3rd Sunday before Advent

‘Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”

‘As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake—for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” And immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him.’

Mark 1:14-20

Picture the scene. Once the world was established, God planted a garden, a place of royal splendour, a place of royal pleasure. And God created the human being, male and female, to share the garden with; to share in God’s work and to share in God’s rest. Day by day, the people took care of the garden, tended it, drew the very best out from it. And evening by evening, the king of the universe would come and walk in the garden with his friends.

But then one evening God arrived, and something was wrong. God’s friends were afraid to be in the presence of the king. They felt ashamed. They hid from God.

Now picture another scene. The fishermen of Capernaum work the lake by night, when the shadow of their boats passing overhead cannot be seen by the fish, who hide before their coming. The crew assemble on the shore in the evening, mending their nets before heading out onto the water; and return at daybreak, hanging out their linen nets to dry. It is early evening now. Simon and Andrew are already on the lake, setting their net; James and John won’t be far behind. And into the scene, in the cool of the evening, the king comes to walk with his friends.

More – if they will dare to walk with him, then others will be drawn out of hiding.

You see, the time is fulfilled. After centuries, millennia, of waiting, the moment has arrived. Cousin John had been sent to prepare the way for the king’s return; and when John was arrested, Jesus took that to indicate that his work of preparation was complete. The time is fulfilled, for the king to come in to his kingdom, to call men and women to share in his work and in his rest. And soon enough the fishermen will share in his work; but, just as the first humans, created in the sixth movement of God’s work, experienced the seventh movement – rest – before ever they worked in the garden, so these new companions of the king will go for a rest-full stroll in the cool of the evening before the work of fishing for people.

Today is Remembrance Sunday, and this is a story about remembrance, and about the end – or goal – of remembrance, which is reconciliation. This is a story about God having kept alive the memory of walking in the evening with his friends, and having persisted through all the convoluted twists and turns of human history to the end of walking with us again. This is a story about people passing the story on, down through the generations, metaphorically and at times literally sitting around a small fire in the dark, keeping hope alive in hopeless times. This is our story, and it is still unfolding. It is still needing to be told.

The time is fulfilled; the king is coming in to his kingdom; repent, and believe the good news.

‘Repent’ means change your perspective. Step back. Turn away. Leave your work, enter rest – in order to re-imagine life from heaven’s point-of-view. ‘Believe’ relates to activity, a new way of being, in the light of that new outlook.

We ought not to imagine that these sons and brothers walked away from the family business and never returned. As the good news unfolds, we see Jesus work with them around the edges of the day, on the Sabbath, at the festival holidays, or at times going away on short journeys and getaways, returning again and again to Capernaum. The fishing disciples remain part of the fishing community: families who, along with them, learn to see life from a different angle. God will provide, even as some of the workforce are released. Boats – primary assets – become pulpits and even literal vehicles to extend the kingdom beyond Galilee to the Ten Cities.

The good news of God is proclaimed to us, too, in these words: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” The time is already fulfilled, whether the moment that enables us to hear the invitation is good news or not: the moment might look like a relative being arrested by a corrupt political regime, or a declaration of war; it might look like loss; it might look like gain, a new beginning, an exciting opportunity. But the king is on the move, walking through our lives, visiting the places where we live out our humanity, sometimes at the most inconvenient of times. And his invitation is always the same, whether in the Garden or by the Lake or on the banks of the River Wear, whether in familiar surroundings or unfamiliar, whether in triumph or despair: first, come apart from your activity and rest awhile with me; then, allow my presence alongside you to transform your work. Rest. Work. Repent and believe.

That is why we come apart to be with Jesus in this place, on this day, week by week, simply to spend time in his presence, enjoying his company – and being enjoyed by him – in order that we might return to the places where we spend the week, our homes and our workplaces, our places of leisure and our necessary places of tasks needing to be done, with a made-new and renewed perspective.

We live in a world that tells us we can rest once our work is done – and then keeps adding to the workload. We live in a world that tells us that we cannot possibly take time out from our work, because we are indispensable, or because those who don’t pull their weight are a burden to society. We live in a world that fights for territory and ideological dominance and the control of resources. We live in a world where Jesus walks along the shore as the nightshift is about to begin and says, the fish will keep, will still be there tomorrow; the hired men are perfectly capable of doing their job without you tonight: as for you, follow me. He isn’t laying off workers and requiring as much of more from less; he isn’t dismissing family or business or historical ties to place; but he is laying claim to priority over our lives and resources, over our experience of time, and he will not abandon us, however hard we try to hide. He is, as we will remember in two weeks’ time, Christ the King.

“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”