Sunday, January 22, 2012
Trinity Church, Bradford
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Text: Psalm 62:6-14, Mark 1:14-20
Sometimes we find ourselves waiting. I can think of several kinds of waiting. For
example, there is the kind of waiting that happens when the world seems to stop,
when doors close for us, when we cannot do the things we hoped and wanted to
do. It is the kind of frustrating and soul searching waiting that we must do
when further opportunity seems to dry up.
Another kind of waiting, perhaps related to the first, is the waiting
that takes place when we are so overwhelmed by the changes and chances of this
world, with our work, with our families, with our responsibilities, that in our
all of our overwhelming busy-ness, we are waiting, longing, to just make it through
the day. And yet, there is a third kind
of waiting, a waiting of a more intentional sort, the kind of waiting that
takes place deep within us, a silent waiting and longing to become who we are
called to be, to enter into the plan that God has for our lives, a waiting to
hear his voice.
“For God alone, my soul in silence waits,” writes the
psalmist. What is the purpose of my
life? What am I supposed to do while I
am on this earth? What do you want me to
do, O Lord? Why did you create me? These are all the questions that resonate at
some deep level behind that statement, “for God alone, my soul in silence
waits.” We wait to hear the answers to
those questions, for they are not simply questions about what I shall do with
this life on a day-to-day basis; no, they are questions about who I am. They are questions about my identity that God
alone can answer.
The Gospel of Mark reminds us that it is in a time of
waiting that God meets us. Simon and
Andrew, James and John, were hardworking fishermen, involved in the endless
cycle of casting and drawing in their nets, day after day. Were they waiting for something? Was there something that would draw them out
of their daily task into something better? Four fishermen, upon the sea –
casting, waiting, and drawing in. Their
life, their very occupation was one of much waiting. And then Jesus appeared to
them with his message: The time is
fulfilled, the waiting is over, the kingdom of God has come near, repent and
believe in the Good News. Their waiting was
interrupted and they took that incredible risk of laying aside their work. The
four men took the risk of leaving behind their life of waiting, and put down
their nets and followed him. As their
souls had ever longed to break out of the busy cycle of their lives, so God
indeed met them in their waiting and called them forth.
There was something about these fishermen that predisposed
them to hearing the call of God, though.
I wonder if it was their habit of waiting. I wonder if in the combination of busy-ness
and drudgery of their work, they had cultivated a pattern of waiting. They cast their nets, they waited, and they
drew in. The pattern of their work
became the pattern into which God entered to call them forth into something
new.
The difficulty for many of us is that we lead such frenzied
lives that we scarce can find the pattern into which God might be woven into
our lives, much less the place where he might enter in. If we look a little further, though, I think
we will all recognize that we are waiting for something. Are we waiting for a better job? Are we waiting to move into a new home? Are we waiting for that child or grandchild
to come along? Are we waiting simply for
better times? It is into this waiting
that God casts his fishing net. It is
into this waiting that he reaches out for us.
In our waiting and in our longing we are seeking to be filled by things
temporal, but God knows our true hungering and thirsting, and in that time of
waiting offers us living water, bread from heaven; into this longing for things
temporal, he fills us with things spiritual.
However, we shall not be surprised if the spiritual food
upon which we are fed transforms not only our inner landscape, but our exterior
landscape as well. We shall not be
surprised (or maybe we shall!) when we see that our lives change on the outside
when they are transformed on the inside.
When the disciples were waiting, Jesus called them. Not only did they hear the call they
recognized the power of the call. As the
psalmist also says, “God has spoken once, twice have I heard it, that power
belongs to God.” The disciples not only
heard the call, they believed that the one who called them had the power to
change their lives. The call resonated
doubly within their souls and they became fishermen of another sort, turning in
their earthly nets, for spiritual nets.
Where once they lived a life of mundane purpose, they now lived for
God.
This is the hopeful message of the Gospel, that in our
mundane waiting, in our troubled waiting, in our angst-ridden waiting, in our
lonely waiting, Jesus turns that waiting into a kingdom moment. The waiting that seems to make us so distant
from God is the very means God uses to manifest his kingdom. The question for us will be, as it was for
the disciples, will we answer the call?
Will we take the risk of turning in our nets for new and better
ones? We will believe that the time of
waiting is over and that the kingdom of God is at hand?
c. 2012, the Rev. Daniel F. Graves
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