The Rev. Lee M.
Miller II
Ephiphany 3 – January 25,2015
Mark 1: 14-20
It was
Friday night, October 10, 2008.
The
Philadelphia Phillies had just defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National
League Championship Series, and they were on their way to the World Series.
The whole
city was celebrating.
It was like
New Years Eve, with people standing on the porches banging pots and pans.
And then.
And then we
got the phone call that we had been waiting for.
Get to the
hospital.
Immediately.
You are
about to have a baby!
You see,
growing your family through adoption is a little different than growing your
family biologically.
If you are a
pending adoptive parent,
You still go
through many similar experiences as you await the gift of your child.
You get your
home ready, the nursery ready, you read child development books and dream about
the future.
One
difference though.
Pregnancy.
An adoptive
couple, once they are in a process, does not know “how” pregnant they are.
For Heather
and me, once all the application work was done, we made an 8 1/2 sheet that on
one side talked about us, our family, our history, our dreams, the other side
was photographs.
Potential
birth parents would look through notebooks filled with sheets like ours, as
they considered who they might place their child with.
So once you
are in that “book,” our counselor said, “you are pregnant.”
You just
don’t know how far along you are.
So 10 months
after we first applied.
10 months
after pregnancy began.
We got the
call.
Get to the
Hospital.
You are
having a baby.
Immediately.
…
Eu-they-os
(Eutheos)
That’s the Greek
word for “Immediately” used in our Gospel Text this morning.
Immediately, eutheos, occurs 69 times in the new testament, but
Mark uses it
in his gospel 27 times, as many times as the word is used in Matthew, Luke, and
John combined.
After Jesus
was baptized in the Jordan by John, Mark says Jesus was “Immediately” driven
into wilderness by the Spirit.
At the end
of chapter one, in verse 42, Jesus heals a leper whose disease leaves him
Immediately after Jesus has touched him.
Later, a
woman who has been hemorrhaging for 12 years will see the blood stop
Immediately as Jesus confirms that it is her faith that has made her well.
And even in
the Garden of Gethsemane, there is haste, for as Jesus finished teaching,
“Immediately” Judas arrives on scene with the chief priests and scribes who are
there to arrest him.
Immediately.
Eutheos.
…
What was it
about Jesus?
What was
this power he had, that he could look you in the eye, call you by name, and
invite you to leave everything behind and follow him, immediately?
We don’t
know much about the 12 who Jesus calls by name.
We can put
some pieces together, but we don’t know the whole back story;
In this case
only that the brothers, Simon and Andrew are Galilean fisherman, and they were
casting their nets in the same part of the sea as another pair of brothers,
James and John, sons of Zebedee.
I feel for
Zebedee in this story.
One moment
he is working the family fishing business with his two sons; perhaps trying to
decide who is going to run the shop after he retires.
The next
moment his sons are headed out.
We’re
leaving dad.
Immediately.
Eutheos.
…
I don’t know
about you, but I don’t often react to things – immediately.
Certainly at
a time of crisis, one responds.
When there
is an emergency, one runs.
But other times,
I am, we can be, slower to respond. Slow to act.
We will weigh
the pros and cons. Appropriately so.
We will
measure risk and gain; strategize the potential outcome.
In our text
this morning, there doesn’t appear to be an emergency.
It does not
seem to be an urgent call.
Yet in the
invitation to follow,
Simon and
Andrew, James and John, leave their nets and follow the Christ.
Immediately.
…
It makes me
wonder…
What do we need to do, immediately?
…
Annie Lee
Cooper was born in Selma Alabama on June 2, 1920.
As a young woman she moved to
Canonsburg, Pennsylvania where she married Brad Cooper, but in 1962 she
returned to her hometown to care for her elderly mother.
Annie Lee
Cooper became a leader in the Civil Rights Movement after being denied the right
to vote; a right she fulfilled with honor as a registered voter in
Pennsylvania.
Her attempt
to register to vote in 1963 led to her being fired as a nurse at a local rest
home.
When other
clergymen asked Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., why the movement couldn’t
wait, his response was appropriately firm.
We cannot
wait for justice.
Injustice anywhere
is injustice everywhere.
We need
justice today.
Immediately.
That call from 1965 still rings true today – even more urgently!
…
What are we
being called to today, church?
Where is God
calling you, and inviting you to respond…
Immediately?
Is there a
relationship in your life, that needs to hear a word of reconciliation or
forgiveness.
Is there a
co-worker who is in need of prayer?
Is there a
young person, in need of encouragement or support?
Where is God
calling you? Where can you respond – immediately?
What is one
thing you can do this week – to respond to God’s call to love?
….
And how
about us as a church?
Jesus is
calling us to get out of the boat –
To follow
him!
Jesus names
us and claims us; calls us, and invites us to follow
Using the
gifts that God has already given to us, and to go -
Immediately
–
Into the
work of the kingdom.
…
What will we
do?
Where will
we go?
Jesus is
calling us to get out of the boat –
Immediately!
Amen.
