I felt the need to read three scripture passages this morning. All are from the Common Lectionary for today. I believe all three have a common message for us that is very important. And that message is one of urgency.
This message about “a sense of urgency” fits right in with our culture today. Most of us could agree that there is an urgency that surrounds us. No matter what is going on in our lives we often feel that everything must happen now. We have no time to waste; everything should have happened yesterday!
But even with all this urgency in our lives sometimes there are things that continue to hold us back. That is what I believe the Apostle Paul is trying to tell us in our reading from 1 Corinthians this morning. Listen to how Eugene Peterson interprets Paul’s thoughts using contemporary language: “I do want to point out, friends, that time is of the essence. There is no time to waste, so don’t complicate your lives unnecessarily. Keep it simple – in marriage, grief, joy, whatever. Even in ordinary things – your daily routines of shopping, and so on. Deal as sparingly as possible with the things that the world thrusts on you. This world as you see it is on its way out” (from The Message).
How often do we let the ordinary world hold us back? How many times do we feel called to do something but there is a nagging doubt that is floating about in our head? Perhaps it is because we fear the change that might take place in our lives. Maybe it is the fear of failure that keeps us tethered to the mast in a potentially stormy sea. Because change often does rock the boat of our lives.
Paul is telling us not to cling to the ordinary things. He says to “keep it simple’’ but we all know that that is much easier said than done. And no matter how hard we might try to keep things simple we find ourselves juggling many balls at once; these are the balls the world throws at us. Many of these balls we take on ourselves, usually without much argument. Before we know it our lives are nothing more than one long juggling act as we try to do all the things we have committed ourselves to.
Some of us are better jugglers than most. Others, not as good. But the world keeps tossing things our way and we feel that we are obligated to catch and juggle as many as possible. Paul is telling “not so.” Paul is telling us that it is ok to drop many of the balls thrown at us by the world. The only ball that we need to hang onto is the one that God has tossed us. The only thing we should hold onto is Jesus Christ.
Paul is reminding us that God’s kingdom is now here; it is not something that we are just hanging around and waiting for. The time to act is now. And without all of the distractions it will be much easier for us to do the Lord’s work.
In our story about Jonah, Jonah has one big distraction. His distraction centers on the people of the huge city of Ninevah. He hates the town; he hates the people in the town; he hates what the city itself represents. Ninevah is the city where Israel’s enemy lives.
Suddenly, God calls to Jonah with a message of great urgency: “Go to the great city of Ninevah and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me” (Jonah 1:2). God wants Jonah to witness to the people of the city about God’s great disappointment in them and their ways. If they don’t change, God will destroy the city.
If you remember the beginning of this story, Jonah doesn’t like what God is telling him to do so he flees on a boat in the opposite direction trying to get away from God. We know that Jonah’s attempt to flee from God doesn’t work and that is where our reading picks up this morning.
God approaches Jonah a second time telling him to go to Ninevah and proclaim God’s word. There is urgency in God’s commands to Jonah. God does not like what is going on in Ninevah and I believe in God’s heart God hopes the city will change its ways.
I believe that there is always a sense of urgency in how God approaches us. Just as God approached Jonah a second time with God’s message, God will continue to approach us even when we try to ignore the message.
When we do something wrong God is always there to step in and show us a better way. When we are open to God it is easy for us to see this happen. But many times we don’t recognize God’s presence and direction. Why? Because the world has given us too many balls to juggle and more often than not the one ball we allow to drop by the wayside is the one with the label that says, “God.”
That is the reason God became incarnate and came to earth as the man named Jesus. God did not like what was going on in the world. The people God created had continued to drift away from God and there was an urgency from God to come into this world in a human form to help lead us back to our creator.
And that brings us to our third reading, the one from the Gospel of Mark. This week we hear another call story. (Last week we heard the call stories about the boy Samuel in the Old Testament and the calling of the first disciples in the Gospel of John from the New Testament). In both call stories from last week, we discussed how our openness to God’s word is directly related to our ability to hear God’s voice amongst the many voices competing for our attention.
Today, we read about Jesus’ encounter along the shoreline with a couple of fishermen: brothers Simon and Andrew and brothers James and John. Both sets of brothers were minding their own business when Jesus approached them. Jesus says to Simon and Andrew, “Come, follow me and I will make you fishers of men” (Mark 1:17).
There must have been a sense of urgency about Jesus’ call to them because they “at once left their nets and followed him” (Mark 1:18). We don’t know exactly what Jesus says to James and John but it must have been something very similar to how he called Simon and Andrew. Their reaction was the same: they left their father and the hired men working with them and followed Jesus.
These stories from Mark are the ultimate example of what Paul is talking about this morning. Simon, Andrew, James, and John let absolutely nothing stand in their way of following Jesus. They left their families and their livelihood with no guarantees.
If you have changed jobs, you know what goes on inside yourself. There are many questions as you go through the process. Is it really going to be worth changing jobs? Will I be happier or does it only seem that the grass is always greener on the other side? What will my friends says? Is my family supportive of my decision?
The fishermen stepped out on faith, a faith they probably did not realize at the time that they had. Somehow they were able to here the voice of Christ calling through the many voices in their lives. When Jesus calls it always means a step out in faith.
In my life, there was never any “slam dunk guarantees” when I did anything God called. It entailed a lot of work and a lot of trust and faith. I could not cling to the past; I had to move forward. When God calls we are not supposed to put him on hold. There is an urgency in the call and the message. It’s time to get to work.
