Its very good to be with you as we come together as Christians Together in Central Peterborough for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity and I bring greetings and blessings from everyone at St John’s in the city centre, and St Luke’s in West Town to you all this morning.
Today, on the 3rd Sunday of Epiphany, our readings present a common theme of God’s call or message to us with an urgent need for a response against a limited time frame.
The reluctant prophet Jonah, who has initially run away from God’s call, gives in when God speaks to him a second time and finally goes to Ninevah to give that riotous city the rather uncomfortable message from God that, in forty days, they shall be overthrown.
Rather unexpectedly, the people pay heed to Jonah and proclaim a fast – and everyone, children and adults, the ordinary city folk and even the king and his household, in fact even the animals – put on sack cloth and ashes and repent.
Jonah, who didn’t want to be a prophet at all, becomes perhaps one of the most successful prophets in the OT! If only all people listened to the words of preachers so attentively and so obediently responded to God!
St Paul’s message to the Corinthains is that they need to recognise that they are in exceptional times and so to be ready to respond if Jesus were to return imminently. The way they manage their personal lives and that of their households should take this into account.
And then in the first chapter of Mark’s Gospel we meet Jesus as he begins his ministry in Galilee. Once again there is a sense of urgency and of the changing of the times – John the Baptist has been arrested and Jesus swings into action:
‘The time is fulfilled – the kingdom of God has come near – repent and believe in the good news.’
Jesus has come hot foot from his own baptism by John in the river Jordan and from his time alone in the wilderness – he is full of the Holy Spirit and clear about his task.
Note how Jonah’s message is of a period of 40 days after which the promised destruction will fall upon Ninevah unless they repent. And Jesus comes from 40 days in the wilderness and calls for repentance from the people of his time.
The Book of Jonah may not be actual fact, but it is a wonderfully true-to-life portrayal of how, as human beings, we do or don’t respond to God.
Paul and the early Christians in Corinth are trying to make sense of how they should live their lives in the light of a whole new relationship with God made evident by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
In all this – time is short! Get on with it! Don’t delay!
Jesus himself displays this same imperative – the time is fulfilled – make your mind up – repent, change your direction of travel, open up your mind and your heart – see God at work here and now – believe in the good news that the kingdom of heaven is right here, right now!
And as he calls his disciples, those who will work with him most closely, and those who will help the people of God understand that here is God doing a new thing among them – what he needs are those who will get this urgency, who will see what is happening before their eyes, who will take the risk and take the jump.
Literally, they jump out of their boats before they even reach the shore – as Peter will do sometime later when he once again, recognises the Lord, in the light of dawn on the Lakeshore in his resurrected strangeness – but now at this, the very beginning, they give their whole selves, their very lives, to Jesus – to God.
‘Follow me, and I will make you fish for people’ he says
And Simon and Andrew immediately leave their nets and follow him.
And James and John immediately leave their nets, their boats and their Father, and follow him.
We are so used to this story that we forget the very real cost to these four fishermen and all who know them and love them, even at this point, let alone all that will come later as the price of following Jesus.
But they are leaving their families, their jobs, their livelihoods, the very things – boats and nets – that are the tools of their trade – without which they cannot earn a living – and so how will they and their families survive?
Even if maybe, what really happened isn’t quite as immediate as Mark makes it out to be – maybe these men had seen Jesus around Galilee for a few days or weeks even, had heard his preaching and were already drawn to him – maybe likewise Jesus had seen them at their work, met them and spoken to them, assessed the sort of people they were before he calls them to follow him and help him in his work.
Even if so, for them to leave all this behind to become a taggle of mismatched people from the wrong side of polite society following a rather wild and way out itinerant preacher – well it was madness, wasn’t it?
How would we respond if, as Paul and the Corinthians thought – Jesus were to return today – if right now he walks into the midst of us here and says ‘Follow me’? Would we drop everything and go? Or would we say ‘well I’ve got a nice roast in the oven, I’ll just go and eat that first – it would be a shame to waste it!’ or ‘how outrageous – a madman in our midst pretending to be the Lord!’ or ‘I’ve got a family to care for and responsibilities – I can’t just walk out on them!’
You see, its not so easy, is it? Perhaps we understand Jonah’s reluctance, his excuses and his running away, a little more!
But as we share together this Week of Prayer for Christian Unity – we need to see how the time is indeed short. We don’t know how long before our Lord does come among us again – but we do know that the world urgently needs its people to hear the good news, to come together to call for peace and an end to war and bloodshed, to care together for those who are poor, dispossessed and displaced, and to work together to protect our earth and our environment.
And more than anything – we need each other if we are to be able to respond at all to the ongoing call of Jesus right here and right now – ‘Follow me’.
‘Lord, make us know your ways, teach us your paths. Lead us together into your truth and teach us together how you would have us be. For you are the God of our salvation and for you we wait, all the day long. Amen.
Service: Reverend Michelle Dalliston. 21st January 2024. (Sermon for All Souls’ Roman Catholic Church on Epiphany 3)
Readings: Jonah 3:1-5, 10, Psalm 62:5-12, 1 Corinthians 7:29-31, Mark 1:14-20.
