January 25, 2015

Linda Murphy 

Epiphany 3     Jonah 3:1-5, 10     Mark 1:14-20

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“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news”

This was is essentially Jesus’ first recorded sermon and typical of Mark’s Jesus, it is concise and there is no explanation or elaboration as to what this means. Nevertheless this is an impassioned call to personal decision and reorientation of one’s whole being. It means a radical change in one’s mind and heart. 

Galilee needed to hear the good news of God. Caesar Augustus was being hailed as the good news for the Mediterranean World of the first century because he brought unity and peace to a divided Roman Empire and a warring world. Conquered nations under Rome were able to conduct their national, cultural and religious life as they pleased as long as their leaders paid taxes to Rome and kept the peace in their territories.

However there were various groups in Palestine that refused to submit to Rome because for them only God had legitimate claim to their land and nation. They conducted uprisings and guerrilla warfare. The so-called Roman peace in Palestine was an uneasy truce at best.

Within this uneasy political environment an itinerant preacher from Nazareth talks about the Kingdom of God coming near and he calls to two local fishermen “Follow me and I will make you fish for people”.

How many of us would leave our homes, our careers and follow such a man? These fishermen left the only life they knew and followed, into an unknown, risky future, reliant on the generosity of strangers for food and shelter.

Let’s look a little more closely at what this Kingdom of God is. It is not referring to an afterlife but a transformed life on earth. The social and political implications of such an understanding are immense. One’s attitude and relationship to the world; nation; family; possessions and occupation are radically impacted when one’s life is opened up to the kingdom of God. One’s social world is no longer defined primarily by one’s biological family but by a community of people who have been shaped by the narrative of the kingdom of God.

To “repent and believe” requires a fundamental reorientation and embracing of a whole new set of values and norms. It will change forever the way in which those who respond – the disciples – will view the world and live in it. It is a call to take up the Struggle against the Strong and all their powers that hold the world and its people captive – sickness, hatred, poverty, discrimination, political and religious authorities.

The call of the disciples to become ‘fishers of people’ has a clear connection to the story of Jonah and his missionary exploits to Nineveh. Both, in their different times and contexts reflect the urgency of making known the boundless and transforming love of God.

Jonah was not that happy about God’s mission for him to go and preach in Nineveh. After all it was a three day walk and they were Assyrians, outsiders. He had been called to expand the membership of believers in God. He had previously refused God and that had ended rather badly, so off he went to Nineveh and the people believed and God decided to forgive them.

The New Year has opened with hideous violence in Paris and there is continued violence in Nigeria and its neighbouring states from Boko Haram while Isis maintains its programme of destruction.

Last week Helen mentioned that she had enrolled in a Continuing Education course to understand Islam. I decided to relook at some books I had read a number of years ago written by Karen Armstrong, Holy War and A History of God, to reacquaint myself with Islamic beliefs.

The Holy War; the crusades and their impact on today’s world, epilogue speaks of the crusades as a developed response to a long period of humiliation and impotence for Christianity during the Dark Ages.” It was a radical new departure, having nothing whatever to do with the pacifist religion of Jesus, but it provided the people of Europe with an ideology that restored their self-respect and made the West a world power.” Karen goes on to say, “Feeling against us runs high in the [Middle East]; it sometimes assumes horrible forms. Nevertheless we have a responsibility to remain calm and perhaps to be more careful of attitudes of prejudice or carelessness…we can no longer afford.”

Karen Armstrong has written a new book – “Fields of Blood”, and while I am yet to read it I read a review that she spoke of our secularisation having been applied by force in many regions by Western occupation has provoked a fundamentalist reaction – and history shows that fundamentalist movements which come under attack invariably grow even more extreme.

Reflecting on these words from Karen written over a period of sixteen years, Mark’s gospel resonates.

Jesus’ message of the kingdom gave hope to a disenfranchised Palestine and the fishermen Simon, Andrew, James and John followed as the alternative was not living life as the Torah instructed.

Are the followers of Isis, Boko Haram and other insurgent groups not exhibiting similar desperate behaviour?

How do we respond to these act of violence? Some respond with grace and mercy while others have respond with vile assumptions and hateful rhetoric.

We in our democratic nations have the right to freedom of speech. None of us however have the right to attack others for their beliefs with violence or hatred.

I think this is a unique opportunity to look at our behaviour towards others and this is something we can consider now in the time of Epiphany and its divine revealing.

This week we have lost the theologian Marcus Borg. Many of you will have read his work or heard him quoted from this pulpit and I would like to read one of his quotations.

“To be Christian means to find decisive revelation of God in Jesus. To be Muslim means to find the decisive revelation of God in the Koran. To be Jewish means to find the decisive revelation of God in the Torah, and so forth… To be Christian in this kind of context means to be deeply committed to one’s own tradition, even as one recognizes the validity of other traditions.”

The Kingdom of God comes with repentance and that repentance requires change and transformation. Cynthia Bourgeault in her book “The Wisdom Jesus” suggests that to achieve the kingdom, requires a whole new way of looking at the world. It requires a transformation of awareness that literally turns the world into a different place.

We may have some exploring and transforming ahead of us this year.