Elections are odd events. I remember when Barack Obama was elected. The way the CBC – Canadian public radio – portrayed him, his candidacy and then the events of his election and inauguration you would have thought that there was a world-wide feeling that a new day had dawned, a new era in peaceful and just global relations. This man, Barack Hussein Obama, was to be the harbinger of change who would end wars, turn the global economy around, bring about environmental solutions, end the dominance of big money cronyism in Washington, and on and on the hope list went. The hopes and expectations placed on Obama were of messianic proportion and I don’t think I’m exaggerating.
Well, I've brought all this Obama stuff up because noting all that hope in a new day dawning that surrounded his election in a small way can help us understand what was going on in Jesus' day. I am in no way equating Barack Obama to Jesus the Christ. I'm just drawing a meagre analogy. Many Americans and more than quite a few people globally were hoping that with Obama a new era characterized by peace, justice, equity, and prosperity would come into being. Such also was the expectation of most of the people of Israel in Jesus' day; except for those who had power to lose. People were hoping, indeed expecting that any day the Messiah that God had promised would come and run out their Roman oppressors and the corrupted Jewish monarchy and temple authorities and at last establish the Kingdom of God on Earth. They were expecting peace, justice, equity, and prosperity to become a reality in their lives rather than the poverty, oppression, religious fanaticism, and constant rebellion they were living with. Most people, some more than others, were really expecting the Day of the Lord and the Messiah to come at any moment.
And then, in the midst of that tumult of despair and apocalyptic hopes comes Jesus of Nazareth proclaiming, “The time has come; the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe this good news.” Jesus taught with an authority that the religious authorities simply did not have. He healed every sickness and disease. He cast out demons. He did these miraculous feedings. The Kingdom of God truly was at hand, the hand of Jesus. By him a new day was dawning.
Indeed, the time had come. The Greek word that we translate as “time”, kairos, means a decisive moment in history that demands a response. Jesus himself is that decisive moment. The demanded response is to repent and believe, to leave everything behind and enlist your life in Jesus’ work of bringing in the kingdom of God, falling in behind him and following. He would say, "Come, follow me" and people would.
I’m not sure if I’m letting us off the hook in noting this, but according to the Gospels there were only twelve people whom Jesus asked to follow him and the result of that was leaving everything behind (thirteen if count the rich young man who went away sad). There were others who did this without being asked. I’m thinking of several women and some of them were the wealthy women who supported Jesus’ ministry. At times there were crowds who left what they were doing for a time to follow him around to see what he would do. Nevertheless, following Jesus always results in leaving some things behind from the extreme of everything for always and to the lesser extent everything for a while.
Of these twelve, the first four were fishermen. Why fishermen? The only thing that I could think of was that somehow fisherman would intrinsically understand the nature of the work involved in God’s bringing in his kingdom through Jesus. It’s a lot like fishing. To begin with and speaking allegorically, casting a net is the means by which people are brought into the kingdom. Essentially, the net is the proclamation of the gospel by the church.
As a matter of review, in the Roman world a gospel was note a four-point plan by which someone gets saved. A gospel is an imperial pronouncement from the emperor or concerning the emperor that was considered to be good news like the birth of a child or a victory in battle. And, since the emperor was considered to be closely connected to the gods or sometimes even a god, they believed a gospel was somehow imbued with divine power. Similarly, in the Christian faith the gospel is a divine, imperial announcement from God. It was/is essentially that Jesus is the Son of God and the Lord and has delivered his creation from the powers of sin, evil, and death and the evidence of his Lordship, the Kingdom of God, is breaking into the present through the working of the Holy Spirit until Jesus returns to resurrect everyone from the dead and create all things anew at which point all peoples will be evaluated with respect to how well they lived in the kingdom while it was coming in order to determine their place or status or ranking in the new world. That Gospel was and is empowered by the Holy Spirit and like scooping fish out of the water with a net, so it brings people into the kingdom of God through Jesus Christ.
So then, the work of the kingdom that these fishermen would intrinsically understand was casting and preparing the net. These first four fisherman fished by casting a net not by bait and lure. The kingdom spreads by the simple proclamation of the gospel in word and action not by gimmicky whatever’s to try to attract people and work a decision out of them. I don’t know what became of Andrew other than he’s the one who found the little boy with the five loves and two fish and according to John’s Gospel he initially brought Peter to meet Jesus. Peter, on the other hand, became a great caster of the net in the early years of the church. He went up into Syria and southern Turkey and eventually to Rome.
James and John, on the other hand, were preparers of the net. Jesus found them in their boats preparing the nets. James became the head of the church in Jerusalem until he was martyred. John was the longest lived of the Twelve and became something similar to a bishop in Ephesus watching over the churches of western Turkey. If you’re catching my analogy here, a great deal of work, often the most tedious work is preparing the net, or rather building up the church, the body of Christ, that it might make and live the gospel proclamation.
Well, for all of us Jesus and his kingdom is the most decisive moment in our lives and as such a moment Jesus and his kingdom require from us the response of faith and repentance, of leaving behind what we’re doing and enlisting our lives in Jesus and his work of bringing in the kingdom of God by falling in behind him and following. This in turn means that the primary responsibility in our lives is the work of either preparing or casting the net. The Holy Spirit has gifted us each with abilities for ministry that by working together we may prepare and cast the gospel net here in our very community. The question that then follows is what are your gifts and where do they fit into the life of Christ’s body.
Some of you may be thinking that this stuff about the Holy Spirit empowering you with gifts for ministry is a bit weird. After all, our tradition tends to stress faithful following of Jesus that demonstrates itself through being morally upright and ethically compassionate. We don’t know what to do with those charismatic gifts that Paul lists in First Corinthians 12 that includes things like speaking in tongues and interpreting tongues, prophecy, words of wisdom and knowledge, performing miracles, and healing. We tend to relegate those to the Pentecostals and call them weird. Fortunately, Paul later gets a little tamer in Ephesians 4 where the gifts become offices of ministry such as apostle, prophet, pastor, teacher, and evangelist. In Romans he gets even more practical talking about the gifts of hospitality, compassion, administration, helping and so on.
Yet, this talk of gifts for ministry doesn’t have to sound so foreign. All we need do is remind ourselves that like Peter, Andrew, James, and John everything we have done in our lives has prepared us intrinsically for our work in the church. Speaking for myself, my preparation for ministry began a long time before seminary? I’ve be a son, a brother, a grandson, a nephew, a cousin, a friend, a best friend, a student, a musician, a retail clerk in an automotive store and a hardware store, an assistant manager in a steakhouse, an immigrant, a divorcee, a husband, and a father. Those relationships are where I learned the relational skills necessary for this call. I’ve been a seminarian, a minister in small town West Virginia, and a presbyter in West Virginia. My work as a minister there necessitated that I get steeped in the area of congregational redevelopment and as a presbyter there I was exposed to the nature and needs of small churches and started looking in that direction instead of the big church for a career. I wound up a minister in a small church in Caledon for ten years. My whole life has been Holy Spirit school preparing me for ministry.
Now with respect to you each, I would encourage you to look at who you are and what you’ve done and are doing with your life and ask how the Holy Spirit has been preparing you for work in the Kingdom. The highest priority of our lives is being a Christian. The life of Christ is in us each and through us every relationship we find ourselves in. Being a Christian, being a living proclamation that Jesus is Lord is our number one priority. This priority affects what we do with our lives and how we prioritize them. Who those first four were and what they did as fisherman along with time spent with Jesus prepared and gifted them for what they would be doing for his churches. Take this thought home with you: through every relationship of your life and everything you have done and are doing the Holy Spirit has been preparing and gifting you for the ministry that is going to happen through this congregation in the next several years. It is your giftedness for ministry, not some minister’s, through which Christ Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit will be primarily working to cast the Gospel net. Start thinking and praying about who he has made you to be and what he has gifted you to do because each of you are integral and necessary to what he is going to do here. Amen.
As a matter of review, in the Roman world a gospel was note a four-point plan by which someone gets saved. A gospel is an imperial pronouncement from the emperor or concerning the emperor that was considered to be good news like the birth of a child or a victory in battle. And, since the emperor was considered to be closely connected to the gods or sometimes even a god, they believed a gospel was somehow imbued with divine power. Similarly, in the Christian faith the gospel is a divine, imperial announcement from God. It was/is essentially that Jesus is the Son of God and the Lord and has delivered his creation from the powers of sin, evil, and death and the evidence of his Lordship, the Kingdom of God, is breaking into the present through the working of the Holy Spirit until Jesus returns to resurrect everyone from the dead and create all things anew at which point all peoples will be evaluated with respect to how well they lived in the kingdom while it was coming in order to determine their place or status or ranking in the new world. That Gospel was and is empowered by the Holy Spirit and like scooping fish out of the water with a net, so it brings people into the kingdom of God through Jesus Christ.
So then, the work of the kingdom that these fishermen would intrinsically understand was casting and preparing the net. These first four fisherman fished by casting a net not by bait and lure. The kingdom spreads by the simple proclamation of the gospel in word and action not by gimmicky whatever’s to try to attract people and work a decision out of them. I don’t know what became of Andrew other than he’s the one who found the little boy with the five loves and two fish and according to John’s Gospel he initially brought Peter to meet Jesus. Peter, on the other hand, became a great caster of the net in the early years of the church. He went up into Syria and southern Turkey and eventually to Rome.
James and John, on the other hand, were preparers of the net. Jesus found them in their boats preparing the nets. James became the head of the church in Jerusalem until he was martyred. John was the longest lived of the Twelve and became something similar to a bishop in Ephesus watching over the churches of western Turkey. If you’re catching my analogy here, a great deal of work, often the most tedious work is preparing the net, or rather building up the church, the body of Christ, that it might make and live the gospel proclamation.
Well, for all of us Jesus and his kingdom is the most decisive moment in our lives and as such a moment Jesus and his kingdom require from us the response of faith and repentance, of leaving behind what we’re doing and enlisting our lives in Jesus and his work of bringing in the kingdom of God by falling in behind him and following. This in turn means that the primary responsibility in our lives is the work of either preparing or casting the net. The Holy Spirit has gifted us each with abilities for ministry that by working together we may prepare and cast the gospel net here in our very community. The question that then follows is what are your gifts and where do they fit into the life of Christ’s body.
Some of you may be thinking that this stuff about the Holy Spirit empowering you with gifts for ministry is a bit weird. After all, our tradition tends to stress faithful following of Jesus that demonstrates itself through being morally upright and ethically compassionate. We don’t know what to do with those charismatic gifts that Paul lists in First Corinthians 12 that includes things like speaking in tongues and interpreting tongues, prophecy, words of wisdom and knowledge, performing miracles, and healing. We tend to relegate those to the Pentecostals and call them weird. Fortunately, Paul later gets a little tamer in Ephesians 4 where the gifts become offices of ministry such as apostle, prophet, pastor, teacher, and evangelist. In Romans he gets even more practical talking about the gifts of hospitality, compassion, administration, helping and so on.
Yet, this talk of gifts for ministry doesn’t have to sound so foreign. All we need do is remind ourselves that like Peter, Andrew, James, and John everything we have done in our lives has prepared us intrinsically for our work in the church. Speaking for myself, my preparation for ministry began a long time before seminary? I’ve be a son, a brother, a grandson, a nephew, a cousin, a friend, a best friend, a student, a musician, a retail clerk in an automotive store and a hardware store, an assistant manager in a steakhouse, an immigrant, a divorcee, a husband, and a father. Those relationships are where I learned the relational skills necessary for this call. I’ve been a seminarian, a minister in small town West Virginia, and a presbyter in West Virginia. My work as a minister there necessitated that I get steeped in the area of congregational redevelopment and as a presbyter there I was exposed to the nature and needs of small churches and started looking in that direction instead of the big church for a career. I wound up a minister in a small church in Caledon for ten years. My whole life has been Holy Spirit school preparing me for ministry.
Now with respect to you each, I would encourage you to look at who you are and what you’ve done and are doing with your life and ask how the Holy Spirit has been preparing you for work in the Kingdom. The highest priority of our lives is being a Christian. The life of Christ is in us each and through us every relationship we find ourselves in. Being a Christian, being a living proclamation that Jesus is Lord is our number one priority. This priority affects what we do with our lives and how we prioritize them. Who those first four were and what they did as fisherman along with time spent with Jesus prepared and gifted them for what they would be doing for his churches. Take this thought home with you: through every relationship of your life and everything you have done and are doing the Holy Spirit has been preparing and gifting you for the ministry that is going to happen through this congregation in the next several years. It is your giftedness for ministry, not some minister’s, through which Christ Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit will be primarily working to cast the Gospel net. Start thinking and praying about who he has made you to be and what he has gifted you to do because each of you are integral and necessary to what he is going to do here. Amen.
