Dropping the Nets

Scripture Lessons: Jonah 3: 1-5, 10 and Mark 1: 14-20 Sermon Title: Dropping the Nets Preached on January 24, 2021 There are two aspects of this Scripture Lesson from the Gospel of Mark that have become clearer to me in the last week: the first is that these disciples aren’t completely unique in their willingness to drop everything; people we know are doing some version of that often enough that we ought to recognize it. All of us, have likely, at times done some version of the same thing, for letting go is a requirement of every disciple of Jesus Christ, not just the disciples of 2,000 years ago. And the second realization I’ve had in the last week, thinking about his Gospel Lesson is that this account is just the beginning of their letting go. In fact, following Jesus towards the kingdom of God requires that all disciples keep on dropping important things. It may be that we have to keep on dropping nets the whole way there. Let me try to tell you what I’m really getting at. Back in Columbia, Tennessee where we lived before moving back here to Marietta, I heard stories about young men who would hear the call of God as they worked in the tobacco fields. They’d drop what they were doing to become ministers of the Gospel, however, the county historian there once told me, “If you find that story awe inspiring, then you don’t know what working in a tobacco field is like. Anyone would answer a call from God out there. A young man would say just about anything to get himself out from those endless rows of tobacco on a hot summer day. Don’t be so impressed.” Of course, I am impressed. I’m impressed every time I see people doing this kind of thing. Even if maybe they’re not doing it for purely spiritual reasons. But consider this too: sometimes letting go of the first thing is easy, and then you keep having to do it. Which makes me think of this first-hand account of a young white woman, right here in Cobb County, who said that when her brother heard that Lincoln had been elected president, he rushed off to South Carolina to enlist. She was caught up in how he nearly dropped his how in the field to rush off to the fight, however, how was it once the war began? How was it once winter came? How was it for him coming home, questioning the cause or refusing to let it go? Sometimes adventure calls us to let go of our nets and we’d be fools not to listen, but we’re also fools to think that’s where letting go ends. Every soldier knows that letting go of the comforts of home is just the first step in a long journey. On that journey, some let go of their very humanity. The path of discipleship is the same in the sense that we have to keep letting go, day after day, again and again, but the path of discipleship is one of stepping closer to the Kingdom: dying to self, dying to ego, dying to comfort, to take up a cross. For disciples who are letting go to follow Christ it’s worth it, because every time we let go of something like our nets, every time we suffer for the sake of him, we’re stepping out of darkness and towards the light. I heard about it in an audio book I was listening to with the woman who runs First Presbyterian Church, Melissa Ricketts. Her official title here is Director of Administration, and you may know that Melissa Ricketts and I rode down to South Georgia last Saturday. Representing all of you, representing this church we were there at the graveside with Rev. Joe and Sandra as they buried their son. It was hard to be there, but we wouldn’t have been anywhere else, only we had to get there first and the getting there took a long time. It was about five hours down and five hours back. It was one of those drives where you come off the interstate and think you’re getting close, but you’re not. And the day before when I was just getting ready to go our daughters were worried about me being a passenger in Melissa’s car. They were very concerned that I might not be an engaging enough passenger in the car of one of their favorite people, they feel as though I can be a boring person to ride in the car with, so they suggested I bring a book to listen to on the way, and we did. My wife Sara made the recommendation having read it already. This book, it’s called The Love Story of Missy Carmichael, is the story of a woman who lost her husband, and never changed a thing in their house. You can imagine. The story starts moving when she meets a friend who comes over and describing the place as a mausoleum, offers to help her sort through it all. Sorting through the stuff was an emotional experience for Missy Carmichael, because letting go of all that stuff was like letting go of her husband all over again, but once she started letting go of what was there, she noticed the light coming through the windows. I tell you about this book because it makes this clear. It makes it clear how hard it is to let go, but also how pure the light is. That’s what discipleship is like. We let go of our nets, but from letting go, something happens. Real life starts again. Joy comes. We’re not trapped in a perpetual cycle of the way things are. It’s the opposite of the TV show, Hoarders. Do you know that show? Sometimes that show can hit a little too close to home. I haven’t watched the show in a while. I don’t know if it’s still even on, but what I remember is how often, for the people on that show, the physical stuff wasn’t just stuff, and letting it go was so painful they almost couldn’t do it. It’s like Mrs. Havisham in the book Great Expectations. We, who watch, want to say, “Get out of that old wedding dress!” Only she can’t take it off, and neither can she get on with living. Likewise, down in our basement are my old baseball cards. Up in the attic are year books from High School. Our girls were rummaging around in my sock drawer and they wanted to know why I had a Ziplock bag filled with little teeth. I’ll tell you why. It’s because it’s hard to let go. It’s hard to let kids grow up. It’s hard to say goodbye to who they were and what we had. It’s hard to move on. Sometimes it’s hard to get on with living, because living requires letting go. Letting go, over and over. Letting something go. At the beginning of this sermon, I said that people like us do it all the time, and they do, and so often it’s worth it. Have you ever seen a woman who let go of everything to become a mother? The disciples letting go of their nets must have been something like that. Some of you have been that woman who let go of everything to pick up a tiny bundle of life and made that bundle the center of everything. You let go to let the light in. You can’t imagine doing anything else. But did you know that you were going to have to keep letting go? Did you know that you were going to have to let go of her hands so she could walk? Did you know that you were going to have to let go of her so she could go off to college? Fathers are bad at all of this. It takes us too long at the beginning and then we almost can’t bear to do it in the end. I remember how Sara became a mother the first second she held Lily in her arms. It happened right before my eyes. She just let go of self-centeredness and made her daughter the center of her whole world, while I was still the same self-centered guy that I was the day before. I was ready to leave the hospital because I was kind of ready to get back home so I could watch TV and take a nap as though my whole life hadn’t been transformed. Now I watch as fathers walk their daughters down the aisle to let them go and I have an idea of how long it will take me to recover from doing that, only I also know that this is what I signed up for. This is what life requires, and discipleship isn’t any different. We have to keep letting go so that more light can come in. You know what happens from the TV show Hoarders what happens to people who can’t, but there’s an even worse warning for those who hold on and don’t let the light in. It’s there in the book of Jonah. We don’t always get really deep into the full story of Jonah and the whale. We simplify it, because this is a story, we tell children. So, kids grow up thinking that the hard to believe part of the story is that a man could get swallowed by a whale then spit up on a beach three days later. That’s not the hardest part to believe. The hardest part for Jonah to believe is that God would want to save the Assyrians. That sounds silly if you don’t know how awful the Assyrians were. They were demonic. Had they been the ones to march on Capitol Hill, they’d make what we saw two weeks ago look like a yard sale or a lemonade stand. When they invaded a nation, they would skin their enemies alive. They’d burn children, destroy cities, enslave survivors, and God wanted Jonah to go preach to them. That’s a terrifying proposition, but it got worse. When Jonah finally did, they listened. Those Assyrians were like so many disciples. They let go of who they were and became someone new, which surely brought an awful lot of light into their lives. However, Jonah wasn’t ready for it to happen, because he couldn’t let go of the hatred he was holding on to. You know how disappointed Jonah was. He pouted under that broom tree. Then God sent a worm and killed the tree. On first reading it sounds like he just being a big baby, only we can’t simplify his disappointment or we’ll miss the point. He was disappointed because his whole life he’d been dreaming of the moment God would wipe these enemies of his from the face of the earth, then God wants him to let go of that dream to face a new reality. Do you know how hard that is? This is something that some people are never able to do. They can’t see what’s right in front of them as good, because it’s not the good that they wanted to see. They can’t tell that it’s a blessing, because it’s not the blessing that they had asked for. Disappointment breaks their heart. It happens all the time. Again, and again, we must let go of what we wanted to happen, what we thought would bring the light in, to trust that God might know better than we do. The persistent call of Christ is, “drop what you’re holding onto,” and follow me. Don’t let that call sound too easy, or you’re fooling yourself. It’s not easy. But don’t let that call sound impossible either. People do it all the time, and they can tell you that doing so let’s more light in. CS Lewis said it was something like a child, happily making mud pies in an ally way, receiving an invitation to the beach. She’s never been to the beach. She can’t imagine the beach. But when we let go of what we know, we stand to gain what might be. When we let go of bitterness, we stand to gain joy. When we let go of hatred, we stand to gain love. When we let go of our nets, we stand to be a part of the transformation of this whole planet. Let go of your nets. Let go of what was. Follow Christ towards the light. Amen.