CALLED Mark 1:14-20

a sermon by Mel Williams
Watts Street Baptist Church
January 22, 2012

How could they do it? How could these everyday people leave their homes, families, and villages to follow Jesus around the countryside? It seems remarkable, a bit odd, even shocking that these hard-working men would leave everything to follow a Galilean peasant-preacher. Why would they do it?

Imagine what this would be like today! Imagine how the local newspaper story would read: “Local citizens join itinerant religious leader.” “Two sons of prominent citizen Zebedee Jones left Durham Friday following an appeal from an itinerant religious leader to come follow him. The leader, called Jesus of Bahama, is founder of a small band of people moving around the countryside teaching, proclaiming the Kingdom of God, and healing disease and sickness. Two other brothers, Peter and Andrew Duke, proprietors of a fishing business, have also joined the traveling religious leader.”

We read it and shake our heads in disbelief. “How could they do that?” Then comes the chatter down the phone lines and at the coffee pot: “How could they do that to their dear father Zebedee! For the past dozen years he’s worked in his fishing business, getting it ready for his sons to take over the business. And now look what happens! Some fly-by-night, smooth-sounding religious huckster captures those boys. There ought to be a law!”

But there are also other opinions, more sympathetic. “Those fellows have moxie! Thank God! We need some big changes around here; and if this guy Jesus can make a difference, we need to send our young people to help him. Two years of missionary service will be good for them! After all, we hear that this Jesus is going to start a new movement, a new era. He can help people get healed. He can maybe even help get the Romans off our necks. He can help our people have a better life. We’ve got too much suffering all around here--- injustice, illness, poverty. We need to see some changes! Maybe this Jesus can wake us up and shake us out of our doldrums. Maybe some disciples from around here can help Jesus move us toward God’s dream.”

I suspect that some of this attitude got stirred that day inside Peter and Andrew, James and John! When Jesus said to them, “Follow me,” something must have clicked inside them. Something or someone must have moved them to say Yes.

After all, there are major moments in any of our lives when it seems that the light comes on, and we get changed! We’re different, and we head in a new direction.

Jim Forbes’ sermon here last Sunday was a spellbinder—a “stem-winder” as one person called it. With his Pentecostal fervor, Jim clearly called for a spiritual awakening, to allow the Spirit in us to rise and stir us to action for God’s work. That sermon reminded me of another MLK service some years ago. It was the city-wide MLK service, where the preacher was Dr. Lorenzo Shannon. He asked a poignant question: “Have you had a defining moment in your life?” It just may be that the Spirit shows up most clearly in these defining moments.

These are the moments that shape us, move us, and change us. The speaker said, “My defining moment came in 1959, when Martin Luther King, Jr. came back to Morehouse College to deliver the baccalaureate address at graduation. (He had graduated there in 1948.) In his sermon Dr. King talked about Rip Van Winkle who went to sleep when there was a picture on the wall of King George VI. But when he woke up, there was a new picture on the wall of George Washington, the first President of the US. Rip Van Winkle had slept through a revolution. And in 1959, at the front edge of the Civil Rights Movement, Dr. King said to all the young Morehouse graduates, “Are you going to sleep through a revolution in this country?”

It’s a good question. And in a sense this was an implied question behind Jesus’ words to the first disciples. Are you going to sleep through a revolution, or will you join me—follow me—in bringing about the revolution? We can make a choice: sit on the tailgate of the car, looking back at where we have been (nostalgia!). Or we can decide to sit up front and help provide some direction, to help steer the car for the road ahead (future).

These must have been some of the concerns of the disciples as they pondered Jesus’ words “Follow me.” Will you help me steer this movement toward God’s goal? Or will you stay behind and look back at where we’ve already been?

These are questions involving choices, intentions, and effort. We could look at these four disciples and see them as bold heroes because they decided to follow Jesus. Look what they did! Look at their courage, their daring, and their resolve! But when we read the story carefully, we see that it doesn’t focus on details of their internal process. The story doesn’t talk about their human efforts. After Jesus says, “Follow me,” the story simply says, “Immediately they left their nets and followed him.” Immediately! It seems that there is a Force at work here, larger than the will and effort of these four men.

With our very human response, we might look at these four disciples and say, “How could they do this? How could they leave their work, their families and friends to go travel with Jesus? How could they do it?”

And maybe our best answer is: They didn’t do it. God did it. We can place too much emphasis on the will power, the choice, of the disciples. But this is not a story of the disciples’ heroic deeds. This is the story of God’s persuasive power to change people’s lives. This is a story of God’s initiative, God moving “right up to a quartet of fishermen and working a miracle, creating faith where there was no faith, creating disciples where there were none just a moment before.” (Barbara Brown Taylor, p. 40, Home By Another Way)

There are times in our lives—defining moments—when God moves us to do things that we, by our own will and effort, would never do. We find ourselves called—nudged, pushed, carried in a direction that we didn’t know we would go.

My father spent 40 years as a truck driver, steering an 18-wheeler truck and trailer to deliver textiles from Carolina to New England. I thought trucking was a great profession. Maybe I would be a truck driver like my dad! But something happened that surprised me. I got nudged, called, carried in the direction of ministry. I liked people, loved the church; and somehow I heard the message through sermons and songs that touched my heart. “Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling, calling for you and for me.” Sometimes we get pulled along in directions we did not expect to go. Jonah didn’t want to go to Ninevah; but he received a call after spending three days in the belly of a whale. Now that’s a dramatic call—a “whale of a call.” Most of us don’t get that kind of dramatic call, but we might hear the call “softly and tenderly.”

After college and divinity school, I began my ministry in the church in 1969 at Pullen Memorial Church in Raleigh. Now 43 years later I will conclude my parish ministry on March 4, 2012. But you know that I’m not one to sit still for very long. The call that I’ve been sensing for some time now is to devote more time and energy to helping alleviate the escalating poverty in our city. We now have 27% of Durham children living in poverty, and 18 percent of adult in poverty. This is shameful and unacceptable, and I hope to help mobilize congregations to be more involved in assisting our low income residents move from poverty to self-sufficiency. Like my earlier call to ministry, this has been a slow, evolving process—a gradual nudging, nagging, and prompting.

I believe God is still in the business of calling people. Jesus is still saying to us, “Follow me.” But sometimes we may think that Jesus is asking us to leave everything to follow. It seems to me that the story of the call of the first disciples is inviting each of us to be attentive to the particular ways God is leading/prompting/nudging each of us.

Sometimes the “follow me” words may call us not to leave home, but to stay home for a particular mission—caring for aging parents or small children, taking on a mission at work or in the local community—or here at church.

Speaking of calls, we may feel a call to teach children in our church school. We may hear “follow me” as a call to be a Church Council member—to help make decisions to guide this church into the future. We may feel a call to be a deacon, to spend time enjoying, learning from, and building relationships with the remarkable people who are members of this church. We may feel a call to work with our worship services or provide hospitality, sing in our Choir, or work in one of our twelve mission groups.

In the weeks ahead of us, we may receive a phone call from our Gifts and Call Committee. When that call comes, from Emily McCoy or other members of the Committee, we may feel as surprised as Peter and Andrew, or James and John. We may feel, as they must have felt, that we don’t have the right credentials, experience or ability to do what Jesus needs. But remember that they opened themselves to the call. They were willing to be led, to be carried by the current of God’s energy. And they grew into the job.

“Follow me,” Jesus said. Those four guys didn’t exactly know what that would mean for their future. But immediately they knew inside that God was at work.

What about you and me? What is the mission to which you feel called?

Discussion: Called

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