The Rev. Noah Van Niel
January 24th, 2021
The Chapel of the Cross
Epiphany 3 (B): Jonah 3:1-5, 10; Psalm 62:6-14; 1 Corinthians 7:29-31; Mark 1:14-20
There seems to be some confusion, of late, about what exactly it means to be a Christian. This is not really a new problem, but with armed insurrectionists storming the Capitol under the banner of Christ and a troubling strain of white Christian nationalism on the rise, we might do well, in these days of new beginnings, with a Gospel passage that recounts the calling of the very first disciples, to review some of the basics—the true fundamentals—of what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ.
To clear some things up right off the bat: being a Christian does not mean belonging to a particular denomination, or a particular church, or favoring a particular style of worship. In fact, it is not, even, first and foremost, a religion, in the formal sense of the word. It is a way of living, specifically a way of living that is modelled on Jesus Christ. The doctrines and the denominations, the books and the buildings, as important and helpful as they can be, have grown up around Jesus. They are meant to help us on our way to him. Very often they do. But sometimes they do not. Sometimes we get things backwards. Sometimes we act like Christ was made to serve Christianity, not the other way around. He becomes the team mascot used to pump up the home crowd or a trump card to be played in service of our own ideological agenda. But the truth is Christians are meant to serve Christ. We, are meant to serve Christ. And to prepare our hearts and minds to serve him in the right way, Jesus says there are two things we need to do. In his opening words in the Gospel of Mark, before he calls anyone to follow him, Jesus proclaims, “The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the good news.” Repent and Believe. These are the prerequisites before we set out on the pilgrim way.
But what does that really mean—to Repent? Well, in the original Greek, the word used for “repent” is metanoia, which means, to change your mind or purpose; to think differently; to reorient your whole being, and implicitly, in this context, to reorient it towards God. Metanoia is a waking up, a realization, an epiphany, in the colloquial sense of the word. This is not, generally, how we understand repentance today. We usually attach repentance to our notable and specific sins. We are doing something bad, we need to stop doing that, (“repent”) and start doing something good. And that is a correct but limited application of the word. To repent, in the fullness of the term, is to change one’s understanding and approach. It is to admit that something about way the world works and the way we are participating in it is out of alignment with the way God thinks it should be. This requires more of us than just changing our bad behaviors. It requires us to reflect critically on ourselves and the stories we tell. It requires us to examine the mental and social structures we have put in place to order the world and to evaluate whether those structures align with God’s vision for us. It also requires us to perceive ourselves and our world with truth—looking at them for how they really are, not how we would like them to be. To repent is to awaken to reality and pinpoint the places of disjuncture, where things are not how God would have them be–in our lives, and in our common life. So, in essence, the first step to prepare us to follow Jesus, to being a Christian, is to recognize there is a problem with how things are and to be willing to change. Starting with repentance means we start our Christian journey from a place self-awareness, honesty, humility, and flexibility, which protects us against the sins of surety, dishonesty, arrogance, and self-righteousness which are what can lead to making Christ serve us, rather than us serve him.
But repentance is not the only thing Jesus asks us to do to prepare to follow him. He gives a conjoined commandment, “Repent, and believe. Believe in what? “The good news.” What is that “good news”? That the kingdom of God has come near. Now, Jesus will spend most of his ministry trying to help people understand what he means by the “kingdom of God,” and they will never fully get the picture. But from what we can glean, it is, above all, a kingdom where we are at peace with ourselves, with one another, and with God. In the 12th chapter of Mark, when a scribe confirms that the Law of the Lord can be summarized with the now familiar phrase you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength and your neighbor as yourself, Jesus says to him, “Now, my brother, you are not far from the kingdom of God” (Mark 12:34). This means that when Jesus is talking about the kingdom of God, he is not talking about establishing a political kingdom or founding a religious nation-state. No, the kingdom of God is bigger than all that. It is a kingdom of the heart. Time and again Jesus rejects an earthly throne because the kingdom he came proclaiming was a new way of being, a new way of ordering of our relationships, brought about not by force or coercion, but by our devotion to God and our service to others.
And it’s important to note, that when Jesus says we need to believe that the kingdom of God has come near, what he is saying, is that we need to believe that kingdom is possible. That the chasm between our reality and God’s reality, is bridgeable. That things are in fact fixable. He is not asking us to subscribe to a complicated set of laws and doctrines. He is simply asking us if we believe God really can bring about a new, better way of being. We need that belief before we set out on the way of Christ, because as we look in the mirror, or out the window, and picture this peaceable kingdom of love and justice, our daydreaming will quickly be interrupted by cold, hard reality. “It’s just not realistic,” we’ll say. “The lion laying down with the lamb? It’s not natural. My flaws and failings which have bedeviled me all my life? I’ve tried everything and they’re still here. People’s selfish desires turned into generosity towards others? When has that ever been a lasting part of human history?” The kingdom of God is a promise that things could be so different than how they are, that we could be so different from how we are, that is just doesn’t seem possible. We see the appeal, we see the need for it, but we despair of it ever becoming a reality. And so we don’t believe in it. And if we don’t believe in it, we ensure that it will never happen. But if we can believe that God can change people’s hearts and minds, that the world can be different, that I can be different, if we can believe that the God who made us all and called us “good” can restore us to that state of harmony with one another, with creation, and with Him, it is then that we will be ready to follow. Because we will have recognized the problem. We will believe it can be fixed. And we will be ready to learn how.
Simon and Andrew, James and John were ready. Somehow those first disciples who so impressively and immediately dropped everything to follow Jesus were primed for his appearance. Perhaps it was John the Baptist who planted the seed of repentance in their souls, an awareness of how the world was out of alignment with God, an unshakeable sense, that, “This is not right. This needs to change.” Maybe they had even gone with the crowds to the river Jordan to be baptized by him. No doubt they had heard in their synagogues, long before John or Jesus came along, the stories of Eden, and the lyrical prophecies of Isaiah, painting a picture of the harmony, justice and peace which God longed for our world. “I want that,” I imagine them saying. “But we have this. How do we get from this to that? There must be a way…” And that is when they hear his voice floating across the water, “Follow me.” Suddenly in Jesus they find the answer to their question; the map from “this” to “that.” For Jesus did not just come to alert us to our need to change and then to encourage us to believe it was possible: he came to show us the way! Repentance shows us the problem, belief convinces us it can be fixed, and Jesus shows us how. He is our guardian and guide on the way to the kingdom of God. It had come near because he had come near. Somehow, they recognized this, and were ready to drop everything and follow.
Exactly what it looks like for us to follow Jesus in each of our lives…well, my friends, there’s enough in that question to fill a lifetime of sermons. And if we’re doing our jobs, it will. But this much is crystal clear about what it means to follow Jesus: Jesus does not go the way of hatred or violence. Jesus does not go the way of superiority or supremacy. He does not go the way of lies. He does not go the way of selfishness or greed. Jesus does not go the way of destruction or insurrection. If that’s the way you’re going, you are not going His way. And to say that you are, is to take the Lord’s name in vain. No, our worthiness to bear the name of Christ must be measured in how much our faith forms us into his likeness: loving, faithful; firm, but forgiving; and how much it transforms our world into the heavenly kingdom he came proclaiming—a kingdom that is generous, joyous, and just. To follow Christ is to seek the way of love at all times and in all places, no matter how hard it is, and to believe that way will lead us home. That, my friends, is what means to be a Christian. May we be worthy of the name. Amen.