Kingdom Come

Scripture: The Third Sunday after Epiphany, A.D. 2015 B

Sermon:

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  AMEN.

Have you ever dreamt of making a better world? Simon and Andrew did.

Simon and Andrew were brothers from the Galilee, which I like to think of as Israel’s rural Midwest. They were fishermen, a good, honest trade, spending their days out upon the lake casting their nets for tilapia. Their hands were tough and craggy from years spent hauling lines and mending nets. But they were educated men as well. Israelites had always stressed learning, the importance of the written word. And the Galilee had some fine schools.

Times were tough in those days. Israel had suffered through several long, bloody wars, and various foreign powers had marched their armies roughshod over the lands of this once proud nation. The great Emperor in Rome had even placed a petty tyrant, one of Israel’s ancient enemies, upon the throne in Jerusalem; their government was no longer their own. Such injustice troubled Simon and Andrew, and like many idealistic young men they wanted to work for change, for a better world.

At some point the brothers left home to travel south, to become the disciples of a great desert rabbi who was causing quite the ruckus in the wilderness of Judea. Friends of theirs, another pair of Galilean brothers named James and John, traveled along with them. The rabbi’s name was John the Baptist, and he captivated all those around him. He lived in the desert, like the Essene monks. He dressed in camelhair, like the ancient prophet Elijah. And everywhere he went, people followed: scholars and workers, Romans and Jews, soldiers and farmers, righteous men and sinners.

And when they came, John the Baptist spoke to them of a coming King, a King prophesied by the Bible for hundreds and even thousands of years. This would not be a King like any other, but a King to inaugurate the very Kingdom of God! And the people were captivated. Why, this was precisely that for which Simon and Andrew, James and John had hoped: a new world, a better world; a world in which justice and righteousness prevailed for a broken people in a broken land.

Imagine their excitement. Imagine their joy. The Kingdom of God was at hand, a better world was at hand, and these fishermen from the Galilee were going to be part of it! But then suddenly—their hopes were dashed. John the Baptist, forerunner and prophet of the great and coming King, was arrested and thrown in jail, where he would soon be unjustly beheaded. It all came crashing down. Their hopes, their idealism, proved all for naught. And so they went back—back to the Galilee, back to the lake, back to their nets—there to dream about what might have been, and how instead it all went wrong.

We can sympathize with them, can’t we? We all have times in life when we feel defeated and dejected, when the idealism and enthusiasm of our youth proves unable to bring about the change, the better world, for which we have hoped. And so we return to what we have known, and wonder if it had all been but a dream.

But then—then Jesus comes. There He is, walking along the Galilee, and He sees Simon and Andrew in their boats. “Follow Me,” He calls out to them, “and I will make you fish for people!”

I have to imagine Simon blinking for a moment, looking back to the shore, and then turning to Andrew, asking, “Is that who I think it is? And Andrew, following his brother’s gaze, replies, “Hey, that’s the guy! The one John called the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world! Jesus of Nazareth! Remember how I brought you to meet Him, and we all wondered if He were not the promised King!” Suddenly the brothers’ nets fall forgotten and they are clamoring for shore, leaving their boats behind them. A little bit farther down the lake, the three of them run into James and John, the sons of Zebedee, and Jesus calls them to Him as well.

“This is it,” Simon whispers to the other disciples of John the Baptist. “I thought it was all over when they arrested our rabbi. But it’s really only just begun.” The Forerunner had fulfilled his calling, preparing the way of the Lord, calling the people to turn towards the Messiah, even preceding Jesus into persecution and death. Now, in the fullness of time, Jesus is ready to inaugurate the Kingdom. Now He reveals Himself to the world as John’s promised King.

At this most dramatic of moments in Mark’s Gospel, I cannot help but smile at the people with whom Jesus surrounds Himself. He does not call soldiers, though plenty of those had listened to John. He does not call scholars or priests or those deeply concerned with outward ritual practice. Rather, He walks along the shore and calls common men—hard working, well-read, honest and humble fishermen—to be the first of His Apostles. These are the Knights with whom the great King chooses to fill His Round Table. These are the hands and feet and voices through whom Jesus will change the world.

This is in perfect harmony with the witness of the Old Testament, which presents to us an odd sort of God, Who consistently chooses slaves over rulers, younger brothers over elders, old men over young, even the poor over the wealthy. This is a God Who consistently turns our expectations on their heads, and utilizes the most unlikely of agents to carry out His gracious works of justice and mercy. The Apostles are a motley crew of laborers, tax collectors, and dreamers. There may even be a few guerilla fighters and an ex-prostitute in there. In other words, they’re just like us: common people, normal people; people who have no shortage of mistakes in our past, but who still dream of building a better world.

The Kingdom inaugurated by Jesus Christ on that lakeshore some 2,000 years ago stands stronger than ever today. Sometimes we find it hard to see this Kingdom, as it is not in fact a Kingdom of this world. It moves in mysterious ways. Nevertheless, the community of people whom Christ has called out from the nations to serve as His Kingdom and Body—a community we call the Church—has brought innumerable blessings on this world, from human rights to the scientific method.

But more than that it has brought to us all the vision of a better world, in which all people are loved by a merciful God regardless of class or wealth or strength. It is a world in which sins are forgiven, justice pursued, and the dead raised from their graves. And yes, we are still sinners, still in need of forgiveness and rebirth. We still dream of a yet better world, and a more fully realized Kingdom. And so Jesus continues to call common people from every walk of life: calls us to be disciples, to be revolutionaries, to be loyal knights of the King.

So often we are told that the important people in this world are the rulers, the warriors, the rich and the famous. But that’s a lie, and the Devil knows it. Great men are of little concern to God. He can raise up great men from nothing, and continues to do so quite regularly. What really matters in the eyes of the Lord are common people living out the love of Jesus Christ in humble, everyday, infinitely wondrous ways. Jesus needs men with calloused, hard-working hands. Men who read. Men who dream. Men who are willing to forge for Him a holy Kingdom in the midst of this wounded world.

So if someday we find ourselves sitting in a boat, brothers and sisters, with all our hopes dashed, dreaming of what might have been, and perhaps smelling of old fish, let us be sure to listen closely. Let us turn our eyes to the lakeshore. For the Kingdom of God has come and the Lord calls now our names. We have but to follow Him for our world to be remade anew.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. AMEN.