Firstly, at the time of Jesus there were major political and economic changes happening in the region of Galilee. It was under the political control of Herod Antipas, the grandson of Herod the Great and a Jewish puppet ruler for the Romans. He was, according to the great historian Josephus, ‘a lover of luxury’ and, in order to heighten his prestige, he also embarked upon some massive building projects, which of course required even more money. Consequently taxation rose and tax-collection was more rigorously enforced. This led to increasing pressures upon many people, already alienated by Roman exactions and presence. Among those affected would certainly have been the Galilean fishing community. Even if they owned, or, more likely, rented, their own boats, they were required to pay fishing licences and other tributes. As these rose, comfort, and even survival, became increasingly difficult. How they must have longed for ‘good news’ of another way!
Secondly, Roman leaders often used the word ‘evangelion’ to proclaim their authority and their victories. Around the time of Christ for example, inscriptions on buildings, coins and other artefacts witness to the way in which Caesar Augustus was proclaimed divine, God made manifest: sent, as one declaration puts it, ‘as a saviour, both for us and our descendants, that he might end war and arrange all things, and since he, Caesar, by his epiphany… since the birthday of the god Augustus as the beginning of the good news (the evangelion) for the world that came by reason of him’ (quoted in Stanley Porter, Hearing the Old Testament in the New Testament, p.93). Does that have any echoes, do you think, in the Christian Gospels? You bet it does. The language Jesus, and the New Testament writers, use is often very close to such declarations: deliberately so, as Jesus, and much of the earliest Church, were powerful alternatives to this Roman ideology of power, salvation and claims to divinity. That s at the heart of why the Romans crucified Jesus and persecuted his followers. Jesus’ slogans were simply unacceptable and subversive, being so attractive to the increasingly put upon in Galliee and elsewhere.
Now, don’t get me wrong – I am not saying that Jesus and the movement of his first followers were political in the sense we usually understand the word. The meaning of Jesus, and the nature of the early Church, was far more than that. Rightly, we see Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah, in all kinds of ways, as the fulfilment of ancient wisdom: bringing meaning, salvation, and purpose – cosmologically, intimately, and eschatologically - to every aspect of our lives. However, uncomfortable as it may be, this also means the political and economic dimensions of our lives. For, this is surely part of the Gospel – the evangelion - story we hear today. As Luke Gospel tells us (4.18-19), in that account of the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, Jesus himself proclaims himself as the fulfilment of Isaiah’s promise ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour’. That was a very different evangelion to the Romans and Herod Antipas, wasn’t it? No wonder hard-pressed fisherfolk took notice.
‘Its time’. I reckon that’s a pretty good recent Australian political slogan for the Gospel story we hear today. For I suspect that that was hardly the first time Jesus had met the fisherfolk of Galilee. They had probably all been grumbling about Herod Antipas and the Romans for years, and talking about what could be done and what God might do. At last Jesus steps up and issues the good news – God’s evangelion – as a powerful alternative to that of the Romans and the world of his day. Immediately the disciples then respond.
Immediately: that is a key word in Mark’s Gospel, repeated again and again. For in Mark’s Gospel, things move fast. Don’t blink or you will miss the next thing God is doing in Jesus: healing, teaching, challenging false authority and building up true community. That is what the kingdom of God means, doesn’t it – true community under the reign of God. That is what Jesus was offering the disciples and why they responded so eagerly. How about us?
What is our evangelion, our good news, for today, do you think? How would we sum up what we offer to others? How do we bring God’s claims to the centre of everything, including our social, political, and economic dealings? What is involved in all of that? Let me, very briefly, suggest three things offered in today’s reading.
Firstly, we have to develop a new way of thinking and being. That is what the word ‘repent’ means in the Gospel. It is not so much about holding to, and reciting, a set of beliefs about Jesus, but about daily re-orientating our lives on the things of God. It involves letting go, saying sorry, turning round, and moving in the way Jesus would have us move. Mark’s Gospel shows us that this is a very dynamic, very exciting, very creative, thing to do. The fisherfolk stop being trapped and obsessed with whatever the Romans and others are doing to them. They get up and follow Jesus into new things which will bring life to them, and to others. That’s our challenge too!
Secondly, coming back to the word ‘immediately’, its something we need to do right now. Don’t get anxious, over-think it, hold back! There’s no time to lose. Jesus tells us that the good news is that God is here, right now. Of course God’s kingdom, God’s true life and community, isn’t fully here, but its already started and is available to us, this very moment, if we would but own it. Just start following. One step is the beginning of God’s glorious completion.
Turn around, get moving, right now – and start ‘fishing’. That’s the third thing, which really means relating to others with love. Evangelism – sharing good news – is at the heart of Christian living, but it doesn't mean what many people think it does. It is not about trapping people – leave that to the Romans and those who want to build empires and exploit others’ weakness. Its simply about following Jesus and sharing his great messages by living them out lovingly. For as another famous slogan has it: our job, following Jesus, is ‘to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted’. In the name of the divine-human one who afflicted and comforted, Jesus Christ, Amen.
by Jo Inkpin, for Epiphany 3 Year B, Sunday 21 January 2018