Faith and Compassion

Mark's gospel is the oldest of the four gospels.  It was written about thirty or forty years after Jesus’ death.  His gospel is a study in urgency.  It was a time of anticipation and expectation.  The risen Christ was expected to return and God’s anticipated kingdom of justice and peace would result.  So Mark said the time is now, it is fulfilled.  "The kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news."  

The Gospel then relates the beginning of Jesus' ministry and moves rapidly from the proclamation of his message to the call of the first disciples: "Follow me and I will make you fish for people… Immediately, they left their nets and followed him."

In the book, Jesus before Christianity, the author Albert Nolan says, "Jesus was relentless in his endeavors to awaken faith in the 'kingdom.'"  Albert Nolan invites us to focus on three words that are important for our understanding. What is meant by "faith", what is meant by "kingdom", and what was the "call" of the first disciples.  How does all this relate to us?

Nolan writes,  "Faith is not a magical power.  It is the straightforward decision in favor of the 'kingdom' of God.... The change [the transformation] for which Jesus was appealing was a change of mind and heart, a change of allegiance.  Seek first the 'kingdom,' set your hearts on it."  "Faith is a radical reorientation of one's life.... One either makes the 'kingdom' and its values the basic orientation of one's life or one does not."  In this sense, "faith is a decision;" it is decisive and any compromise would be a lack of faith or "little faith" and that would not be very good.

“The 'kingdom' in which Jesus wanted his contemporaries to believe was a 'kingdom' of love and service, a 'kingdom' of human brotherhood and sisterhood in which every person is loved and respected because he or she is a person.  We cannot believe in and hope for such a 'kingdom' unless we have learned to be moved with compassion for our fellow-beings.  God has now revealed God as the God of compassion.  God's power is the power of compassion.  People's compassion for one another releases God's power in the world, the only power that can bring about the miracle of the 'kingdom.'"

Jesus' proclamation of the nearness of God's kingdom reached a fishing village in Galilee, and the brothers, Simon and Andrew, James and John, were invited to join his mission.  The departure of two brothers from their obligations as fishermen was no small matter.  One commentator has written, "In a traditional society such a break with family and occupation is extraordinary...[and] might appear to put the welfare of the family at risk."  The brothers leave parents, nets, boats, and hired hands to become disciples.  Their discipleship came at a price, and at least some of the cost was born by family members left behind.

Jesus' invitation, his “call” to these workers to become "fishers of people" is often mis-understood.  Taking their mandate as his own Jesus is inviting ordinary people to join him in his struggle to overturn the existing order of power and privilege. The new order in its place is to be one of compassion for all people.

Jesus' call to discipleship does not demand that the brothers, or any of us, abandon what we are doing.  Instead, it demands that we transform what we do.  Simon and Andrew will no longer be simple fishermen.  They will fish for people.  James and John will leave their father not to abandon their family but to belong to a larger family, the family of those who hear the word of God and keep it.

They continue to fish.  Jesus' call evokes from the first disciples the essence of what they know best about themselves, the daily activity of their lives, and redirects those activities to a larger purpose.  No longer will they lure for fish to feed their immediate families, they will lure people to feed on the good news of God's reign of salvation.

The time is now; the kingdom of God is at hand.  Repent and believe.  Response cannot be delayed. The first response is repentance, conversion, a turning, a transformation, a reversal of mindset, and an openness to what is to come.  Only as a consequence of repentance is one able to believe the immensity of the good news.  A change of the mind and heart makes room for the expansive good news: "the time is fulfilled, and the reign of God has come near." 

Our response to this call to repentance is to look at ourselves in relation to God and to others, to focus on where we need to transform our lives as followers of Christ and bearers of the good news of God’s compassion for all people.

St. Paul affirmed all this in his Letter to the Corinthians when he wrote, “the present form of this world is passing away.”  What he means is that with God’s desire for creation to be whole, loved and compassionate we are bound together as “members one of another” in Christ.  Everything we do is to be about reconciling all people to God.   Amen.