Sermon by Reverend Dr. John W. Mann | January 21, 2024

Mark 1:14-20

One of the songs we sang around the fire at church camp was, “I will make you fishers of men.” I grew up with the notion that if you follow Jesus, your primary purpose is to get other people to follow him too. Be a “soul winner.” I struggled with that idea. For one thing, I tended to be shy. Later on, I realized that’s because I’m basically an introvert. And on another level, I was trying find my own soul, let alone feeling responsible for where someone else might spend eternity.

One thing that attracted me to the Presbyterians was the depth and breadth of their thinking about God and the things of God. Being a follower of Jesus was in and of itself enough. One could discover one’s own gifts and talents and simply live up to them and let that living be a witness.

In August of 1980 I drove out west to visit family and friends. At the time I was living north of McGregor and serving as the “Temporary Student Supply” for the Presbyterian churches at Tamarack and Round Lake. I had been there since January of that year, and the temporary aspect of it had me wondering about the future; my future.

The youth pastor I had grown up with, Pastor Bud, had by that time moved to Spokane where he served a Baptist church. He was helping a church across the way in Post Falls, Idaho in their search for a pastor. Bud suggested that as long as I was driving through, he could set up an interview for me with their search committee. I had mixed feelings. But it was only a conversation and what harm was there in that?

The committee and I met at Bud’s house. They were nice enough folks; no surprises, no red flags. But there was one deciding factor for me. They described their church as needing to grow and they expected their next pastor to be a “soul winner.” In fact, they described the changing demographics of their community and how an expansive trailer court had sprung up neighboring the church. They expected their pastor to be out there “knocking on doors.” I knew then and there that I would not be moving to Post Falls, Idaho.

I don’t know what heaven is like. Jesus once described it simply as paradise. That sounds good enough to me and I look forward to discovering what that means when he welcomes me there someday. But I have a clear vision of hell. For me hell would not be a lake of fire with devils poking around with their pitchforks. No, hell for me would be an unending tract of houses, and the devil would be poking me with a pitchfork to go out there and knock on some doors. I don’t know what became of that church in Post Falls. I went back to Minnesota and signed on with the Presbyterians.

When I started out in ministry 40 odd years ago, the thinking was that churches would grow if the right formula was used; sort of like “miracle grow” for congregations. I saw the  church as an entity, an institution that needed to thrive and grow. I attended courses on evangelism and church growth. I had a bookshelf lined with the latest volumes of sure-fire how-to techniques. And always coming down the pike was the latest can’t fail opportunity for growing the church into something Jesus would be proud of.

We live in a world where the bottom line defines our institutions and even ourselves. The bottom line determines success or failure. This reading from the Psalms reminds us that the “bottom line” is not about finances or politics. The bottom line by which all things are reckoned is God alone.

Though it may not be “practical” I think of what it means to follow the thinking of, “For God alone my soul waits in silence, for my hope is from God.”

Waiting and silence are the very opposite of activity and noise. When we define what it means to be church, we often think that the more active and noisy a place is, the more “successful” it is. But success is a modern construct. Where I see Jesus leading is not toward success, but toward faithfulness.

In order for a soul to wait in silence, that soul has to recognize and quiet the noise of anxiety. We can recognize that we, each of us individually are held securely in God’s love. We can recognize that our community of faith, no matter how many people are part of it, is held securely in God’s love. Do we know what the future holds for us? Not really, but we know that today, which when you think about it is yesterday’s future, we are secure in God’s love. That hasn’t changed; that’s a reason to hope.

One day a fellow minister called me and asked if folks in my church would be willing to participate in a new venture; one that would help us identify our gifts and talents and lead to transformation. The Church of Scotland had put together what they called, “The Transformation Team.” It was a group of people with different skills who would come and lead us through a process of discovery and transformation.

Folks were keen on the idea. It sounded like fun and what did we have to lose? There was a good turnout of people and we went to work. After we engaged with the process for a while, a number of months anyway, frustration began to emerge. We didn’t seem to be going anywhere or accomplishing anything. What was the problem? Were we being resistant or reluctant in some way?

What we began to understand about the process was that there seemed to be a ready-made plan about where it would end up. The plan was that we would go through a process of discernment and our transformation would be that we would set up a cafe in the foyer of the building as a welcoming place to the community. The worship service would change from its traditional format into what they called, “messy church,” which was basically making crafts  and playing games.

When I raised some concerns with one of the people from the transformation team who were running the process, he said in a fairly dismissive way (I thought) “Unless your church gets on board with this, barring an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, it’s going to die.”

Transformation – becoming the people God wants us to be. Who knows what that might look like? Who can see what the outcomes might be? But to get there, on the one hand a café and messy church – and on the other hand, an outpouring of the Holy Spirit?

The choice seemed fairly clear to me and I said to that member of the transformation team, “I didn’t come here to run a café. So between you and the Holy Spirit, I I’ll take my chances with the Holy Spirit.”

The challenge of minding our soul is learning how to hold life lightly. It involves living in the now; the present time of our emotions, our relationships, our work or play. It might sound odd, but it is to live with a sense of eternity. God’s time in the midst of our time.

Eternity is real and it’s not something that begins the moment when we die. Eternity is always here and now – God is always here and now. The challenge of minding our soul is to live with a sense of the Divine. Life happens – sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. But God is in the midst of it all. And to touch upon God we don’t need to jump through a lot of religious hoops. To touch upon God is more like wondering who the people are we need to love.

The reading from Mark calls attention to the radical response of Simon, Andrew, James and John when they hear Jesus’ call. They made their living by catching fish. Jesus called them to a new way of living – “I will make you fish for people.”

His invitation is to live in a new way for a new purpose. His call is renewed every day and every moment. Think of it this way, maybe when we feel like arguing with someone, Jesus is calling us to lay aside the nets of our needing to be right, and to follow him on a journey of listening. Or maybe when we witness another act of injustice, Jesus is calling us to leave our comfort zone and say something. Or maybe in the pace of our busy lives, Jesus is calling us to be at peace and practice Sabbath.

When Jesus said that his followers would be fishing for people, he didn’t mean that they would be capturing them in a net or by putting bait on a hook. He was talking about turning our loving attention toward people. Not so much about changing one’s occupation but changing one’s preoccupations. We can follow him; we can let God be God and trust that God will do what God will do. Amen.