A couple of weeks ago, a bunch of insurrectionists invaded the Capitol and tried to subvert our democratic process. The sermon I delivered the following Sunday tried both to provide solace, but also to think together about how we live in our world and embrace our baptismal vows.
This past Wednesday saw the inauguration of President Biden, and the more historic inauguration of the first woman, first African American, first South Asian American Vice President Kamala Harris. I can say that many people in my social media feed shared that they were crying tears of relief, tears of happiness, tears of joy. The President’s address did not gloss over the problems that this country faces. If anything, he named them clearly without anything close to a Polly-Anna. I personally like the way historian Heather Cox Richardson puts it, that there is a time for hope because we are more aware than ever about the problems that the country faces. There is much truth to be said that you can’t face the problems if you do not know what they are. This country has systemic racial injustice which has not ever been close to solved. We have white supremacists, white nationalists who are our greatest terrorist threat. And we have a once in a century pandemic that has claimed more lives in a year than all the lives this country lost in World War II. In the wake of the pandemic, we are in an economic crisis, a mental health crisis, and a looming housing crisis. And of course, there is climate change… We have other problems, but any one of those would be enough. President Biden named them clearly. These problems are not solved by Biden’s inauguration. I do have hope that together we can work toward a “more perfect union.” On a personal note, I would rather have a person in the highest office of the land with ideals, that believes that they are accountable to someone or a purpose other than themselves. Starting the Inauguration morning with mass and inviting friends seems like a good beginning.
And now I thank you for allowing my slight deviation, but only slight. I’ve always liked the saying that “when you mix religion and politics, you get politics.” Yet, truth is, although I fervently believe that the pulpit is not a place for politics in the narrow sense, it is a place for living. And living is, among other things, political. So is the gospel. The country is collectively living through all of this and with that we need help from our faith and the words of scripture that guide us.
If anything, the reading from Jonah is set in a political context. Jonah had been directed to go to Nineveh. In our reading, we are told that this is the second time God reaches out and tells Jonah to go. Nineveh is about where Mosul is in Iraq, and probably not much different. That said, we may understand why Jonah doesn’t want to go. The people of Ninevah are not his people. They are not Israelites. But Jonah’s first direction from God, to which he paid no head, ended with him being in the belly of the whale. Perhaps we could listen to God a little better than Jonah did. Go where we are called and do what we are asked. And look how well the Ninevites follow, one idle threat and they take it seriously. Compared to Jonah, they get gold stars. But a relatively easy take-away message for us from this Jonah passage would be that if we believe that God really intends salvation for all the peoples, then in all seriousness, we must at least talk with our enemies.
The New Testament reading from 1 Corinthians and the Gospel of Mark feel as if they have to do with timing of an apocalypse, something with an eschatological urgency. Clearly, Paul’s understanding of the second coming of Christ was, like other Christians of his day, that it was just around the corner. But a deeper reading of both the Corinthians passage and the Gospel actually offers a timeless message. Although the coming reign of God is much larger than the trajectory of our personal lives, a sense of eschatological urgency is available to us whenever we reflect on our own mortality. We always live in a time when time has grown shorter, at least our time on the planet is minute by minute and day by day shorter. Whatever yesterday was, the present form of the world is always passing away to the next form of the world; there are no “do-overs.” There is, instead, repentance and amendment of life going forward.
For the Gospeler Mark, Jesus announces the reign of God and this reign is at hand, because Jesus came. The time is fulfilled, because Jesus is on the scene. That is what makes us disciples, not the other way around: the call. When we answer a call to discipleship, we are not given yet another thing to add to a task list — “here, fish for people” – but instead be one who catches people to follow God by the persons we’ve become. It is instead more of a change on the inside. If what makes us up changes for the better, then things are not done out of obligation, but inherently we can bring people to God, because God has already made the invitation by calling them. We could even be as effective as Jonah after he finally got the memo. One utterance and everybody takes Jonah seriously. Perhaps God wants to be taken seriously. “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come.”
For it is not much different, and in fact it is the same as the young Amanda Gorman, the National Youth Poet Laureate, said at the Inauguration. “There is always light, if only we are brave enough to see it, if only we are brave enough to be it.” With God’s help, we can be brave enough to see the light; with God’s help, we can be the light, be the holy lure, and so fish for people.