Looking Forward to January 24, 2021 -- 3rd Sunday After Epiphany

 The Scripture Reading for this week is Mark 1:14-28

The Sermon title is The Adventure Begins...

Early Thoughts: Would you do it? What would make you jump up and join a new adventure without knowing where the path would lead?

I suspect that this is one of the stories of faith that is harmed by familiarity. It is a story that we hear every year. Those of us who grew up going to Sunday School likely heard it throughout our childhood. And we hear it as a nice story about people by the sea many centuries ago. Do we stop and ask about what it might mean for us today?

I am sitting and typing this on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. I was just looking on Twitter and found the hashtag #RadicalKing. Dr. King has, in white Christian circles, largely been domesticated. We share the uplifting energizing quotes that are safer. We try to forget that Dr. King was denounced from many a pulpit. We try to forget that he was advocating for a whole-hearted changing of the ways within the United States. He challenged poverty and racism and militarism. He lived out of a vision of how the God revealed in Jesus Christ desired people to live together. He joined the adventure. I am sure there were days when he thought it might have been easier to remain a simple preacher in a neighbourhood church. But he joined on the adventure.

Right after the four fishers leave their nets and follow the adventure begins.  No period of training, no 'cooling off' period when they could reverse their decision, no gradual easing in to a new life, BANG things start to happen. Teaching happens, healing happens, confrontation with evil happens. Did the four know what they had gotten into? Did they wonder if this was a good choice?

We are invited to join in an adventure. Jesus meets us where we are, in the midst of our lives, and offers on opportunity to be part of the remaking of the world. It is not a choice to be made lightly. It is a choice that could change (probably should change) who we are and how we live forever. It may lead us to challenge various assumptions and attitudes and activities that the culture around us takes for granted. It may lead us to stand in the face of the storm and yell into the wind. It may lead us to name things as evil or wrong.

Following Christ on this adventure is about our whole lives. It can change how we interact with our neighbours, with our environment, with our economy. I can see lots of reasons why the rational choice would be to say "No thanks" and go back to mending our nets (or whatever the equivalent might be for us). Will we have the courage, the holy foolishness, the strange wisdom to jump in with both feet?
--Gord