Faithing Together

 

Mark 6:1-13

Sometimes I have faith. I feel settled and grateful and connected and even sure.  And sometimes I am amazed at my unbelief. That is to say, I have a shocked moment when I realize I have been swamped by fear and I am just treading water in it as thought this is all there is. Or I caught in anger and breathing it in and letting it fill me and feed me.  Or I am cut off from anything beyond myself, my worries, my projects, my interpretations of things, and I am just existing as though this is all there is, completely forgetting there is someone that holds me and this whole world. I can go on this way for days.  Detatched from my deepest self, from God, from others. And then suddenly I wake up and remember - or am re-membered -  to my belonging, invited back into trust, feeling my heart open back up to transcendence, widen back out toward God.  And I am “faithing” again.
 
What does it mean to have faith? To be a person of faith? Is it to attend religious services regularly? Or to do good things in the world? Is it to believe in something beyond what can be seen and touched?  Is it to have certain strong convictions? To work for justice and peace? Certainly it can include any and all of these things as expressions of faith.  
 
But at it’s core is trust. But it’s not a fully-developed and airtight trust that never wavers, it’s more like inching toward trust, learning to trust, being open to trusting and entrusting your life to God. It’s turning toward someone, letting your heart open toward God, letting God turn your heart toward the real. 
 
Faith is a hemorrhaging woman reaching out from a crowd and grasping the edge of Jesus’s cloak hoping it will heal her, and Jesus blessing her for it.  It is a dying girl’s father tracking down Jesus and begging, please come and heal my daughter, not knowing that by the time he reaches Jesus it will already be too late, but Jesus goes to his home anyway and brings his daughter back to life.  
 
Faith starts the moment we turn whatever it is within us back toward God – even if we don’t know who or what God is. It begins in our human longing, Help me, Jesus!  It’s My little daughter is dying!, or just reaching out with a tiny shred of hope and grasping the edge of a garment. Like the disciples in the boat asking in the storm, Don’t you even care? faithing can start in doubt and anger, with despair and fear. It’s turning toward Jesus, however that happens. And when Jesus commands nature and the storm responds, the disciples’ faith is stirred up, who then is this?  And they are drawn in deeper, turned more fully toward Jesus. 
Jesus has just been with these people, in this place of faith – where people are facing their deaths, reaching toward God, learning to trust, acting on what hope gives them.
 
But now Jesus has left that place, and has come off the road with the band. He’s back in his mom’s kitchen with his newfound fame and reputation and his gaggle of disciples. This is his hometown with his home people, the world of brothers and sisters and long memory: mischief and mudpies, first steps, forged friendships, lost teeth and puberty, for the love of God.  This is the town that still holds both the whispered scandal of his origins, and the tangible results of his professional labor, “Wait, Jesus, the carpenter? Mary’s son, Jesus?”
The people who heard your voice change are going to have a hard time taking your prophetic preaching seriously -  especially when the claim is that you’re from God and everyone knows you come from right down the street.
 
But more than amused, when he comes speaking with authority and they see the deeds of power that he does -  they take offense. 
Just who does he think he is? What is he trying to pull?
 
And Jesus is amazed at their unbelief, their untrust, their lack of faith.
And, scripture says, he could do no deeds of power among them – except lay his hands on a few people and cure them. (which sound like deeds of power to me- and felt like it to the sick people who got cured). But it wouldn’t have mattered what he did.  He could do no deeds of power among them.  There was no curiosity or openness. They weren’t holding up their longing, daring to hope for the impossible. They weren’t wondering who he could be, they knew who he was - he was one of them.  And they were offended that he had the arrogance and audacity to pretend to be someone different, and to insist that God would act among them in unexpected ways.
Those people he “healed” were probably getting better anyway.  Their illness must have just run its course. It was all in their heads.  
As far as they were concerned- it simply couldn’t be. Period. He was limited by their unbelief.
 
Does faith allow God to do more in our lives? Very possibly.  
Does faith allow us to see the things God is already doing in our lives? Absolutely.  
 
Because without faith- without that question bubbling within us, without the act of holding up our longing, reaching out in hope, (or even simply honestly inhabiting our own deadness), the encounter can’t really happen.  We won’t be open to it, or recognize it when it does.  
Faith is not a closed conclusion. It is an open awareness.  It’s turning toward God with whatever is in us and watching expectantly for what will happen next.
 
And now, from that place, the disciples are sent out, and ironically, doing deeds of great power.  Doing more, it seems, than Jesus himself could do in his hometown.  But the disciples don’t go out bearing great power to dispense to others. They go powerless–needing a place to rest, needing coats for the cold, a bathroom, food and shelter. They go to receive the hospitality of strangers. 
 
Jesus sends them out needing fellow human beings.  And not just for what they provide, or as a ready audience for their message. The disciples are sent out into the world forced to rely on other people’s compassion and openness. They must allow others to step up to meet their needs.  And the disciples will need to stay with folks- to form relationships, not just bounce around getting what they can from people.  So not only do they need fellow human beings, they also need to join fellow human beings. And the longing, the action, the“Help me Jesus!” gets pointed toward others, where Jesus meets us in one another.  We turn toward God by turning toward each other.
 
Through the love and generosity of strangers, God will provide.  And through sharing ourselves and our story of who Jesus has been for us, God will act again right now between us.  And maybe he is talking as much to himself as he is to them when he says, if they don’t welcome you and refuse to receive you, shake the dust off your feet and move on.  This is about connecting with God and each other.  Keep seeking that connection.
 
We cannot give healing to others as a self-assured dispenser of goodness; we must come to goodness and healing together with someone.  We must allow ourselves to be seen, not in our shiny strength and aptitude, but in our sweaty, dusty, hungry, cranky, awkward humanity. 
 
It’s a lot easier to give than receive, but receiving keeps us human. It keeps us connected. It keeps us encountering God in our lives, again and again.  This is what Jesus wants for the disciples. They must receive care to give it. They must come vulnerable to share their lives with those who can care for them.  It’s how Jesus himself came. Vulnerable and needy, learning to be human with humans, sharing life with those who cared for him.  We know who he is – he’s one of us.
We belong to God, and in Jesus, God belongs to us. 
This is how God arranged it, so we may know the interdependence of all life.  Faith presses us into this relationship, to live out our belonging to God and each other.  
 
May we have the courage to keep turning toward God together with whatever is in us and watching expectantly for what will happen next.
 
Amen.

Join me in this

Calling Disciples, by He Qi

Follow me, up and down,

all the way, and all around.

Make it part of you to be a part of me.

Follow me, where I go,

what I do, and who I know.

Take my hand and say you’ll follow me.

(by John Denver)

Mark 1:14-20

When you are a pastor, it feels like you get a leg up on this text, because you make your living following Jesus.  How are we to follow Jesus?  One easy answer is to become a pastor. Boom. Done.  Box checked off – Kara and Lisa are following Jesus.  But what about the rest of you? How do you know if you are following Jesus?  

Let’s be honest, who among us even knows what that really means?

How do we follow Jesus in our lives today?

Maybe by being nice to people?  Jesus wants us to be nice to people, right? Ok, check. Mostly, at least, some of the time, anyway.

Telling other people about Jesus? Umm… the pastors are good on that one anyway.

Praying and read our bible?  Not as regular at these as I probably should be, but ok.

Going to church? You all get a check for this one today.  Good job.

 How about volunteering our time for good causes, and sharing our money with worthy organizations? Check.

Maybe if we do enough of these things, or if we have a day where we do several in the same day, then on that day we can really know for sure we are following Jesus. 

Or maybe following Jesus means believing certain things about God or life, I mean, that seems to be the way we most often define it. The only problem is that the list varies widely depending on who wrote it and when, so it’s a little foggy. 

Does your list include who to vote for and what to think about same-sex marriage, immigration or climate change?  Does it include the virgin birth, and Jesus as the Son of God, and the bible as the word of God? How many things do you have to agree with on whichever list you are using in order to qualify as officially following Jesus? When do you know if you’ve crossed the line into follower, and can you accidentally uncross it?

OK , so what if following Jesus is about how you life your life, then? 

Is that how we can tell we’re doing it right?  

But the nuns we stayed with up at St. Benedict's are following Jesus one way, and the Soldiers for Jesus International Motorcycle Club and Brotherhood of Christian Bikers quite another.
Are they following the same Jesus? 
And once we figure out what following Jesus means, how can we be sure we are doing it right? Or enough? 

It’s also clear that following Jesus means giving up something – like these disciples gave up their fishing job for their following Jesus job.  And maybe also their whole way of life and community and even their connection to their father. One friend said this week, “He’d just gotten business cards printed – Zebedee and sons, and off they went, leaving him holding the nets.”  We are pretty sure there is some kind of sacrifice involved in following Jesus.  

But most of us didn’t give up our home and go be missionaries in a foreign land, or take in disabled orphans and adopt them, or start ministries that feed homeless people, or whatever other superhero Jesus-followers we might hold up to compare ourselves to when we are trying to figure out how well we are following Jesus.

I would be willing to bet on the “How well are you following Jesus?” scale, very few people, if any, would rank themselves perfectly, including pastors. Most of us would take a “I could be doing better at it” attitude, even when we’re not entirely clear how “it” should look.

Then there are all those who say they are following Jesus, but they are doing or saying things that seem to completely contradict how Jesus was in the world. How can we make sense of what that kind of Jesus-following has to do with the kind of Jesus-following we might aspire to?  So we think they’re not doing a very good job of it, and they think we’re not doing a very good job of it, and somewhere in the middle of it all, we’ve all lost sight of Jesus himself.

So to sum up, then: 

- We know we’re supposed to follow Jesus, 
- We’re not sure we completely know what that means or how it should look in the world.
- We know it requires sacrifice, 
- By any measure, we’ve got a long way to go.

So let’s go back to this moment, before the disciples were disciples, when they were just fishermen, minding their own business, and Jesus calls them to follow him.

There is so much good in translations of scripture that remove barriers to understanding because they take out English gendered language to more accurately communicate what the original language meant say. When the NRSV says, “And Jesus said ‘follow me and I will make you fish for people,” it captures the true meaning in the Greek, which is that it is for everyone, humankind, not just men.  

But by changing “fishers” to “fish for” we make a noun into a verb, and lose something important.  Listen to it this way: As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea--for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, "Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.”

This poetic contrast splits the open the word “fishermen” into “fishers of men.”  

In that moment, Jesus isn’t just giving them a different job, he’s giving them a different identity, a different orientation in the world. Instead of being fishermen – sustaining yourself in the world and contributing to the whole through this certain set of skills – you are going to be fishers of men – oriented Christ and thus toward other people. You will change, by turning away from the sea and toward your sisters and brothers around you.  

In other words, You are no longer a fisherperson. You are a fisher of persons.

“Follow me.” Jesus says, “and this is what will happen.” 

Jesus is not calling them to follow a way of thinking or believing. 

He is not saying, Acquire more knowledge, or Live differently.  

He is not giving them a list to check off to make sure they are honoring God or living a worthy life. 

He is calling them to follow him, a person.

Bonhoeffer talked about this as the Who instead of the How. Jesus doesn’t give them a How – How should we live? How should we follow? How can we please God? How should we believe, or behave? How do we know if we are doing it right?

Instead, the living God stands before them and calls them as people, to follow a person – the person of Christ.  Who is this calling to me?  Who am I called to be?  Who am I called to be with?  A short time later, they will look at him in the dead calm aftermath of a suddenly shuttered storm and ask, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

This one who calls you is God incarnate. He sees you as a who – and shifts your who away from whatever it is that gives you security, self-understanding and purpose, whatever you thought it is that tells you who you are by telling you how you should live or believe.

Jesus turns your who back toward God and out toward the world God is saving, to seek other whos, to seek Jesus there alongside, with and for these other whos in the world.  

It is not, How do we follow?  Or, How do we know if we are following? But, Who are we being called by, and Who are we called to?

This scene opens with Jesus proclaiming the good news, and what he says sums up the book of Mark’s whole understanding of what the good news of the gospel is: The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.

Blah, blah, church language – let me break it down: 

There are two words for time in the Greek, chronos time, which is where we get chronology, meaning hours and minutes and days, and Kairos time, which means the right time, the perfect, opportune time.

Jesus says there is no better time.  Eternity is fulfilled now. Right now God’s reality is fully here.  God’s way is unfolding right around and in and through and despite us. 

So repent! which doesn’t mean feel really bad and apologize. It means, open your mind to this reality, wrap your head and heart around it. Shift your way of seeing to God’s way of seeing.

And “believe the good news” means trust it, the verb pistis is not believe with your head, it is trust your whole being to it. To say, “I believe you” is one thing. To say, “I trust you” takes that belief to a whole other level. 

So here is what Jesus is walking around on the earth, strolling across the beach that day, saying to people, “Wrap your head around this good news and trust in it:  God’s reality is right here, now.”

So follow me, Jesus says. Come join me in this new reality. Let me lead you in it.

And he finds first Simon and his brother Andrew, and then James and his brother John, and calls them with each other, because discipleship is not a solo gig, it always connects us deeply with God and each other.  

And so instead of calling them to a measurement of their goodness, or to right belief or action, he calls them to others, to trade being fisherpeople for being fishers of people.  And he invites them to follow him, to walk with him and live with him and join him in the world – not to adopt a new belief system, or take a profitable place in the salvation pyramid-marketing scheme.  Follow me. I will be with you. I am here. I will lead you.

This changes everything. For them. For us.

The moment is realized; God is right here now. Jesus is alive. Out there in the world. Right here alongside us in this room this very moment.  And he is always calling us to join a who – not adopt a how. Jesus invites us to come as whos – who we each are, and reach out to other whos, real people, and promises to be with us as we are with each other. 

We come here to to this place every week together do that-  to be with Jesus, and to be with other whos and ask together, Who are you, God, and what are you up to? And to practice listening together for God’s response.  So that when we leave here, we are more connected to the who of God and the whos of others, and we can go back into our lives not asking,

How do I follow Jesus today? 

How do I live a good life?  

How do I know if I am doing it right?  

But, instead, Who will Jesus bring across my path today? 

Who will I see Jesus in today?  

Who will see Jesus in me?  

Who is my neighbor? 

Who is the person behind the offensive armor and defensive rhetoric that I’ve labeled my enemy? 

Who am I called to be in this moment, this situation, this relationship?

And yes, it will cost us to follow. Every time we join our who with another who, it costs us.  When your who becomes mother or father, you no longer live for yourself but for this small person in your care. It costs you your freedom and independence, your separateness, and your sleep. 

When you fall in love and commit your life to another person, you lose your singleness, it costs you your autonomy and your ability to disconnect or not care about another’s suffering or pain. 

When we are living in the who of following Jesus, it costs us our illusions and our disconnection. We trade our way of seeing for God’s way of seeing and then we recognize that we actually belong not just to ourselves, but to each other. We are responsible for each other, to listen, to care, to open our lives to one another.  And when we are with and for each other, we are joining Jesus, who is the embodiment of God, right here with and for us.  This is what following Jesus means.

“Hey fisherpeople, Jesus called out that day, follow me and I will make you fishers of people!”  Join me and I will take away what you thought your life was, and give you back your life for real.  Wrap your head around this truth and trust in it: The opportune time is right now. God’s reality is here.  And it is found when we share ourselves with each other, when we open ourselves to Jesus, who sees us as we are, and who calls us to follow him.

Amen.