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January 22, 2012   -   Epiphany 3

Mark 1:14-20

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“Think  Different”

I am intrigued by the simplicity of this story of Jesus calling his disciples.   According to Mark, Jesus came walking along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, and he saw Simon and Andrew, and then later James and John working their fishing business, casting their nets, tending to their boats, and he said, "Follow me."  Mark says, "they dropped everything and followed him."  The scene is further seasoned with a bit of dry humor when Mark adds, "and they left their Father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men."  Can you picture it?  Old Zebedee sitting in the boat with his jaw hanging open, not at all happy, I am sure, at seeing his two strong young (perhaps adolescent) sons traipsing off to who knows where?

I have always felt there was probably more to the story, but Mark presents the stories in such an austere way because, for him and for his faith community, that's what it boiled down to in the end!  Are you going to follow Jesus or not?   That is the point Mark is making by the way he tells his story. 

When Jesus invited Simon and Andrew to follow him, Mark very specifically says “they left their nets and followed him.”  When he invited James and John, Mark very specifically says, “they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men.”  It was as simple, or complex, as that.  What I mean is that when one responds to Jesus’ call, the response includes a reprioritizing of values in one’s life.  Things that were primary may become secondary and no longer occupy the center.  New things may become primary and get moved into the center.  A process of rearranging priorities commences when we respond to Jesus’ call – and it’s a process that is ongoing.     

In Bible study this week we discussed the metaphorical meaning of  “they left their nets.”  It is a powerful metaphor.  To follow Jesus is to untangle oneself from those things in which our lives perhaps have been entangled, and in the process of untangling are set free to claim a new center.

Evelyn Underhill was an early 20^th century English mystic.  In a book entitled “The Spiritual Life” she wrote, “A spiritual life is simply a life in which all that we do comes from a new center, a center anchored in God: a life soaked through and through by a sense of (Divine Presence) and self-given to expressions of God’s love.”[i]  Did you hear her words?: new center; anchored; soaked through and through.

I have been reading (I’m not finished yet) Walter Isaacson’s provocative and fascinating biography of Steve Jobs.  One of Steve Job’s secrets was that he was never willing to live inside the boundaries of the given.  He adopted  the motto for his company, “Think Different.”  It would have been grammatically more correct if he would have said, “Think Differently.”  But that’s just the point!   Things like that mattered very little to him.  His “Think Different” motto caused him to travel singular roads and adopt unique approaches. 

For me, the motto “Think Different” aptly applies to Jesus. Jesus was certainly innovative and showed genius on numerous occasions when his adversaries, for example, tried to entrap him with a question they thought would discredit him before others, only to have Jesus turn the tables on them, and they were the ones who ended up looking foolish.[ii]   He was certainly iconoclastic.  That is, he consistently challenged and defied long-held cherished beliefs and traditions of his own religion, especially those traditions and beliefs that undermined compassion, social justice and inclusivity.[iii]   And some even thought he was a little weird. I recall the times he was accused of being possessed by a demon or being a drunkard.[iv]    

Someone asked me to express in the simplest terms possible what Christianity means to me.  My answer was "following Jesus."  The person was a bit taken aback, and he said that I “left out too much!”   But I can't say it any more essentially than that, because for me, that's what it gets down to.   That’s the center – the core – the heart of the matter.  Before anything else, that's what it meant for the followers of Jesus in the early faith communities.    For them, faith was not mere intellectual assent (a head matter). It was a heart matter, a soul matter, a life and death matter as they shifted the direction of their lives and began moving their whole beings (heart, mind, body & soul) in the direction that Jesus was leading them.  As they followed him; and hung around him; and listened to him; and observed him;  and engaged him, he gradually became their new center so much so they began seeing with his eyes; listening with his ears; feeling with his heart; perceiving with his discernment;  taking action with his resolve; walking the paths he tread; allowing him to shape and mentor them all along the way.  Jesus was their new center and they lived out of the energy of that center.  He called them to think different, do different and be different. 

I cannot help, at this point, but think of the story of Zacchaeus in Luke 19.  You remember the story.  Zacchaeus had an occupation that was among the most detested in first century Palestine—being a tax collector for the hated Roman occupation forces.  Tax collectors had the well-deserved reputation for ripping off the poor - a practice sanctioned by Rome and the leadership of their own religion, the temple hierarchy.   He must have heard something about Jesus that intrigued him that he climbed up a tree to get a better look at this wandering preacher as he passed through town.

As Jesus passed under his tree, he stopped, looked up, called to Zacchaeus and invited himself to the tax collector’s home.  The crowds on the street were shocked and scandalized that Jesus would enter the home of such a dishonorable person.

As a result of being with Jesus, Zacchaeus was transformed.  He decided to give half his wealth to the poor and offer lavish restitution to those he had cheated.  The thrust of the story seems to be that Zacchaeus did not necessarily stop being a tax collector, quit his job or look for a different occupation, but began to live his occupation differently – began to think differently – began to be different - to live with a generous attitude for the poor and those the system victimized - all the result of having the energy of a new center to his being. 

For Simon, Andrew, James and John, it began on the shores of the Sea of Galilee where they responded to Jesus’ invitation.  Little did they know, at that point, what lay in store for them and the radical reorientation that would occur to their thinking, doing and being that were a radical departure from the traditional given ways of empire and religion.  

He taught them that accumulating material wealth for their fulfillment was a delusion, but instead to use wealth to empower others and correct injustice.  He showed them that the last and least and lost were among the most precious in the Kingdom of God.  He  taught them that dehumanizing boundaries, barriers and rigid lines of distinction only enhanced disharmony and bred conflict.  He led them through walls of fear and anxiety that stopped most and strangled the growth of compassion and love in the human heart.   He taught them that the fullest life was the life that emptied itself for the sake of others.  He proclaimed that the truest meaning of salvation is to be made whole in love. 

I think of a line from the apostle Paul where in his letter to the Philippians he wrote, “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.”[v] 

Jesus inspired and led those first disciples to think, do and be different, to live with his mind as their new center,  and he can do the same for us.   It doesn’t happen all at once, but it happens all along the way as we live out our lives one day at a time and face the circumstances that each day brings.  The good news is we are not alone.  We now think, do and be powered by the energy of new living center for our lives – the same Jesus who walked a Galilean beach and said, “follow me.”