Sunday Sermon 24th Jan 2021

 Mark 1:14-20

I am not a very patient person at times, so I hate ringing businesses which don’t have a real person to answer the phone. You know the ones – you call a number and press 1 if you want this, press 2 if you want that, or you yell down the phone trying to make the stupid machine at the other end actually understand what you are saying.

The other thing that gets me is when they put you on hold and play awful music, and then they tell you every so often “please stay on the line – your call is very important to us”. I always feel like yelling, “If I am that important, answer the phone then”.

On one occasion, I rang the RAC to pay a bill, and after pressing this number, then that number, I was not impressed when they put me on hold.

Suddenly a real person answered and said “how may I help you”. I explained what I wanted to do, and the voice asked for my name. I said Absalom, and began to spell it as usual. Suddenly this disembodied voice said “Is that you Cheryl”. I was stunned – how could this strange man know me. Then he gave me his name, and I realized that I had been his minister for a while. I was so glad that I had not told him what I thought of his company or his service.

I was shocked that he recognized me when I had not recognized him. But it was a minor tremor compared to what happened to Saul the Pharisee on the road to Damascus. I think what happened to him on the road has now passed into the vernacular. Anyone who has a change of mind about anything is said to have a road to Damascus conversion. Saul the Pharisee became Paul the apostle.

On Monday, the church celebrates the conversion of St Paul. It’s been written that no one, apart from Jesus himself, shaped the history of Christianity  like the apostle Paul. If we look at Paul’s life up until he was converted, he doesn’t seem a likely candidate for follower of Christianity and as an apostle. He was a sincere and religious Jew, and he saw this new movement of Christianity as a serious danger to the Jewish faith. He hated the Christian faith, and he persecuted Christians without mercy.

We know that he was on his way to Damascus to round up more Christians and bring them back to Jerusalem to face punishment. He was even present when Stephen was stoned to death, becoming the first Christian martyr. 

If we read Acts chapter 9, we are told the story of his conversion. How he heard a voice calling his name. How he fell from his horse in shock and found he could no longer see. Can you imagine what it must have been like for him?

From being powerful to becoming powerless, and all because of a man whom you had believed did not exist.

Paul was going to have to trust in the very Jesus for which he had despised others. And yet, there was a role for him in the faith he despised so much and had done so much to destroy. His unique ministry was to be an apostle to the gentiles, because prior to his conversion little had been done to carry the Good News to those outside of the Jewish community. It’s believed that Paul’s ministry journeys took him over 3000 kms, an unheard of distance for his time.

And for most weeks of the church year, we still read the letters he wrote to encourage and teach the fledgling Christian communities. Jesus knew what he was doing when he called Paul.

There were no flashes of lightening when Jesus called the four fishermen Andrew, Peter, James and John. Rather, Jesus acknowledged their gifts as fishermen, and pointed them in a new direction.

My childhood impression of the disciples was that they must have been some kind of superheroes if they were Jesus special friends. But it is only when we read the story of their lives that we realize that they were just like us, sometimes full of wisdom and faith, and at other times overcome by events and uncertainties.

The way we read it in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus seems to have just casually strolled along to these men while they were fishing, and said “come with me, come and be an itinerant preacher. Leave your homes, leave your wives and children, your obligations, and leave your businesses”.

Only when you think about the life which Peter, James, John and Andrew had, do you realize how earth-shattering this story is. It sounds like madness.

These men were not academics or priests or in any way scholarly, they were ordinary working men, carrying on the family business, and yet they were being asked to leave it all behind and join with an itinerant preacher who had neither home nor income.

These men were to become Jesus faith community, his family and his bearers of the Good News to the Jews.

What Jesus was asking of Paul and what Jesus was asking of those fishermen was to make a choice. Choose between how things are and how they could be. There must have been something about this young preacher from Nazareth which made them want to set out into the unknown with him.

Jesus called them to a life of service in which they would have to give themselves completely for the benefit of others, and would have to give their lives for their belief in Him. It wasn’t an easy thing to do then, not is it an easy thing to do now. It is a choice which we are asked every day of our lives.

When NT authors write of faith in God, they use the Greek word “pistis”, meaning a firm persuasion or conviction. Faith is not just a mental exercise but requires action. The Bible instructs us to have faith, but it also provided us with countless reminders of the faithfulness of God.

The disciples had enough faith to throw in their lot with Jesus, but they still had to grow in their faith, as well all do. One of my favourite passages of scripture comes from the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 16.

Forgive me if I have shared this with you before. We read that many followers of Jesus began to leave him when things were becoming dangerous for them. Jesus asks Peter if he is going to leave him as well.

And Peter answers him in what I think is one of the most poignant passages of the scriptures. Peter says:” Lord to whom would we go? You alone have the words that give eternal life. We believe them and we know that you are the Holy One of God” What a statement of faith. And this is the same Peter who denied knowing Jesus when he is arrested. And the same Peter was crucified upside down in Rome some years later because he would not give up his beliefs.

We are all called by God or else we would not be here. What has God done for you? What is it that you can do for God? is it to tell others about what your faith means to you. Is it to pray for others? Is it to take on a role in the services?

Can you say with your hand on your heart “:” Lord to whom would we go? You alone have the words that give eternal life. We believe them and we know that you are the Holy One of God”

AMEN