January 26, 2003 - Third Sunday after Epiphany
Jonah 3:1-5, 10
    NRSV KJV CEV
Mark 1:14-20
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“The Time Has Come”

“’The time has come,’ the Walrus said, ‘to talk of many things . . .’” I had a seminary professor who used this line from Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky as a signal. When he would start to quote this line we knew it was, indeed, time for us to settle down and listen – something important was about to be brought to our attention. Perhaps that’s what Mark is doing as he presents Jesus’ early ministry? Jesus comes to Galilee and proclaims “the good news of God.” The way he begins it is by saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the good news.” Mark is telling us that the time has come and we should settle in and listen to what is being said.

Jesus came proclaiming that it was time to hear something God had for God’s creation. Hard as it is for us to believe, that message hasn’t changed. Jesus began his proclamation by saying that “the kingdom of God has come near.” When he talked about the kingdom he wasn’t talking about a place. That is important for us to keep in mind as we listen to the message of good news. We hear ‘kingdom’ and think ‘territory’ – a geographical or political entity that encompasses a set amount of land and the people living there. This isn’t what Jesus was proclaiming. A better translation would be that the “reign of God,” that is the rule of God’s will, has come near. It is possible now for human beings to be drawn into the life of God and to be at one with God. Jesus tells us that this comes not in some huge political upheaval, but in the life and teachings and example of a person – Jesus himself.

“The kingdom has come near” is in the perfect tense which, scholars tell us, is used to indicate both its fulfillment or completion and that it is also an ongoing or continuing reality. Here’s that “already-not-yet” we are always seeing in the Gospels. We get the clear picture that kingdom is already here, made present in Jesus and continuing in those who heed the message, but it isn’t fully here yet. It’s here, but always coming. A promise fulfilled to us, but one that still holds out hope for a brighter future, for something more, for the wholeness of the human person. Jesus comes to tell us – and continues to tell us – that this good news of a present reign is here. Right here, right now, it is with us, within us, and close to us, but we have to will to listen and will to follow if it is to have any effect in our lives.

Here Jonah is a good example of how NOT to listen to God’s message. In fact, Jonah offers a fairly perfect example of how Christians and the church and ‘religious’ people of every age have taken to hear what they THOUGHT was “good news” and turned it into a word of oppression. God called Jonah to go to Nineveh – a city populated by Gentiles – and there proclaim a message of repentance and forgiveness. Jonah balked.

Jonah was not interested in God’s desire, only in his own version of it. In his mind the Ninevites were not worthy of salvation, not worthy of repentance or mercy and so he wasn’t about to go along with what God was trying to accomplish. Jonah knew better than God and so he fled. You know the story. Jonah ends up in the belly of a great fish until he cries out for mercy and God grants it. Even then, he doesn’t get it – he’s willing to accept mercy, but he’s not willing to offer it to anyone else. As one commentator put it so succinctly, “Jonah’s message is simple, but powerful. The divine character of mercy is contrasted with the moralistic character of Jonah.” There’s a reason that we are taught to pray, “Forgive us our debts (our sins) as we forgive our debtors (those who sin against us).” Our forgiveness is measured by our own willingness to forgive, by our own willingness to be instruments of forgiveness and proclaimers of God’s peace.

This good news of the kingdom’s presence can be hard for us to understand. Jonah had difficulty realizing that God’s justice is made real in the exercise of God’s mercy. It’s a whole lot easier to call down fire from heaven on the bad guys than it is to go to them with the message of love, forgiveness, change, and repentance. The kingdom’s presence makes us look at the world in a different way and we now view it through the lens of compassion. I’m not saying that we should excuse immorality or unethical behaviors or engage in them ourselves. I’m simply saying that God’s word to us is, first of all, mercy.

If we hear that word of mercy, the call and promise of compassion then we are able to repent. Repent is one of those words that has been painted with the caricature brush by literature, the media, and the church owns some of the blame. We’ve had more than our share over the years of Elmer Gantry types – I’m thinking of all the ‘Jimmies’ and ‘Tammys’ – who have preached repentance without practicing it themselves. It’s a hard fact and can’t be denied. However, that doesn’t excuse us from the need to repent. Sorry. Christianity without repentance is like weight-loss without effort – it simply doesn’t exist. I know, I’ve lost two or three people in my life time and repentance is part of my daily life.

Repentance implies a change in direction – a one-eighty if you will. Once we’ve been brought into the embrace of God’s love, mercy, and peace we’re supposed to approach life and relationships and everything else in a different way. Jesus’ announcement of good news invites people – first the Twelve and now us – to “follow me.” Repentance, and I believe that it’s one of those daily things, calls us to be true followers after Jesus, to look at people with the same eyes of love and compassion that he did and to live in the same unselfish manner. If the kingdom of God is near, if it is in our midst, and it is within us, how can we live otherwise?

When we listen to Jesus’ words that the time has come and the kingdom is now present it compels us to do something about it and in a practical way. The message of the good news “gets under our skin” and moves us to lives of loving service. We can’t look at the world as it was, because it’s different now. This is what the German theologian Jurgen Moltmann has said in his classic book Theology of Hope:

Faith, wherever it develops into hope, causes not rest but unrest, not patience but impatience. It does not calm the unquiet heart. . .Those who hope in Christ can no longer put up with reality as it is, but begin to suffer under it, to contradict it. Peace with God means conflict with the world, for the goad of the promised future stabs inexorably into the flesh of every unfulfilled present. [p. 21]

The hope of the fulfillment, the reality of God present with us leads us to work for change, for justice, and for mercy. That’s why Christians over the centuries have engaged in the “good works,” the benevolences of education, care of the sick and the poor, and all the various other means we’ve reached out to make life better in the herenow as we wait for the fulfillment of the hereafter. If the kingdom is present, we can’t just sit here.

I suppose that’s why, too, that we enter into the debates we do about stewardship and how we’re to appropriately use the various gifts and treasures that we have. I found this whole question of how disciples are to live out their following best summed up in two little stories that I came across this week. They may be talking about heaven, but their lesson is for this world (remember the ‘already-not-yet’?). One is an “oldie but goodie” from the Hasidic Jewish tradition and the other one I’d never heard before.

A rabbi had a conversation with the Lord about heaven and hell. “I will show you hell,” said the Lord, and he led the rabbi into a room in the middle of which was a very big round table. The people sitting at it were famished and desperate. In the middle of the table sat a large pot of stew, enough and more for everyone. The smell of the stew was delicious and made the rabbi’s mouth water. The people around the table were holding spoons with very long handles. They found that it was just possible to reach the pot to take a spoonful of stew, but because the handle was longer than the person’s arm, they could not get the spoon back into their mouths. The rabbi saw that their suffering was terrible. “Now I will show you heaven,” said the Lord, and they went into another room exactly the same as the first. There was the same round table and the same pot of stew. The people, as before, were equipped with the same long-handled spoons, but here they were plump and well-nourished, laughing and talking. At first, the rabbi could not understand. “It is simple, but it requires a certain amount of skill,” said the Lord. “You see, they have learned to feed each other.”

Once there was a very rich man who dreamed he died and went to heaven. Saint Peter escorted him down a lovely street on which each house was magnificent. The rich man saw one house that was especially beautiful and asked who lived there. “That,” Saint Peter said “is the celestial home of your butler.”  “Well,” the man said smiling, “if my butler gets a place like that, I certainly look forward to seeing what my new home will be like.”

Soon they came to a very small street where the houses were tiny and unpretentious. “You will live in that hut,” said Saint Peter, pointing his finger. “Me, live in that hovel!” “This is the best we can do for you,” explained the saint. “You must understand that we only build your home up here with the material you send ahead while you are still on earth.”

The time has come; I saw that last week in the annual meeting and I see it in the desire of people to have First Congregational Church of Wauwatosa make a difference in our community and in our world. It will happen if we learn to be good followers, yearn and learn to bring heaven on earth by learning to feed each other, and working to “lay up treasures in heaven” by the deeds of love and compassion that we do each day. It will happen if we open our ears to hear the message of Jesus and follow the Lord’s leading and not our own, as Jonah did. The time has come, the kingdom is near and the fullness of God’s love waits for us if we heed the invitation. The time has come and Jesus says, “Follow me.”