3 Epiphany

 

January 21, 2024

Mark 1.14-20

 + A few weeks ago I mentioned that I am shocked and appalled by the rise of antisemitism in this country and the world.

 I also said that it was something that I simply did not understand.

 I do not understand how Christians, who follow and worship the Jewish Son of God can be antisemitic.

 By doing so, we essentially deny everything about who we are and where we came from.

 It is important for all of us to view our Christian faith with a Jewish lens.

 After all, I am amazed how we have forgotten—and I mean, really forgotten—our Jewish roots as Christians.

 And reading scripture with this Jewish lens—both the Hebrew scriptures and the New Testament—really changes that perspective to some extent.

 Changes it in a wonderful way.

 Even seeing Jesus himself from a Jewish perspective is amazing.

 Seeing Jesus as a Jew—this Jewish Jesus, seeing him as a fulfillment of the Jewish expectations of the Messiah, the Son of God, the Anointed One of God, just gives it all more meaning, more depth, more purpose and more history.

 We are inheritors of a truly rich legacy!

 And it’s wonderful.

 To some extent, when we do so—when change our perspective—it feels we’ve turned around and seen all of this for the first time.

 It was all right there.

 We just needed to turn and see it.

 Certainly, this perspective, this “turning around” is what Jesus calls us to do again and again throughout the Gospel.

 And in today’s Gospel is no exception.

 In it, we find Jesus essentially doing the same thing.

 He’s asking his followers—and us—to turn around, to wake up, to see anew.

 And he does it with one little word.

 “Repent.”

 I think in our contemporary Christian Understanding, we have found this word hijacked a bit.  

 Repent is often seen as a shaming word.

 We seem to hear it only in the context of “repenting” of our sins. 

 And certainly that’s a correct usage of the word.

 When we turn from our sins—from all the wrongdoings we’ve done in life—we are repenting.

 But I think it’s a good thing to examine the word a bit closer and see it in a context all of its own. 

 The Greek word we find in this Gospel is μετανοειτε (metanoiein), which means to change our mind.

 But the word Jesus probably used was probably based on the Hebrew word, Shubh, which the  great theologian, Reginald Fuller, translates as “to turn around 180 degrees, to reorient one’s whole attitude toward Yahweh in the face of the God’s coming kingdom.”

 When we approach this word with this definition, all  of a sudden it takes on a whole new meaning and attitude.

 What is Jesus telling us to do?

 Jesus is telling us to turn around and see, for the Kingdom of God is near.

 Wake up and look, he’s saying

 We must turn round and face this mystery that is God. 

 We must adjust our thinking away from all the worldly things we find ourselves swallowed up within and focus our vision on God. 

 Or, rather, we should adjust our thinking, our vision of the world, within the context of God.

 However you want to look at it, it is about seeing anew.

 It is about adjusting to a new perspective.

 It is about changing the way we think and see and do things.

 As you can imagine, this kind of command isn’t a popular one.

 We don’t like change of this sort.

We are a complacent lot for the most part.

We enjoy our predicable, daily lives.

I certainly am the most guilty of this.

I find a certain comfort in my daily schedule.

And having to see everything anew from this uniquely Jewish perspective is sometimes hard.

It’s hard to re-see things I thought I knew.

It’s hard to have readjust and redefine things that I thought I knew well.

I was happy in my complacency.

I was fine when I didn’t have to think too deeply about God…or anything else for that matter.

This of course brings up probably our biggest point.

For the most part, we don’t think. 

We don’t have rational, concentrated thoughts about our faith or the world.

We are usually thinking about what is right before us right now.

We are thinking about what we are going to do next, what we are going to eat or drink for lunch or supper.

We think about what our children are doing or not doing or about what our spouses are doing or not doing, or about the work at hand. 

We are thinking about what needs to be thought about at that moment.

And there’s nothing wrong with any of that.

But, in that crush of thoughts, thoughts of God don’t come up so easily.

What Jesus is telling us in today’s Gospel, when he tells us to repent, is, essentially, this:

He is telling us to be mindful.

Be mindful of God.

Be mindful of the good news.

And what is the good news?

The good news is that the Kingdom of God is near.

God has drawn close to us.

God is near.

So, be aware. 

What we find here is a very simple lesson in how to live fully and completely. 

Essentially, Jesus is telling us,  

Repent.

Wake up.

Turn around and see.

God is here. 

Jesus is saying to us, Stop living foggy, complacent lives. Repent.

He is saying, Quit being drones, mindlessly going about your duties. 

Wake up and think.

Open your eyes and see. 

God is with you.

God is here, speaking to you words of joy and gladness.

Listen.

Hear what God is saying.

Look.

See God walking in your midst.

And when we see God, when we hear God speaking to us, we find that we too want to do what those disciples in our Gospel reading for today did.

We want to follow after the One God sent to us.

We want to be followers of Jesus—this Jewish Messiah.

And we want to help others be followers of Jesus.

We want to help others see that God is near.

Being followers of Jesus means that we are awake and we see.

So let us truly follow Jesus in our lives.

We don’t need to do it in a flamboyant fashion.

But we can do it in flamboyant fashion if that works for us.

We can truly follow Jesus by striving to be spiritually awake.

We can follow Jesus by allowing ourselves to spiritually see.

And when we hear and see—awake, aware, not sleeping spiritually—it is then that we can become truly effective fishers in helping others see as well.

Let us pray.

Holy God, God of Israel, God of our ancestors, let us heed the words of your Messiah, your Chosen One. Help us to repent, to turn around, and see so that we can be aware of the fact that your Kingdom is drawing close to us, and that you are walking in our midst. We ask this in the name of Jesus our Messiah. Amen.