yet when it is finally given, the people respond immediately.  A fast is proclaimed, they declare a national repentance, and God follows through on the promise to spare them. 

 No matter how God calls us, it is a call to action.  There is a good reason for it.  As humans we all need that sense of call.  William Clare Menninger, the distinguished American psychiatrist, toured the states for years as a lecturer and consultant.  When people asked him for the secret of a good and happy life, he always said: "Find a mission in life and take it seriously." 

 That is good advice for each of us.  Find the mission to which God has called you and take it seriously.   Act on it.   

It is not about our worldly vocation.  All of us whether we be secretaries, teachers, nurses, accountants, home makers, tax collectors, no matter what our daily work are invited to share in the redemptive dream of God for this world of ours.  Our special gifts and talents are to be used to ensure the success of the kingdom. 

 And as it was for the people of Nineveh, so that call to action begins with a call to repentance.  We are called to turn to God linking our lives with the purpose of God revealed in Jesus Christ.  That is the beginning of living the life of faith.  It was a new beginning for the people of Nineveh.  It is a new beginning for each of us.    

 And so God calls us, not once, but again and again throughout our lives.  To renewed life in Christ.  To new choices, new priorities.  To leave behind the things that keep us from truly serving God.  Like Jonah, God calls to us through the crises of our lives.  Like the disciples, God calls us from the ordinary routines of our lives.  Like the people of Nineveh, God calls us to repentance and offers us forgiveness.   

Yet we use every excuse to avoid God’s call. Like Jonah, when we see what is going on in the world we would just like to get off.  We hearken back to better times.  We choose to opt out of the Church.  After all it’s full of hypocrites and sinners.  We blame our crises on God.  “Why is God letting this happen to me? How can I possibly believe in God when all these terrible things are happening?”

 Or we think that God could not possibly be calling us.  “There must be someone more suited for the job than I am.  Besides I am simply too busy making ends meet.”  Confronted with a call for action we offer many excuses.  “I didn’t hear you.”  “I don’t understand what you are asking!” “It’s too hard! Ask someone else!”  What we are really saying is “I don’t want to” or “I’m afraid!”  Or “I don’t like commitment!”

 Finally there is one we really avoid! That whole conversation about our need for repentance, either as a community, or as individuals.  Yet nothing can bring about transformation as rapidly as repentance.  It can change our lives and the lives of those we touch.

 Repentance is a call to a sense of community.  We are reconciled to God and the Body of Christ.  The Incarnation calls us into relationship, not only with God, but with others.  Through our relationship to others we are brought into the presence of God.  Through our relationship to God we are called into communion with our neighbour.  That renewed sense of community helps us to face the demands of living in a broken and sinful world.  Reconciliation reminds us of God's mercy.  It is truly sacramental, making all of life holy.  We assume a sense of responsibility for our sinfulness and through our religious experience face up to the moral demands of the Gospel.  That is the sense of self that we take with us out into the world.  Through forgiveness of our sins, we celebrate God's gift to us.  We re-establish communion and harmony with all of God's creation.  Reconciliation stands at the heart of the church.  It is the gift of God to all believers and the mission of the church to the world.  It frees us to be who we are meant to be.  It graces our lives.     

What is God calling you to do?  What are you going to do about it?  We are all invited to share in the redemptive dream of God for this world of ours.  To use our own special gifts and talents to ensure the success of the kingdom.  To follow, to love, to forgive, to witness, to serve, and above all to hope.  To hope that our offering will make a difference.  Amen.