Repent

Jonah 3:1-5, 10; Mark 1:14-20

Repentance seems a far cry from calling people to fish for people, but a commentator suggested the themes of repentance and I began thinking about what it means. Repent means to turn, turn around, stop going the way you are headed and turn toward something new. I can't think of anything which is more representative of turning than of leaving your family, friends, and livelihood and following someone who you don't know fully. Can you imagine it? 

Think about this. Of course Mark's story is short on this. Peter, Andrew, James and John may have heard about Jesus because of rumors and gossip. News travels fast when you don't have newspapers or technology. There isn't much to say what they might have heard about Jesus either. Yet they leave everything to follow. This is a radical change and a radical way to repent.

First they leave their families. Fathers who relied on them to fish with, the family business, no less. They leave and start a new way. And what is this way they go in? Good news, the kingdom of God drawing near, and to do this you repent. I wonder what could have been so dynamic they make this choice. 

Let's think of it this way. You are doing your normal job and someone comes along saying you are to follow them, would you? Or someone comes along and tells you they know some Good news about God and God's kingdom, would you drop everything and follow? No, you might think they were nuts or from some group you didn't want to associate with. And here is the thing, we believe this so well we have settled into our churches and forgotten what a wild ride it is to follow Jesus.

Following Jesus means we step out into the unknown and leave everything we know behind us. I mean this is what the disciples do today, isn't this what the story is telling us? See sitting in our comfortable pew (at least usually) or sitting on our comfy couch, chair we forget somehow God has called us to follow not from our seat, but by walking our feet into our neighborhoods to find where people need a bit of good news, to see the kingdom of God drawing near to them because we know what drew near to us.

Everyone of us is here because something about Jesus turned our lives upside down. It's not the pew, or the music, or the lofty prayers, or that we are a family, or we are sitting with like minded people. It should be we are foolish enough to believe the gospel good news that we are kingdom people. And as kingdom people we show this out to the world in act, in word, and in deed. 

Just think if we really followed Jesus out. Out into the neighborhoods which surround us, out of our complacency in thinking our butt is to be in a pew, out into what is supposed to be the show of what it is to walk with people and show them the good news. Repentance is a whole different world than showing up with a sign in the downtown and everyone avoiding you like the plague. Repent means we turn the world upside down because we have been shown what it means to loose everything and find the most precious thing in the world, our own life.

Maybe this is why we join a club on Sunday and pew sit, because we haven't learned what it is to be turned upside down. To go searching for the kingdom of God outside where it always was, among the people, among the community, among one another. Because once Jesus calls these people he starts right in healing, in the synagogue, in the hills, in the streets, and even in his house. We are supposed to be this. We are supposed to be the ones who are the first to try and heal one another and boy we need healing right now. We need to know we are a part of one another, a community which thrives with one goal, to show others a glimpse of the kingdom of God.

Repent, return, go and do, be the hands and feet of the one who healed you, of the one who loved you, of the one who picked you up and put you back together. It is dire we start to remember this. Remember why we are who we are, why we are called, and what this calling means. It means we try our best to show others a little of what the love of God looks like so they might want to join in with us. Because they got a glimpse and a taste of what true repentance is. It is in finding our lives. It is in having ourselves turned upside down and inside out and we want to show it to the world. Because we are vibrant, we are found, and we are loved deeply no matter what. This is what it means to repent. Now go and turn the world upside down and inside out.