All the time in the world
Commentary
As a rule, you can tell how much time a person has by how quickly they move. Of course, there are also some idiosyncrasies of personal temperament that factor into how quickly a person moves. All else being equal, though, a person will move and act with a manifestly greater sense of urgency when he has little time.
It's a rare traveler who runs down the concourse at the airport when he has a long layover ahead of him. And, it's an equally rare person who drives casually, even ponderously, when he's running late for an appointment.
One of the great tests of personal patience comes when we are in more of a hurry than the people around us. If we are short on time as we drive, it's a great frustration to be behind someone who seems to be in no hurry at all. Likewise, we may become fidgety and unpleasant if we are in a hurry while the clerk, cashier, or server is functioning slowly, as though they had all the time in the world.
When the football team that is ahead has the ball during the final two minutes, the players move very deliberately, taking their time. When the football team that is behind has the ball during the final two minutes, however, the players move with speed, urgency, and efficiency.
In most instances, it is a relatively simple read of body language to identify whether a person is in a hurry or not. The question, then, is what our body language as Christians communicates about how much time we have.
The prevailing conviction in the New Testament is that time is short. Jesus' followers, therefore, are challenged to live with a corresponding urgency and purposefulness. After two millennia, however, we may be hard to convince that the time is short. Consequently, we may live and serve like people who have all the time in the world.
Jonah 3:1-5, 10
The first verse of our selected Old Testament passage inadvertently reveals one of the great themes of the book of Jonah: "The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time." In that "second time" we are confronted by God's grace.
The Word of the Lord had already come to Jonah once, and he responded with blatant disobedience. What should be done about that? When the soldier is insubordinate, does his commander just give the order a second time? Not likely. The insubordination results in a different kind of order being given.
Yet, this commander, deserving more, tolerates less. He does not dismiss the prophet who tried to dismiss him. He does not smite Jonah, but graciously harasses him back into obedience. Twenty-seven hundred years before, poet Francis Thompson wrote "The Hound of Heaven," Jonah lived it ...
I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him ...
Still with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbed pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy
Came on the following Feet,
And a Voice above their beat --
"Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me."
Like the unforgiving servant in Jesus' parable (Matthew 18:23-34), however, the Lord's attitude toward Jonah does not seem to influence Jonah's attitude toward the Ninevites at all. Though he himself had been the beneficiary of God's gracious "second time," Jonah resented the same mercy being extended to the hated people of Nineveh (Jonah 3:6--4:2).
The writer reports that "the people of Nineveh believed God." The phrase itself reveals a bit of the Old Testament's understanding of the role of a prophet. Technically, the people of Nineveh had not met, seen, or heard God. Yet they believed him. How? By believing what was proclaimed to them through a prophet of God -- even a severely flawed one.
The other noteworthy thing about that phrase -- "the people of Nineveh believed God" -- is that it is essentially the same phrase that Paul hangs his doctrinal hat on in Romans (see 4:3) and Galatians (see 3:6). He makes his case about the primacy of faith for salvation by pointing to the account from Genesis that Abraham "believed the Lord, and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness" (15:6). So, too, in Nineveh. The people believed God, and that became their salvation.
Finally, while we embrace the familiar truth of this passage -- that God was merciful, both to his recalcitrant prophet and to the wicked but ignorant Ninevites -- we may be less comfortable with the accompanying truth: namely, that "God changed his mind."
As post-enlightenment Christians in the west, we are naturally disposed to think of the Deity in more philosophical terms, emphasizing his otherness. The down-to-earth testimony of scripture, however, is often embarrassing in its emphasis on the essential sameness of God -- that is, typically human emotions, motivations, and actions that are attributed to God. We call the phenomenon anthropomorphizing -- projecting our human attributes onto God. What we cannot say with certainty, however, is where the anthropomorphizing leaves off and where the "created in his image" begins. Are these qualities attributed to God by human beings? Or are these qualities found in human beings because they are originally a part of God?
I expect that we human beings are impossible to please on this difficult point. If we affirm that God changes his mind (see Exodus 32:12, 14; Jeremiah 18:8-10; 26:3, 13, 19), then we are inclined to question his omniscience and immutability. If, on the other hand, we affirm that God does not change his mind (see Numbers 23:19; 1 Samuel 15:29), we may fall into an undesirable fatalism and question the purpose of intercessory prayer.
Commenting on the occasion in Exodus when "God changed his mind," John Wesley wrote: "See the compassion of God toward poor sinners, and how ready he is to forgive." For God to change his mind is not for him to change his nature. Neither circumstances nor our prayers will prompt him to divorce his character or his will. Yet within his will it seems there may be more than one option, more than one plan. His plan for Nineveh in Jonah's day clearly changed; his will did not change, at all.
1 Corinthians 7:29-31
The larger context of this brief excerpt from 1 Corinthians 7 is Paul's discussion of Christian marriage. The whole epistle is arranged around a series of questions and problems: problems within the Corinthian church that have been reported to Paul, and questions from the believers there that he endeavors to answer. Here, the apostle addresses himself to the people's questions and concerns about marriage.
The striking thing about the movement of Paul's teaching, as reflected especially in our lection, is the presumption of an end-of-time context with its attendant implications. Situational ethics supposes that how we should behave depends upon the particulars of our situation, and in a sense that perspective was a part of Paul's thinking, too. That is to say, how we Christians live, ought to reflect the fact of our situation: namely, that "the appointed time has grown short."
A few Christian friends of mine, who were attending college in Ohio, had spent their spring break in Florida. They returned predictably tan. After only a few days back in the frozen north, however, their tans began to fade and peel. I remember two of the girls mournfully singing a dc talk chorus as they looked in the mirror: "Things of this world are passin' away / Here tomorrow, but they're sure not here to stay."
Not all the things of this world seem so fragile and temporary as a tan, but I suppose that from eternity's perspective they are. The problem for us, trapped in our mortality and finitude, is that we do not always perceive this world's passing. "Every day the world gets older," wrote Ambrosiaster. The tanned skin may change unmistakably before our eyes. Other things of this world, though, may seem much more permanent to us. Still, Paul assures the Corinthians that "the present form of this world is passing away." It is fading and peeling all around us, whether we perceive it or not.
At first blush, Paul's counsel seems impossible. In matters of marriage and possessions, in both our grieving and our rejoicing, we are called upon to be whatever we are not, or not to be whatever we are. What a strange and unreasonable ethic, but then we observe the logic of the pattern.
This is not a typical ethic: an exhortation to be good rather than bad. Instead, it is a challenge simply to be other than what we are: to replace whatever our present prevailing reality may be with a different one. Our present reality may not be a bad thing. It may, in fact, be a good thing, like marriage or rejoicing. Still, something else endeavors to eclipse it.
In the larger context of New Testament teachings, we might label that new reality as "kingdom reality." That is the great resonance between this passage from Paul and Jesus' beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12). All across the board -- from Jesus' out-of-this-world ethical instructions ... to Peter's counsel to suffering Christians ... from Revelation's encouragement ... to persecuted believers ... to Paul's instructions here to the Corinthians -- we are invited to live in light of the truth that "the present form of this world is passing away."
Mark 1:14-20
John the Baptist appears by name in all four gospels. That, incidentally, is more than some of the disciples can claim, as well as the Wise Men from the east, any of the notables such as Herod, Lazarus, Caiaphas, and assorted others. Indeed, while John's appearance in Mark's Gospel is comparatively brief, he is the one with whom Mark begins the whole gospel story (see Mark 1:2-9).
Mark suggests a more sequential relationship between John's ministry and Jesus, while other gospel accounts report more of an overlap. In any case, Mark summarizes the beginning of Jesus' public ministry with several significant phrases.
"Proclaiming the good news" might also be translated "preaching the gospel" (as it is, for example, in the King James Version). So it is that Jesus' followers, in this and many other ways, carry on our master's ministry.
"The time is fulfilled" is a compelling image. In Matthew's Gospel, we are more acquainted with the scriptures, or prophecy, or the law being fulfilled. But here we bump up against the New Testament's theology of time, if you will. Just as a parent will announce that it's time to eat, or time to take a bath, or time to go to bed, the preaching of John and of Jesus presumes that the Father has announced that "it's time...."
"The kingdom of God has come near" is, in my experience, one of the great neglected themes in so many churches. Ask most church folks what the central themes of Jesus' teachings were and I suspect that love, forgiveness, and the golden rule would top the lists. They might list a half-dozen other themes still without getting around to the kingdom of God, and yet that is a central issue in Mark's summary of Jesus' message. It is also prominent in the Lord's Prayer, and it is the recurring subject of Jesus' parables.
"Repent" is Jesus' first imperative. "Believe" will come next. "Follow me" will come soon. And variations on "love" will recur. But the first instruction is to repent. It is the necessary first step, for it is the step away from our sin and toward our God.
"Believe the good news" is the grand invitation. Sometimes a friend or coworker will preface a conversation by saying, "I've got good news and bad news." Jesus, meanwhile, comes along and says, "I've got good news, and you are invited to believe it." As we saw above with the Ninevites (and elsewhere with Abraham), believing is the key. On the other hand, there is an undeniable human tendency not to believe good news (see, for example, Exodus 6:9; 2 Kings 7:1-2).
Finally, Mark reports the call of the first disciples. It is the familiar scene along the shores of Galilee -- two sets of brother-fishermen, all responding to Jesus' call to follow and to fish anew.
These first disciples stand in dramatic contrast to other, would-be disciples, and by comparing the sad stories of other men -- men who failed to follow Jesus -- we see more clearly the hallmarks of true disciples. Simon, Andrew, James, and John, for example, have an immediacy to their response. Jesus calls, and they come. There is not the hesitation or delay that characterizes the would-be followers of Luke 9:59-62. Likewise, the account of these fishermen who followed Jesus makes explicit the people and things that they left behind in order to follow him. The aforementioned would-be's could not tear themselves away from the people, and the rich young ruler (Matthew 19:16-22) was too attached to his things. "But first" is the motto of all those who end up not following Jesus, while the true disciples demonstrate by their actions that Jesus is first of all.
Application
As I sit intently watching the end of a football game, my wife knows better than to try to engage me in conversation. We have been married long enough for her to anticipate that I will be a distracted conversationalist during the crucial final minutes of a game. Wondering how long she will have to wait to have her husband back, she will ask, "How much time is left in the game?" "Just two minutes," I might respond. "Yes," she says, "but how much time is really left?"
When there are two minutes left in the first or second half of a football game, the officials will give a "two-minute warning" to each team. Theoretically, that means there are just 120 seconds left until the end. In reality, however, those final two minutes might last for fifteen or twenty actual minutes.
Likewise, when John the Baptist and Jesus came on the scene proclaiming that the kingdom of God was near, they were sounding a kind of cosmic two-minute warning. "The time is fulfilled," Jesus announces. "The appointed time has grown short," Paul echoes. And thus we hear the referees blowing the whistle to signal that the game is coming to an end.
The final two minutes, of course, are the end of the game. Not "the end" as a point, but as a period, a final phase. The two-minute warning, therefore, marks the beginning of the end. And this was, in effect, what John, Paul, and Jesus all announced.
At another level, of course, that is the same sort of warning that Jonah was giving to the people of Nineveh. It was a local rather than a cosmic two-minute warning, but it was, nonetheless, a signal that this was the beginning of the end for them and their town.
As a fan, there is nothing quite so maddening as seeing your team acting sluggish when they ought to be hustling. And, when it's the final two minutes, you particularly want to see a sense of urgency in the players.
With the prevailing theme of "time" in this week's passages, it is time to ask ourselves whether the church is acting sluggish. Are we moving with purpose, efficiency, and urgency? Or have we slowed down because these final two minutes have taken so very long? Are we living and behaving like people who have heard the two-minute warning, or like people who have all the time in the world?
Alternative Applications
1) Mark 1:14-20. "Following Orders." In our treatment of the Gospel Lesson above, we noted the series of imperatives expressed by Jesus. That series could be given a fuller treatment in a sermon, for the order is significant.
We identified "repent" as the proper first step. Likewise, "believe the good news" is elemental to our salvation. We do not arrive at belief and park there, however. Faith is followed by discipleship -- "follow me." And even that personal relationship and loyalty is not the end of the matter, for there remains the calling to "fish for people."
If your congregation either needs to learn or to be reminded of the basic steps of the Christian life, the imperatives in the Mark passage provide a good opportunity.
2) Jonah 3:1-5, 10; Mark 1:14-20. "What To Believe." Jesus' exhortation in the Gospel Lesson is this: "Believe the good news." We have noted above the sweetness of that invitation, as well as the fallen human tendency to disbelieve good news.
Meanwhile, as we set this week's passages side by side, we are struck by the faith of the Ninevites. They, too, believed and were saved, but we can't really say that they believed the good news. Jonah -- partly because of his assignment, and perhaps partly also because of his preferences and prejudices -- did not bring "good news" to Nineveh. Indeed, he brought quite bad news: "Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!" Nevertheless, the news came from God, and the people believed God.
Whether the doctor tells me that I am in excellent health or that I need some serious surgery, I do well to believe him. Whatever he tells me -- whether the message is welcome or not -- I can be assured that it is for my good.
I counseled recently with a married man who was contemplating an extra-marital affair. I trust that, in coming to me, he had some sense of what he was likely to hear, and that his coming was some proof of what he wanted to hear. Still, what I told him could not have been an easy message to receive. Even so, whether the news is good or bad on the surface, if it comes from God, then we should believe, and we can be assured that it is for our good.
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 62:5-12
The storybooks of our faith are full of heroes and martyrs who have insisted on the sovereignty of God in their lives. From the biblical account of Stephen succumbing to a hail of stones right up to the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero, these stories populate the landscape of Christendom. Yet, in our contemporary lives we set ourselves strangely apart from them. The Greek word, of course, is martus, meaning "witness."
Today, however, martyrdom has been shunted aside as something best dealt with on a psychologist's couch. People are diagnosed as having a martyr complex, with the notion of standing resolutely for something fading to black on our television screen consciousness.
It's true. Those who insist on maintaining God as their "rock and their salvation," who place their hope and their trust in God alone, are usually a stubborn lot, and stubborn people don't often fare well in the mainstream of reality. Indeed, it's been said that if Stephen were a little more agreeable, slightly more malleable, that he might well have been spared. Indeed, if Archbishop Romero had tempered his homilies against the death squads, he too might still be serving Eucharist, instead of lying prone amidst the wine and the host.
Yet, in all this it must be said that ours is such a faith. This psalm lays it on our doorstep and dares us to step over it on our way into the rest of our lives. We read that God is our deliverer; that our trust is to be in God and no one else, and carrying on, we learn that power belongs to God. Not to guns or government, not to market forces or police forces, but to God and God alone. Extreme, you say? Perhaps. But such a sentiment hardly exists in isolation within our tradition. Check out the first of the Ten Commandments for starters.
For us this is no easy walk in the park. In the midst of lives where a host of entities compete for our loyalty, how do we wait upon "God alone"? While we may not wish to put our confidence in extortion or robbery, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to look around and see that much of the world does. What, we are left to ask, is a Christian to do? How are we to place our trust in God and God alone? How do we live fully and faithfully before our God?
Perhaps, as it has throughout our history, the answer begins in community. Maybe faithfulness starts in the context of love and trust in the congregation. Could it be that relationships formed in faith and lived out in covenant are where our faithfulness to God begins? It would seem that the answer needs to be, "Yes."
Do such leanings leave us out on a limb? Probably, but if the branch breaks, at least we know where our prayers will be going.
It's a rare traveler who runs down the concourse at the airport when he has a long layover ahead of him. And, it's an equally rare person who drives casually, even ponderously, when he's running late for an appointment.
One of the great tests of personal patience comes when we are in more of a hurry than the people around us. If we are short on time as we drive, it's a great frustration to be behind someone who seems to be in no hurry at all. Likewise, we may become fidgety and unpleasant if we are in a hurry while the clerk, cashier, or server is functioning slowly, as though they had all the time in the world.
When the football team that is ahead has the ball during the final two minutes, the players move very deliberately, taking their time. When the football team that is behind has the ball during the final two minutes, however, the players move with speed, urgency, and efficiency.
In most instances, it is a relatively simple read of body language to identify whether a person is in a hurry or not. The question, then, is what our body language as Christians communicates about how much time we have.
The prevailing conviction in the New Testament is that time is short. Jesus' followers, therefore, are challenged to live with a corresponding urgency and purposefulness. After two millennia, however, we may be hard to convince that the time is short. Consequently, we may live and serve like people who have all the time in the world.
Jonah 3:1-5, 10
The first verse of our selected Old Testament passage inadvertently reveals one of the great themes of the book of Jonah: "The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time." In that "second time" we are confronted by God's grace.
The Word of the Lord had already come to Jonah once, and he responded with blatant disobedience. What should be done about that? When the soldier is insubordinate, does his commander just give the order a second time? Not likely. The insubordination results in a different kind of order being given.
Yet, this commander, deserving more, tolerates less. He does not dismiss the prophet who tried to dismiss him. He does not smite Jonah, but graciously harasses him back into obedience. Twenty-seven hundred years before, poet Francis Thompson wrote "The Hound of Heaven," Jonah lived it ...
I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him ...
Still with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbed pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy
Came on the following Feet,
And a Voice above their beat --
"Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me."
Like the unforgiving servant in Jesus' parable (Matthew 18:23-34), however, the Lord's attitude toward Jonah does not seem to influence Jonah's attitude toward the Ninevites at all. Though he himself had been the beneficiary of God's gracious "second time," Jonah resented the same mercy being extended to the hated people of Nineveh (Jonah 3:6--4:2).
The writer reports that "the people of Nineveh believed God." The phrase itself reveals a bit of the Old Testament's understanding of the role of a prophet. Technically, the people of Nineveh had not met, seen, or heard God. Yet they believed him. How? By believing what was proclaimed to them through a prophet of God -- even a severely flawed one.
The other noteworthy thing about that phrase -- "the people of Nineveh believed God" -- is that it is essentially the same phrase that Paul hangs his doctrinal hat on in Romans (see 4:3) and Galatians (see 3:6). He makes his case about the primacy of faith for salvation by pointing to the account from Genesis that Abraham "believed the Lord, and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness" (15:6). So, too, in Nineveh. The people believed God, and that became their salvation.
Finally, while we embrace the familiar truth of this passage -- that God was merciful, both to his recalcitrant prophet and to the wicked but ignorant Ninevites -- we may be less comfortable with the accompanying truth: namely, that "God changed his mind."
As post-enlightenment Christians in the west, we are naturally disposed to think of the Deity in more philosophical terms, emphasizing his otherness. The down-to-earth testimony of scripture, however, is often embarrassing in its emphasis on the essential sameness of God -- that is, typically human emotions, motivations, and actions that are attributed to God. We call the phenomenon anthropomorphizing -- projecting our human attributes onto God. What we cannot say with certainty, however, is where the anthropomorphizing leaves off and where the "created in his image" begins. Are these qualities attributed to God by human beings? Or are these qualities found in human beings because they are originally a part of God?
I expect that we human beings are impossible to please on this difficult point. If we affirm that God changes his mind (see Exodus 32:12, 14; Jeremiah 18:8-10; 26:3, 13, 19), then we are inclined to question his omniscience and immutability. If, on the other hand, we affirm that God does not change his mind (see Numbers 23:19; 1 Samuel 15:29), we may fall into an undesirable fatalism and question the purpose of intercessory prayer.
Commenting on the occasion in Exodus when "God changed his mind," John Wesley wrote: "See the compassion of God toward poor sinners, and how ready he is to forgive." For God to change his mind is not for him to change his nature. Neither circumstances nor our prayers will prompt him to divorce his character or his will. Yet within his will it seems there may be more than one option, more than one plan. His plan for Nineveh in Jonah's day clearly changed; his will did not change, at all.
1 Corinthians 7:29-31
The larger context of this brief excerpt from 1 Corinthians 7 is Paul's discussion of Christian marriage. The whole epistle is arranged around a series of questions and problems: problems within the Corinthian church that have been reported to Paul, and questions from the believers there that he endeavors to answer. Here, the apostle addresses himself to the people's questions and concerns about marriage.
The striking thing about the movement of Paul's teaching, as reflected especially in our lection, is the presumption of an end-of-time context with its attendant implications. Situational ethics supposes that how we should behave depends upon the particulars of our situation, and in a sense that perspective was a part of Paul's thinking, too. That is to say, how we Christians live, ought to reflect the fact of our situation: namely, that "the appointed time has grown short."
A few Christian friends of mine, who were attending college in Ohio, had spent their spring break in Florida. They returned predictably tan. After only a few days back in the frozen north, however, their tans began to fade and peel. I remember two of the girls mournfully singing a dc talk chorus as they looked in the mirror: "Things of this world are passin' away / Here tomorrow, but they're sure not here to stay."
Not all the things of this world seem so fragile and temporary as a tan, but I suppose that from eternity's perspective they are. The problem for us, trapped in our mortality and finitude, is that we do not always perceive this world's passing. "Every day the world gets older," wrote Ambrosiaster. The tanned skin may change unmistakably before our eyes. Other things of this world, though, may seem much more permanent to us. Still, Paul assures the Corinthians that "the present form of this world is passing away." It is fading and peeling all around us, whether we perceive it or not.
At first blush, Paul's counsel seems impossible. In matters of marriage and possessions, in both our grieving and our rejoicing, we are called upon to be whatever we are not, or not to be whatever we are. What a strange and unreasonable ethic, but then we observe the logic of the pattern.
This is not a typical ethic: an exhortation to be good rather than bad. Instead, it is a challenge simply to be other than what we are: to replace whatever our present prevailing reality may be with a different one. Our present reality may not be a bad thing. It may, in fact, be a good thing, like marriage or rejoicing. Still, something else endeavors to eclipse it.
In the larger context of New Testament teachings, we might label that new reality as "kingdom reality." That is the great resonance between this passage from Paul and Jesus' beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12). All across the board -- from Jesus' out-of-this-world ethical instructions ... to Peter's counsel to suffering Christians ... from Revelation's encouragement ... to persecuted believers ... to Paul's instructions here to the Corinthians -- we are invited to live in light of the truth that "the present form of this world is passing away."
Mark 1:14-20
John the Baptist appears by name in all four gospels. That, incidentally, is more than some of the disciples can claim, as well as the Wise Men from the east, any of the notables such as Herod, Lazarus, Caiaphas, and assorted others. Indeed, while John's appearance in Mark's Gospel is comparatively brief, he is the one with whom Mark begins the whole gospel story (see Mark 1:2-9).
Mark suggests a more sequential relationship between John's ministry and Jesus, while other gospel accounts report more of an overlap. In any case, Mark summarizes the beginning of Jesus' public ministry with several significant phrases.
"Proclaiming the good news" might also be translated "preaching the gospel" (as it is, for example, in the King James Version). So it is that Jesus' followers, in this and many other ways, carry on our master's ministry.
"The time is fulfilled" is a compelling image. In Matthew's Gospel, we are more acquainted with the scriptures, or prophecy, or the law being fulfilled. But here we bump up against the New Testament's theology of time, if you will. Just as a parent will announce that it's time to eat, or time to take a bath, or time to go to bed, the preaching of John and of Jesus presumes that the Father has announced that "it's time...."
"The kingdom of God has come near" is, in my experience, one of the great neglected themes in so many churches. Ask most church folks what the central themes of Jesus' teachings were and I suspect that love, forgiveness, and the golden rule would top the lists. They might list a half-dozen other themes still without getting around to the kingdom of God, and yet that is a central issue in Mark's summary of Jesus' message. It is also prominent in the Lord's Prayer, and it is the recurring subject of Jesus' parables.
"Repent" is Jesus' first imperative. "Believe" will come next. "Follow me" will come soon. And variations on "love" will recur. But the first instruction is to repent. It is the necessary first step, for it is the step away from our sin and toward our God.
"Believe the good news" is the grand invitation. Sometimes a friend or coworker will preface a conversation by saying, "I've got good news and bad news." Jesus, meanwhile, comes along and says, "I've got good news, and you are invited to believe it." As we saw above with the Ninevites (and elsewhere with Abraham), believing is the key. On the other hand, there is an undeniable human tendency not to believe good news (see, for example, Exodus 6:9; 2 Kings 7:1-2).
Finally, Mark reports the call of the first disciples. It is the familiar scene along the shores of Galilee -- two sets of brother-fishermen, all responding to Jesus' call to follow and to fish anew.
These first disciples stand in dramatic contrast to other, would-be disciples, and by comparing the sad stories of other men -- men who failed to follow Jesus -- we see more clearly the hallmarks of true disciples. Simon, Andrew, James, and John, for example, have an immediacy to their response. Jesus calls, and they come. There is not the hesitation or delay that characterizes the would-be followers of Luke 9:59-62. Likewise, the account of these fishermen who followed Jesus makes explicit the people and things that they left behind in order to follow him. The aforementioned would-be's could not tear themselves away from the people, and the rich young ruler (Matthew 19:16-22) was too attached to his things. "But first" is the motto of all those who end up not following Jesus, while the true disciples demonstrate by their actions that Jesus is first of all.
Application
As I sit intently watching the end of a football game, my wife knows better than to try to engage me in conversation. We have been married long enough for her to anticipate that I will be a distracted conversationalist during the crucial final minutes of a game. Wondering how long she will have to wait to have her husband back, she will ask, "How much time is left in the game?" "Just two minutes," I might respond. "Yes," she says, "but how much time is really left?"
When there are two minutes left in the first or second half of a football game, the officials will give a "two-minute warning" to each team. Theoretically, that means there are just 120 seconds left until the end. In reality, however, those final two minutes might last for fifteen or twenty actual minutes.
Likewise, when John the Baptist and Jesus came on the scene proclaiming that the kingdom of God was near, they were sounding a kind of cosmic two-minute warning. "The time is fulfilled," Jesus announces. "The appointed time has grown short," Paul echoes. And thus we hear the referees blowing the whistle to signal that the game is coming to an end.
The final two minutes, of course, are the end of the game. Not "the end" as a point, but as a period, a final phase. The two-minute warning, therefore, marks the beginning of the end. And this was, in effect, what John, Paul, and Jesus all announced.
At another level, of course, that is the same sort of warning that Jonah was giving to the people of Nineveh. It was a local rather than a cosmic two-minute warning, but it was, nonetheless, a signal that this was the beginning of the end for them and their town.
As a fan, there is nothing quite so maddening as seeing your team acting sluggish when they ought to be hustling. And, when it's the final two minutes, you particularly want to see a sense of urgency in the players.
With the prevailing theme of "time" in this week's passages, it is time to ask ourselves whether the church is acting sluggish. Are we moving with purpose, efficiency, and urgency? Or have we slowed down because these final two minutes have taken so very long? Are we living and behaving like people who have heard the two-minute warning, or like people who have all the time in the world?
Alternative Applications
1) Mark 1:14-20. "Following Orders." In our treatment of the Gospel Lesson above, we noted the series of imperatives expressed by Jesus. That series could be given a fuller treatment in a sermon, for the order is significant.
We identified "repent" as the proper first step. Likewise, "believe the good news" is elemental to our salvation. We do not arrive at belief and park there, however. Faith is followed by discipleship -- "follow me." And even that personal relationship and loyalty is not the end of the matter, for there remains the calling to "fish for people."
If your congregation either needs to learn or to be reminded of the basic steps of the Christian life, the imperatives in the Mark passage provide a good opportunity.
2) Jonah 3:1-5, 10; Mark 1:14-20. "What To Believe." Jesus' exhortation in the Gospel Lesson is this: "Believe the good news." We have noted above the sweetness of that invitation, as well as the fallen human tendency to disbelieve good news.
Meanwhile, as we set this week's passages side by side, we are struck by the faith of the Ninevites. They, too, believed and were saved, but we can't really say that they believed the good news. Jonah -- partly because of his assignment, and perhaps partly also because of his preferences and prejudices -- did not bring "good news" to Nineveh. Indeed, he brought quite bad news: "Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!" Nevertheless, the news came from God, and the people believed God.
Whether the doctor tells me that I am in excellent health or that I need some serious surgery, I do well to believe him. Whatever he tells me -- whether the message is welcome or not -- I can be assured that it is for my good.
I counseled recently with a married man who was contemplating an extra-marital affair. I trust that, in coming to me, he had some sense of what he was likely to hear, and that his coming was some proof of what he wanted to hear. Still, what I told him could not have been an easy message to receive. Even so, whether the news is good or bad on the surface, if it comes from God, then we should believe, and we can be assured that it is for our good.
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 62:5-12
The storybooks of our faith are full of heroes and martyrs who have insisted on the sovereignty of God in their lives. From the biblical account of Stephen succumbing to a hail of stones right up to the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero, these stories populate the landscape of Christendom. Yet, in our contemporary lives we set ourselves strangely apart from them. The Greek word, of course, is martus, meaning "witness."
Today, however, martyrdom has been shunted aside as something best dealt with on a psychologist's couch. People are diagnosed as having a martyr complex, with the notion of standing resolutely for something fading to black on our television screen consciousness.
It's true. Those who insist on maintaining God as their "rock and their salvation," who place their hope and their trust in God alone, are usually a stubborn lot, and stubborn people don't often fare well in the mainstream of reality. Indeed, it's been said that if Stephen were a little more agreeable, slightly more malleable, that he might well have been spared. Indeed, if Archbishop Romero had tempered his homilies against the death squads, he too might still be serving Eucharist, instead of lying prone amidst the wine and the host.
Yet, in all this it must be said that ours is such a faith. This psalm lays it on our doorstep and dares us to step over it on our way into the rest of our lives. We read that God is our deliverer; that our trust is to be in God and no one else, and carrying on, we learn that power belongs to God. Not to guns or government, not to market forces or police forces, but to God and God alone. Extreme, you say? Perhaps. But such a sentiment hardly exists in isolation within our tradition. Check out the first of the Ten Commandments for starters.
For us this is no easy walk in the park. In the midst of lives where a host of entities compete for our loyalty, how do we wait upon "God alone"? While we may not wish to put our confidence in extortion or robbery, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to look around and see that much of the world does. What, we are left to ask, is a Christian to do? How are we to place our trust in God and God alone? How do we live fully and faithfully before our God?
Perhaps, as it has throughout our history, the answer begins in community. Maybe faithfulness starts in the context of love and trust in the congregation. Could it be that relationships formed in faith and lived out in covenant are where our faithfulness to God begins? It would seem that the answer needs to be, "Yes."
Do such leanings leave us out on a limb? Probably, but if the branch breaks, at least we know where our prayers will be going.
