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1.21.24 Mark 1:14-20

These two sets of brothers, fishermen, Simon and Andrew, James and John, have the honor of being the first disciples called to follow Jesus. It is amazing that they did. I have always wondered– was there something about the way Jesus looked at them, or the way his voice sounded? The gospel writer, in a pattern he continues throughout the gospel, indicates that these fishermen responded by immediately following him. No hesitation. Did they stop to think that they could be making a dangerous decision? In a small community like Capernaum, on the northern edge of the Sea of Galilee, they knew very well that a guy named John had already been arrested for his proclamation of the baptism of repentance, for his insistence on truth telling. The word for arrested literally means “handed over”—John had been handed over by the King’s henchmen to the jailors because of his accusations regarding King Herod’s impropriety in marrying someone else’s wife. He was a threat to the Roman powers that be. John’s ministry proved dangerous—he was ultimately murdered at the order of the King. I wonder how the people who had been baptized by him felt after his arrest. Nervous? Looking behind them as they walked down the road? Were they going to be next if they continued to follow John’s insistence on living in a new way?

The same word is used later to describe the arrest of Jesus—he was handed over to the authorities, endured a mock trial and was crucified. He was a threat to the Jewish powers that be. In today’s text, Jesus is picking up where John left off, with the same dangerous ministry. He echoes John’s words calling people to repent, to do a U turn, to begin a new way of living. And these brothers want to put themselves in danger as well? Jesus announces that he has the good news of God—it is time, he says. It is time for a change, a time when the reign of God has come close. He expects a response of repentance and belief or trust in that good news. And immediately they head off in a new direction toward an unknown future, leaving behind their work, their families, their community.

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1 Cor. 3:5-15 2.12.23

Dan and I learned the absolute necessity of a strong foundation in a painful way. The home we bought in Hickory, North Carolina sat at the low point of our block. It sat on a lot where the builders had deposited trees that were cut down to build the homes and then covered them up with multiple feet of soil. Our home was built on top of the pile of buried trees in the 70’s. Over the decades, those trees decomposed, as any tree does. We were unaware of any of this…but when we were ready to sell that home, an inspector saw jacks in the crawl space which had previously been in place to stabilize parts of the house. If that was not enough to make us question how the inspector had missed them when we bought the house, apparently the house had shifted so much that some of the jacks had been knocked out of place. Of course, we had noticed that our living room tilted down, sloping away from the rest of the house. And we had seen a crack in a couple of walls of the brick home. We learned that our foundation was so unstable that at least 10 large pylons (very large, strong supports) were needed, pylons which had to be drilled down into the earth in order to stabilize the house. Several of the pylons had to go down 15 feet or more to reach solid rock, and the price was by the foot. The cost was overwhelming and took away any profit we might have made on the sale. The builder had not built our house upon the rock, but on unstable ground!

Perhaps you remember the parable Jesus tells in the gospel of Matthew about the importance of building a house on solid ground. That is what the wise person does. In contrast, the foolish person builds on unstable ground, or sand, and the house can not withstand rains and winds. Remember that a parable is a short story with a lesson to be learned. He was making it clear that we need a solid foundation if we are to expect that we will be able to withstand the torments which blow upon us in life.

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