“Just uttered a word”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Saturday, July 15, 2023
Mark 1:14-28 (Forward, p. 78) CEV p. 1026
I may be grasping at straws—that is, seeing a similarity where it doesn’t really exist—but I couldn’t help seeing something akin to a similarity in two of the pericopes (small sections) of today’s reading.
As Jesus walks along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, He spies two sets of brothers, fishermen all, and calls them to come and follow Him. As far as we can tell from what Mark reveals in today’s account, there is barely a discussion, just the vague injunction, “Come with me! I will teach you how to bring in people instead of fish.” Surely, one would think, there would have been some dialogue back and forth, especially seeing as they were leaving their families and livelihoods to follow Jesus. Even allowing for a previous contact that Jesus had with Andrew and Peter (see John 1:35-42) and Luke’s record of a miraculous catch of fish (see Luke 5:1-11), Jesus’ call—and their response—seems to be something entirely out of the ordinary. To me, it seems as if Jesus’ call was incredibly compelling, something far more than can be said about most people’s words.
And then there is the demoniac who ‘showed up’ in the synagogue in Capernaum one Sabbath day. Not only did he recognize Jesus right away and immediately call Him out, but he also left the man with barely a word from Jesus. Indeed, the crowds were impressed. “Even the evil spirits obey him!”, they said.
So, to me, there is something incredible—and compelling—about Jesus’ words to His human creatures, which then raises a question for me. “How is it, why is it, that we are so slow, so resistant, to hearing Him today? I am sure that He continues to speak, to speak to us and our world, today, so what is it that hinders us? I would suspect a couple of things. One is that His voice gets crowded out by all the other ‘noise’, all the rest of the input that assails our ears, be it the public or social media, our normal, ordinary everyday conversations, or just simple busyness. Another is that we simply don’t take the time to listen, to listen to Him via the Scriptures or prayer, or to each other via group study and fellowship. I suspect that His voice is just as compelling now as ever, that His word would also speak to us, if only we would listen. Amen.
Forward notes: “And Jesus said to them, ‘Follow me and I will make you fish for people’” (verse 17)
“How often we forget that our first mission is to take the gospel to those who do not know it. For many years, the Episcopal Church in Cuba stayed quiet, deep inside Christian homes and temples. Our identity revolved around attending worship and being a good person, but we forgot evangelizing—a factor that had made us strong in the early 1900s. I remember how a few years ago, during an evangelizing campaign in Guantánamo, an old church member told me: ‘But—we don’t go door to door, like Jehovah’s Witnesses!’
“Jesus didn’t preach in the temple. It is a good and commendable thing to take God’s Word to others. In Holguín, we gather in a house that we use as a church. I imagined that when the neighbors found out, they would come to us, but that did not happen: we had to take the Word to them and fish for people for the sake of God’s kingdom.”
Moving Forward: “How comfortable are you with evangelism? What could it look like in your life?”