Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost

23:49 set our pace in worship today. Still our hearts and speak the word that needs to be heard. So may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be pleasing to you, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen. This fall, we are anchoring our worship in sacred stories of ordinary people who are called to God's service, called out of their comfort zones and self-conceptions to serve as prophets, disciples, followers of Christ. These God taps invite us to reflect on the moments in our own lives or the lives of our loved ones where we have witnessed a holy nudge, a sacred, hey you there, of God's desire for us to thrive in the fullness of who we are. We are reading these scriptures together, tuning in for the movement of the Spirit within our own lives and the lives of our communities. And in today's reading, we encounter the beginnings of Jesus's ministry in the Gospel of Mark.

25:10 Just after Jesus has been tempted for 40 days, having denied the outstretched hands of greed and power and ego, Jesus emerges from this trial with clarity and focus. He moves with urgency, seeking disciples to follow him and form his ministry to work together to bring God's kingdom on earth. Not in the far-off future, not in the afterlife, but here at hand in our living midst. In this short passage, it looks simple and it happens fast, but it gives us the chance to linger on the creation of the early church, to explore what God's taps look like when they are felt not just by individuals, but when they ripple outward to form followers of Christ. Together, this passage asks of us, how can we tune into our collective purpose?

26:12 What calling do we hear and respond to as one? So let us listen now for how the gospel of Mark begins to answer these big questions in the first chapter beginning with the 17th verse. And Jesus said to them, follow me and I will make you fishers of people. And immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went a little farther, he saw James, son of Zebedee, and his brother John, who were in their boat, mending the nets. Immediately he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him. This is the word of God for the people of God.

27:07 Thanks be to God. Short and sweet, this scripture story. and in the gospel of Mark known for its brevity directness the urgency with which these writers portrayed Jesus's ministry on earth in Mark Jesus is in motion going out into the world teaching us that the in-breaking of God's kingdom is happening now this is the earliest written gospel and I often feel this sense from reading it of, oh, we've got to capture this. Something like, we've got to rush to tell this story. We've got to move to tell it while we have the time. And so the story goes, immediately, they left their nets and followed him. Immediately, he called them and they left their father. Have we heard stories this urgent lately?

28:04 Have we felt the pressing crush of, oh, you've got to know about this? Or maybe, click here now. Or respond now to this urgent need. Or lately, Natalie, we're asking you directly. Our opponent is out fundraising us. Our 900% match ends at midnight. Will your name be on the donor list? as I was writing this sermon I think I got 50 of those text messages so maybe it's the news headlines cycling without rest the floods and fires and wars the midterm elections twisting all the deep and important need in this world that overwhelm me with this sense of all urgency all the time makes me just a little suspicious of a gospel text that's telling me something's happening immediately. I mean, did they even say goodbye?

29:02 What about their families, their businesses? What about their boat? So yes, I want to resist this pace. I want to say, wait a minute, how do these disciples have the urge, the will, the certainty to say yes immediately.

29:27 Maybe I resist a gospel use of the word immediately because of how many solicitations of my attention and compassion that are telling me right now, it's up to you. Yes, you and your, dare I invoke Calvin this morning to say so? It's up to your Protestant work ethic to solve it all right now.

29:56 I'm just checking on my Calvin quoting colleagues up here if they're doing okay. Friends, we know that urgent individualism can lead us down the false paths of saviorism and achievement for our egos. This is a misappropriation of our deep compassion for our neighbor. To think that our individual desire to help or change this hurting world might be sufficient in the face of structural inequity or climate catastrophe or political uncertainty. And it's okay that we are not enough on our own. Because this week, our wise executive pastor reminded the senior leadership team how well we work when we remember the maxim, if you want to go fast, go alone. Maybe you know it. If you want to go far, go together.

31:00 Together. For in this scripture, what we witness is not an individual call. It's not a tap on one shoulder. It's not a call in the night to one pair of ears. It's not a coal on one set of lips. It's Christ forming the early church through small groups of people. Simon and Andrew. than James, son of Zebedee, and his brother John? Their response is shared in sync with God's invitation. It's moving together toward the risk of serving God. I wonder if that's how they found the strength to go immediately, to transform their lives without hesitation, because they weren't finding the answer alone.

32:03 Because they were listening as one, not with the urgency of achievement, but energized by the pace of shared discipleship. if you'll turn to our bulletin cover with me this morning it's a reflection of this collective commissioning too it showcases just how many men and women became disciples this way tuned in together to the call of god in the center the women who discover the empty tomb rushing to tell others of their witness their lord is not there the woman whose cheeks reflect the flame of the spirit she carries traveling with haste to share the good news and jesus above it all flanked by the dove of the holy spirit pointing us in the direction of discipleship you know that rush, that overflowing, I must tell you my good news feeling that comes out of us so readily. You get a new job and you have to immediately call your best friend to celebrate.

33:20 When you run into an old friend on the street and you call your mom afterwards to tell her how fun it was to reminisce. When someone you love has a baby and you get to share the news with those around you, sometimes right when you find out the baby has arrived. It's infectious, this joy, it spreads, it connects. To follow Jesus is to build towards this collective call, an interwoven net of people who are not alike, but who are drawn together by the strength, by the tug of the message of Christ who came to say, you are loved. You are enough. You are not alone.

34:10 You are worthy of belonging and of siblings in Christ who will walk this path with you. I have witnessed this enthusiasm, this urgency of collective calling, this sharing of the good news right here in this church. We see it happen through our youth group. Reverend Werner recently told me our goal is for each of our youth to be able to say, I belong here. I am seen and known. And that they reflect that back and forth to each other. as Reverend Jonah mentioned this morning on Friday night we had a packed house up in Bunnell Hall with joy-filled tables celebrating the pillars of service of this church not just one person but over and over again you could hear the call on this community coming forth through individuals who have said yes together to following Christ and through that collective yes have formed for us a multi-faceted vision of what servant leadership looks like.

35:24 We recognize them for their faithfulness as ushers, as leaders of committees and book clubs and tours, of ones who aren't our longest members but who said yes to service right away, of those who quietly and with compassion recognize when a pew neighbor needs support and offer it. all of this noticed, all of this felt by others in this body, rippling outward into a collective meaning of how to be Christ's church. a yes together to the one who says, follow me.

36:09 For Jesus doesn't say, follow me and you will be perfected in your faith, or follow me and only you will be transformed. Jesus says, follow me and more will follow. Follow me to dance to God's tempo, not your own. in our passage today we don't get a lot of words or information about how this decision happens for James or John or Simon or Andrew the fisher people called in the verse just before our reading and German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer reads between these short lines with us he wrote that the immediacy of their yes comes from the absolute authority of Christ, felt so powerfully by the disciples, they can't second guess their yes. Bonhoeffer says this story becomes a testimony to the absolute direct and unaccountable authority of Jesus. There is no need of any preliminaries and no other consequence but obedience to the call.

37:22 sometimes we do need God to slow us down but the invitation of Mark's gospel pacing is for us to ask ourselves where is it in our lives that we need no preliminaries where we don't need to overthink or second guess our qualifications Where do we need to know and live as though it's okay to be a beginner and do it anyway? Where in our spirits do we need to hear Christ tell us, ready or not, here we go.

38:04 Follow me. I am there already with you. God isn't rushing us. instead our loving God is telling us we don't have to wait to be good enough we don't have to wait for the right timing we don't have to we don't have to wait for the perfect thing to arrive we just need to listen with our neighbor trusting that in unified hearing in our mutual labor we together have the skills we need to bring forth God's dream of justice in our midst. This is the good news. We can begin where we are together with the skills we have within us already.

38:55 We collaborate with God when we co-labor with each other. so in this almost November time we're hearing wonderful pledge testimonies like Joanna's we're sharing our ambitious annual pledge goal and we're inviting you to discern with us our place and how we will make transformation possible in this church in the year to come we're asking how might we all heed a collective nudge towards God's vision for our world when I was a senior at Macalester College I got to participate in a cohort program for graduating students that our college chaplains led we learned multi-faith practices of discernment and values-based decision-making.

39:52 We were all trying to decide, what do we do with our lives with this liberal arts degree? And these wonderful chaplains taught us about how to bring vocation to life through our individual and community-wide choices. And we decided to spend our college senior year spring break at a retreat center, a Presbyterian retreat center called Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu, New Mexico, which is a place beloved by Georgia O'Keeffe. We journaled, we had circle discussions, we did ropes courses, we walked labyrinths, we walked in the high desert canyons through beautiful red rock formations with cacti and birdsong that this water-loving Minnesotan had never seen or heard before.

40:42 And on one of those walks, each of our group were paired into twos to walk together and to share guided questions. Pairs like James and his brother John. And I remember talking about the two calls that were pulling at my heart at the time, whether to become a teacher or whether to become a minister. Wondering whether there could be wrong answers to Mary Oliver's poetic question, what will you do with your one wild and precious life? And I was so absorbed in this wondering among the scrub brush of juniper and white sage that my conversation partner and I kept losing the path. We kept seeing more paths than we needed. We'd have to stop, stop talking and catch our bearings by marking where our classmates were. Oh, those two up ahead and those two nearby behind.

41:42 forming the path together in this way even when we lost sight of it through the one we followed and also the ones we were leading and though I didn't quite come to the answers I thought I needed on this one walk I learned something true We need each other to see where to go up ahead. And we need each other to know where we've been just behind. follow me, Jesus says, for you and for the ones who will follow. Don't wait. Will you rise, in body or in spirit, and join me in the prayer for the day printed in your bulletin and seen on your screen.

42:44 God who guides us at work and at rest, lead us to the work that is ours to do. Knit us together in community to mend the nets of this world. As we share your good news, energize us. As we open our hearts to mutual labor, encourage us. Give us bravery and energy for the task.