Mark 1:14-20

The little song we've been singing during this Epiphany season goes: "I am the light of the world! You people come and follow me! If you follow and love, you'll learn the myst'ry of what you were meant to do and be!"

We Christians are the come-and-follow people! And this call to follow Jesus that comes to us now, in the early days of the dawning 21st century, is the very same call that fell upon the ears of Peter and Andrew, and James and John as they mended their nets on the shore of the Sea of Galilee.

And Mark tells us what Peter and Andrew did when they heard the call to come and follow.

And it was essentially the same for James and John.

This morning, I want to chat with you for a few minutes about a side to the come and follow me invitation that we sometimes overlook. And that is that, to truly follow Jesus, there are some things that you and I must leave behind. In this earliest of all stories about people responding to the Jesus call, we are left with a picture of some things laying abandoned along the shore. In one case, it's fishing nets. In the other, it's a father, some employees, and a fishing boat. You see, to follow Jesus requires us to leave some things behind.

What are some of the things you think you might need to leave behind in order to follow Jesus?

When God's calling to ministry began to crystallize in my own life, I was a sophomore in college. Almost immediately, I intuitively realized that there were some things connected with my life that now had to go, or at least be modified. Most of those things had to do with behavioral issues - like sleeping late and not going to church on Sunday, and swearing, smoking, drinking, being mean, thinking forbidden thoughts, cheating, making fun of people, pulling pranks that hurt others, and on and on. And most of us could probably make a pretty good list of things we know we need to put behind us in order to effectively follow and represent Jesus. And we ought to encourage each other to make those changes where necessary. After all, we are ambassadors for Christ.

But sometimes, behavioral piety has a dark side, too. Jesus once described the religious authorities of his day as whited sepulchres. In other words, they were people who were morally and theologically upright, whose lives seemed to be white-as-snow on the outside, but they were black-as-death on the inside. In other words, sometimes what passes for righteousness turns out to be nothing more than a smokescreen for deeper, more evil components of our lives.

Last week, on the Monday holiday, I was reading through some stories about Martin Luther King, Jr. What struck me in particular was the fact that Dr. King had no intention at all of becoming a leader in the struggle for Civil Rights. He saw himself more as a scholar, a teacher. In fact, Martin used to dream about one day possibly becoming the president of Morehouse College. But the event that changed the course of his life occurred when, in his first pastorate, Dr. King - like everyone else in the city - was drawn into the Montgomery bus boycott. And, in a moment when the conflict was at its height, when the boycotters were in disarray and their opponents seemed to be gaining the upper hand, the parsonage telephone rang. King answered the phone. The voice on the other end said, "You'd better get out of town, nigger, or we're going to kill you."

The voice sent a chill through his soul, and young Martin King was thrown into despair. For the first time ever, he felt like giving up. Afraid for himself and especially afraid for his wife and children, Martin cried out to God, "I can't go on! I just can't go on!"

And, in the silence that followed, Martin Luther King, Jr. heard a voice that he believed was the voice of God. "Martin, stand up for right, stand up for justice, and I will never, ever leave you."

Now, the glorious side of this story is how Dr. King abandoned his fear - just like the disciples abandoned their nets - to go and follow Jesus. Sometimes, you have to do that to be faithful. But what I want to direct your attention to is not the good example, but the bad example. What I hope you can see here is the underside of this story. For you know as well as I do that the person who made that hate-filled call threatening to kill Martin Luther King, Jr. and his family may well have been a deacon in one of the local churches. After all, the Christian churches themselves were one of the most predominant sources of racial hatred. A fine, upstanding Baptist, or Methodist, or Presbyterian, or Catholic, or Congregationalist may well have been the person who made that call!

White-as-snow on the behavioral outside. But dark as night where it really counts.

Oh, to come and follow Jesus is not just to contend with superficial behavioral issues that make our lives look clean and righteous on the outside. No, to come and follow Jesus is to come to grips with the twisted roots of evil that have penetrated the deepest soil of our very souls. And to make the decision to extract those roots from our lives. No matter the cost.

There are many illustrations of this in the Bible. The story of Jonah is one of the best. Remember the story? God asked Jonah to go and preach to the people of Ninevah. As a city, they were defying the purposes of God. They mistreated the poor and the weak. God needed someone to go and tell them to turn around and repent, or they'd destroy themselves. Judgment would come! So God chose Jonah.

Well, Jonah responded to this calling in the same way that I would if I were in his shoes. Maybe the same way you would, too. He got on a ship and bought himself a one-way ticket to as far away from Ninevah as he could get! He ran away from the calling! And you know about the storm at sea, and how Jonah owned up to the fact that the big waves that threatened the ship he was on were probably because God was ticked off at him for not going to Ninevah. And the crew of the boat, to save themselves, threw Jonah overboard to drown which - to Jonah - was probably still a better option than having to go to Ninevah to preach the word! And so Jonah sank down into the depths of the sea.

But God appointed a fish. A big fish. A REALLY big fish. And that big fish went after Jonah like a catfish after a stinkbait. And the big fish swallowed Jonah whole!

But, you know, there are some people in the world whose personalities are so negative and critical and self-absorbed that even a fish can't digest them. And, with a mighty heave, that big fish vomited out old Jonah with such force that he shot out of the sea like a Trident missile, and splashed down smack dab on the shore. And when he opened his eyes, I like to think that a dazed Jonah saw a sign that read, "Ninevah - 1 mile".

And you know the rest of the story. Jonah relents and does God's will. He preaches to the people of Ninevah and tells them to repent. And lo and behold, they DO repent! They institute reforms that bring justice to the needy among them. It's even better than a Billy Graham Crusade! They ALL come forward. And change their ways. And return to God. And the city is spared from destruction!

And in the last scene of the story, Jonah just sits there on a bluff overlooking the city. And he's mad. He's mad at life. And he's mad at God. He says to the Lord, "That's why I didn't want to come here in the first place. I knew you'd change your mind, and forgive them! That's how you ARE! And I can't stand it!"

A Lutheran preacher by the name of Mary Anderson points out that those who are called to follow Jesus are called to leave behind the very kinds of inner baggage that Jonah was unable to relinquish. You see, the punch line of this Old Testament comedy is that Jonah resists the calling of God for a very simple reason. He simply objects to God's mercy!

And do you know what? So do I. For the life of me, I just cannot understand why God extends his offer of mercy to capital murderers. But God does. I cannot rationalize why God will make the last first - especially those who are last because of their own decisions and lack of responsibility. But God will. I cannot fathom that God loves and seeks to redeem those who live immorally. But God does that, too. I cannot comprehend how God can extend blessing and wisdom and redemption to those who don't even believe in him. And yet, God does. Oh, I don't want to believe that God wants to save everyone and has every intention of doing it! Like Jonah, I want God to throw the switch on the unrighteous and save the righteous! I want some people to go to hell and be excluded from the Kingdom! Don't you?

But God's mercy flows into our world like a powerful stream of water searching for a dry piece of earth to irrigate. God loves even those I despise, and extends the hand of mercy to all. And people like Jonah - and me - and maybe people like you, too - face a choice.

Are we willing to leave behind that net of our objection to God's mercy - to go and follow Jesus?

You see, the greatest challenges of discipleship are not issues of personal piety. The greatest challenges of discipleship are confronting and overcoming the sinful, destructive attitudes we hold and with which we fight against God and his work every step of the way. How easy it is to be superficially righteous while we actually live as enemies of God.

You can't follow Jesus by relying on the standards of the world. You can't follow Jesus while you let your actions be shaped by the world's stereotypical views of other people. You have to leave all that behind on the shore and let Jesus lead you to new understandings of how God sees life, of how God sees people.

I was reminded this week of that very provocative illustration of what the world really looks like. You know how it goes. If you could shrink the earth's population to a village of just 100 people, with all the existing human ratios, what would it look like?

Well, of the 100 people, 57 would be Asian, 21 European, 14 North or South American, and 8 Africans.

Most of the people -70 of the 100 - would be non-white.

Less than one-third of the people would be Christian.

A full 50% of this entire world's wealth would be in the hands of only 6 people.

All 6 of those people who control half the world's wealth would be Americans.

70 of the people would be illiterate. Only 30 would be able to read.

50 of them would suffer from chronic malnutrition and hunger.

Most of the people in this village - 80 of the 100 - would live in sub-standard housing or be homeless.

Only 1 would have a college education.

Now, when I look at a breakdown like this, I find my heart deeply troubled. This is not the world as I see it living in my little corner of Tellico Village. But it is the world as God sees it. And if it is true that God is working hard to save this world, then I've got a lot of work to do sorting through attitudes and prejudices and value systems that are very white, and very American, and very middle-class...and that sometimes are very destructive to what God is trying to do in the real world.

So Jesus comes to the shoreline of my life and yours.

"Come and follow me!" he says.

And you and I have the chance to leave the old nets behind, and to go fishing with God for all those people he loves.

I want to encourage you this week to take that chance! Make that choice! Come and follow...Jesus!