Jonah 3:1-5, 10 Mark1:14-20
Last week I spoke to you about how you know when God is calling you. The short answer is you just know.
Last week we heard from the story of Samuel, the young boy who served in the temple under the priest Eli, and heard God calling his name one night. And we heard, from John’s gospel, the story of the call of Nathanael – the one to whom Jesus said, I saw you under the fig tree.
The call stories in the Bible help us to know that there isn’t a formula, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all call.
So today, two more call stories.
We hear a little snippet from the story of Jonah. The Lord has called Jonah to go to Nineveh and proclaim a message: Forty days more and Nineveh shall be overthrown. It is a call to repent from their sinful ways. And the people of Nineveh, that’s all they need to hear. They immediately repent, and God relents.
It’s an amazing little story of a powerful experience. The people of Nineveh would, no doubt, remember this day for the rest of their lives. It would be the kind of thing where, if someone asked you, “where were you when the prophet Jonah came through town?” you would be able to say, “I was at the market buying fish,” or, “I was sweeping my floor,” or “I was at the city gates negotiating the price of a piece of property.” You would remember, because it was one of those moments with a very clear before and after.
And then we hear the story from Mark’s gospel, about Jesus calling his first disciples. It is a parallel to the story from John’s gospel we heard last week, where Jesus called Philip and Nathanael. This one is about the call of Simon and Andrew, James and John, fishing in the sea of Galilee. Jesus called out to them, “follow me I will make you fish for people.” Sounds weird, doesn’t it? Weirder even than “I saw you under the fig tree.” But it worked. They left their nets. They walked away from their boats, their livelihood, and their families, and followed Jesus. Again, this is a story with a clear before and after. Before Jesus came by, they were fishermen. After that, they were disciples and the rest is history.
Like the call stories we heard last week – Samuel, Philip, and Nathanael – these people just somehow know. Simon, Andrew, James, John, all had a common experience they could share with one another. As they walked away from their boats, they could look at each other, nod their heads, and know: we are in this together.
For the people of Nineveh, for these four fishermen, the sense of community in this must have been profound.
So the questions raised by these passages isn’t how you know. They all know. But the question is: what do you do once you know?
The people of Nineveh immediately got down on their knees and repented. They all put on sackcloth and ashes, they fasted, they turned from their evil ways.
And the fishermen in Galilee – they immediately dropped their nets and followed Jesus. The text tells us what they all did immediately, but what we really want to know, is what did they do the next day? And the day after that?
Mountaintop experiences are fabulous. But everyone has to come down from the mountaintop. Most of life is lived down at ground level. You always remember those mountaintop experiences, that moment you said yes, but the real living of the faith happens on the ground.
It involves what Eugene Peterson called a long obedience in the same direction. And this, my friends, is a little bit grittier, a lot less elegant, than that moment you said yes.
It involves commitment, and discipline. And most of all, I think it requires understanding just what you said yes to.
Think about these stories from scripture: The boy Samuel didn’t say yes to God so he might be saved. The fishermen Simon and Andrew didn’t say yes to Jesus so they would go to heaven or that God would enrich their lives on earth. They all said yes to a plan that was bigger than they were.
The stories in scripture, where God calls someone to God’s side, always have a bigger picture in mind. God has plans for God’s people, plans which are bigger than their individual lives; plans which are bigger than anything they could do or imagine doing on their own. When God calls someone, it is not just to conversion, it is a call to discipleship. God calls us to follow, to become workers in the vineyard. God calls us to be a part of God’s great work of bringing God’s kingdom to the world.
The moment when we say yes is not an end in itself. It is only the beginning of a journey – a journey in which you will be asked to give your heart to this world and all who live in it, to the concerns that are God’s concerns: peace, justice, love. When you say yes to God you are saying yes to all the things God says yes to. And no to the things God says no to.
Each one of us might hear the call and respond to it.
The call of God comes to us and invites us to step outside of ourselves and serve the ones Christ died for. When we say yes to the call we will receive glimpses of the joy that comes from living near to God, the deep peace that comes from a trusting obedience to God. When you follow that long obedience in the same direction, you will be gifted with the power of the Holy Spirit to carry you to places you could not go on your own, giving you words you could not say, and actions you could not take without God’s help.
And each time you say yes to God’s call, know that it probably won’t be the last time. You will be called on to say yes again and again and again. Through it all, you will make mistakes. You will sometimes choose the broad road that leads to destruction rather than the narrow road that leads to life. To be a follower of Christ you will need to die anew every day and be born again, every day, in Christ; to say, once again, “Yes, Lord. Speak, for your servant is listening.
May you hear God’s voice calling you to come and follow. May you say yes to God’s call. May you awaken every day to say yes once again, to serve the Lord with heart and mind, body and soul.
