Identity Shifting
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The landscape is beautiful beside the Sea of Galilee. The land is pretty flat
for a few miles outward from the Sea. Then the mountains of Galilee rise up at a small distance behind you, or in front of you, the mountains of Aram—present-day Syria—rise up across the Sea.
So the icon-like painting reproduced on the bulletin today gives us a very stylized landscape. The real thing looks nothing like it.
When I was there, the water in the Sea was calm and cool and fresh. We didn’t
run into any of the fabled Sea of Galilee storms. The weather was hot during the day and cool and breezy at night. And the air was humid, which is something of a novelty in Israel in the summer.
Tall reeds grow at the shoreline and into the water for a few feet. There are
flat rocks and lots of pebbles on the bottom of the Sea. And the little fish dart about in the shallows, eating the algae that grow near the shoreline.
They nip at you when you’re swimming. And overhead there are these big green parrot-like birds, flying and squawking, especially at dawn and dusk.
It’s in this setting that Jesus fished for his first disciples. Jesus’ work was
just getting started. Meanwhile John the Baptist had been arrested and would soon be put to death. It was a time of promise. It was a time of threat.
And Jesus was making his way through that area of northern Israel called the Galilee, saying to the people, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”
A modern paraphrase of the NT puts Jesus’ words this way, “Time’s up! God’s
kingdom is here. Change your life and believe the Message.” [Eugene
Peterson, The Message, Mark 1:15]
Change your life and believe the message. That says it all—that’s the essence of our calling to follow Jesus. Change our lives and believe Jesus’ message that God is love. Fall in love with God in return.
And really live. That’s the message. Life is the message. Love is the message.
Standing on that beautiful shoreline, Jesus told Simon and Andrew that he would make them fish for people. Again our modern paraphrase sheds some light for us. It says, “Come with me. I’ll make a new kind of fisherman out of you. I’ll show you how to catch men and women instead of perch and bass.” [Peterson, The Message, Mark 1:17]
In other words Jesus called these men to new identities. Just as he fished for them, they would fish for other people.
And did you notice that the gospel says they left everything they were doing—just like that—and followed him? It uses the word “immediately.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him.
You can’t get a better response than someone acting immediately on what you had to say. These men decided in a heartbeat.
However, the gospels also give us story after story that shows that they had to keep deciding, again and again, to follow Jesus. Their various issues and personal hurdles got in the way and threatened to get them off course.
As one theologian has said, “Becoming a faithful Christian disciple takes both a moment and a lifetime.” [Elton W. Brown, Feasting on the Word, 3 Epiphany, B, p. 286]
We too are called to a new identity.... by Jesus. He asks us to follow him and
in so doing to be changed. We’re asked to fish for people as well, to carry the message of God’s love and life to people we know and people we have yet to meet.
It necessarily follows that we have to be willing to accept “the new” and to make changes in who we are and how we do things in order to carry out our calling.
The longer we walk the Way with Jesus, the more he gets into our guts and hearts and brains ............... and helps us get our lives in line with his. This is just like the process that the first disciples went through.
Identity shifting is a lifelong process. How we live the Christian life........plays out in all sorts of ways. We may eventually become dissatisfied with how we spend our time or our money. And it may become really clear that there are other things that have become more important to us than what used to matter.
Today’s psalm selection speaks of the ultimate goal of a life lived in answer to Jesus’ call. It proclaims,
“For God alone my soul in silence waits; truly, my hope is in him.
He alone is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold, so that I shall not be shaken.”
As I was thinking about this psalm I was struck by the emphasis that the only person that the psalmist hopes in and trusts...........is God. Only God is worthy of his trust, only God can keep him safe, so that he won’t be shaken.
And I was forced to admit to myself just how far from that I can be. It might not take a lot for someone or something to disrupt my balance, the strong spiritual life I thought I had, and show me just how far I am from the ideal of having all my hope in God.
Is God always my refuge? No, not always. I have a ways to go. But then again, following him is a decision of a moment, and also of a lifetime. I am still working on where to put my trust, with God’s help.
Maybe we all are working on that.
As we think about God’s total call upon our loyalty and our choices, I’d like to offer us a little reflection written by a twentieth-century Jesuit priest: [the Rev. Pedro Arrupe]
Nothing is more practical than finding God,
than falling in Love
in a quite absolute, final way.
What you are in love with,
what seizes your imagination,
will affect everything.
It will decide
what will get you out of bed in the morning,
what you do with your evenings,
how you spend your weekends,
what you read,
whom you know,
what breaks your heart,
and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.
Fall in Love, stay in love,
and it will decide everything.
[Attributed to Fr. Pedro Arrupe, SJ (1907–1991)
Finding God in All Things: A Marquette Prayer Book, quoted in
The Edge of the Enclosure for January 22, 2012,
www.edgeofenclosure.org]
Amen.
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