I.N.I.

a sermon to be preached at St. Timothy Lutheran Church, Hyde Park, NY on the 3rd Sunday after the Epiphany (23 January 1994) and based on the Gospel for the day, St. Mark 1: 14-20

Grace, mercy, and peace be yours in Christ Jesus our Lord!

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

You know how hard it is to change old habits. Maybe they’re habits of sloth and laziness that keep us from exercising the way we should. Maybe they’re habits of kitchen and table that keep us from eating the healthy kinds and amounts of food that we should. Maybe they’re habits of mind that distract us from concentrating and focusing on the things we should be working on. Old habits die hard.

Mostly we think of bad habits in this way. But good habits can be hard to change, too. Maybe the habit of automatically clicking your seat belt when you slip behind the steering wheel. Or the habit of patting your pocket for your keys before you pull the front door shut to lock behind you. Sometimes it’s good that we run on ‘automatic pilot.’ A lot of times, you’re well aware, it’s not so good. A lot of times we find ourselves stuck in the rut of bad habits. We find ourselves doing things that we’d rather not be doing, perhaps things we’re not so proud of. These are the habits we think about when we think of the difficulty of changing habits.

Our sinful human nature wants to keep us in the old, comfortable, and sinful way of doing things. Picture, for example, Jonah from the Old Testament. His second commissioning is part of our Old Testament reading this morning. His old sinful nature didn’t want anything to do with the people of Nineveh. If you remember anything about his story, you recall that he tried to avoid the immediate call of God by shipping out on a boat headed in the opposite direction, only to be thrown overboard and swallowed by the great fish.

Jonah wasn’t ready to be pushed out of his accustomed thought patterns. He wasn’t ready to listen to God’s call. He wasn’t ready to do the new work that the Lord so desperately wanted Jonah to take up. Jonah wasn’t ready to leave off sinning and begin the new level of discipleship and commitment to which he was being called.

This was nearly echoed in the words and actions of St. Peter that were our text two weeks ago in this pulpit. You’ll remember, I hope, that Acts 10 records the expansion of the early church beyond the bounds of Jewish synagogues into the homes and lives of Gentiles. Peter was originally a little taken aback by the thought of working with Gentiles, but God convinced him that–in the words of Peter–God shows no partiality, but treats everyone the same. Peter had to be woken up to the fact that God wanted him to reach out with the Gospel in different and unexpected ways.

You and I can easily fall into the same pattern of thought and life. While certain habits are good and while certain accustomed patterns are desirable, others need to be cast off. Who among us doesn’t have some besetting sin that seems to be our constant companion? Even in communities of Christians there are people who are trapped in habits of abuse; abusing their own bodies with various chemical substances, abusing other people with psychologically damaging words or with physically damaging fists. Even in communities of Christians there are people whose lust for possessions leads them to theft, to mishandling of financial trusts, or to degrading the possessions of others.

Christians are not immune to these kinds of sinful habits and actions, even though–or perhaps because–they may be invisible to fellow believers. Christians are also not immune to other sinful patterns and ways of living that may not seem as dramatic. It could be something as subtle and undramatic as simply not exercising the gift God has given us. It could be something as subtle and as easily overlooked as passing by the hungry, as not clothing the naked, as ignoring the beggar at our door. When we haven’t helped the least of these, we haven’t helped our Lord.

You may find yourself squirming in your seat. You may recognize yourself in the descriptions just posed. You may find yourself asking “Is there any way out?” There is indeed. You can abandon ship.

Our Gospel text today describes how 4 young fishermen abandoned ship to follow the Lord. Simon and Andrew, James and John, were all going about their accustomed, usual, habit-bound way of working when Jesus approached them along the shore of the Sea of Galilee. The first two were actually fishing, tossing their nets out in a wide, graceful arc so that they could enclose the most fish at a time. The second two were engaged in some of the repetitive work of fishermen, preparing their nets, mending them, getting them ready for the next time out.

These men certainly didn’t appear to be doing anything sinful. They were working, and working hard. Two were working at their father’s side. All of them, however, had special gifts for expressing the Word of God that they had not put to use. At the first call from Jesus, however, Simon and Andrew immediately left their nets and and followed Him. At the first call, James and John abandoned ship, literally leaving their father in the boat, and followed Jesus.

All four broke out of the usual, accustomed pattern of life to follow their Lord. They responded to the call He extended. It changed their lives.

Each of us has been called to ‘abandon ship’ from the ship of fools that makes up the usual run of humanity. It took Jonah’s shipmates to help him respond to the Lord’s call to abandon ship. In his case they had to toss him overboard so that the Lord’s large fish could deliver Jonah to a spot of shoreline where Jonah could listen and respond in the way God wanted. In the case of the four disciples, it took an instant recognition that Jesus was the promised one, it took an immediate assurance that leaving their businesses and families was the proper thing to do.

Jonah left the ship headed away from Nineveh. Simon, Andrew, James and John all left the boats plying the waters of Galilee. People in today’s world also need to leave their ships and boats to follow Jesus.

One of the miraculous things about this call is that we are not being called to leap over the side without a promise of safety at the end. But I think it is appropriate to say that we will hit the water when we abandon ship. I say this because the waters of our baptism are with us daily. They wash us with forgiveness. They clean us of the stain of sin. Baptism brings us the blessings of God Almighty.

After we abandon ship, the ship of sinful living and rebellion against God, we wash in the water of Baptism and are then picked up and rescued. One of the traditional symbols for the Christian Church is Noah’s ark. You can say that, in the same way that Noah’s ship carried animals of every kind in safety through the catastrophic flood, Christ’s Church carries people of every kind in safety through the remaining catastrophes of life.

Our world is certainly filled with catastrophes. Ask the people in Sarajevo. Ask the people in Somalia. Ask the people who were subjected to radiation experiments 40 or so years ago. Ask Nancy Kerrigan. Ask the family and friends of Sara Anne Wood.

But each and every one of us have catastrophes lurking in our own lives. This is our inheritance as sinners. There are things in our own lives, or potentially just around the corner, that could devastate us as surely as any of these stories from the news. God will bear us up in his stately ship, plucking us from the depths of sin and despair. He will carry us safely through to the end.

We know He will do this because of what He did for us in the life, death, and resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ. When Jesus died on the cross in your place and mine, He saved us from having to go into eternal death. When He rose victorious on Easter morning, He was giving us the assurance that our way to peace lies with Him.

The time for the end of suffering, the end of despair, the end of futility, is all ahead of us. In order for us to reach it safely, we ought to be able to recognize it when it appears. We need to be able to recognize it. For this to happen, we stay in tune with God’s plans for us. To keep with the nautical metaphor, we could commit to singing the old hymn “Jesus, Savior, Pilot Me,” and keep our eyes out for the buoys and navigational signals that will tell us we are getting close to the home port harbor .

The time of the end of this age isn’t known. It can’t be known. But we should be keeping our eyes open to the fulfilling of this time. When we lay our lives along the lines set out for them by the Lord, we will be doing what we need to be doing so that we recognize and stay ready for this time of the Lord. That’s all we really can do: live our lives in accord with God’s will for us.

There’s an urgency in our Gospel text that we should translate into our own lives. When Jesus called the fishermen to be fishers of men, Mark records the fact that they left their boats “immediately.” The time had come for Jesus to bring His message of reconciliation. The time had come for the disciples to respond. The time has come now for each one of us to respond to the calling of God in our lives. The Kingdom of God is still at hand. Repent and believe in the Gospel.

Amen.

S.D.G.