Mark 1:14-20 and 2:13-17 "Fan Base"

         About ten years ago, Kevin Kelly, the founding editor of Wired Magazine, wrote an essay arguing that a successful enterprise needs 1000 true fans.  He included a colorful and detailed chart and did the numbers.  But yikes!  A thousand true fans!  Anyway you cut it, a number like that to guarantee success is huge!

         If Kelly’s argument holds water, it goes without saying that the number is especially daunting (if not downright depressing) when it comes to the viability of the American church nowadays.

         However, I like to think that, since the church has survived for over 2000 years, most recently in these post-modern secular times and since half the churches in America these days have less than 75 regular Sunday morning attendees, when it comes to the church, Kelly’s figuring simply does not add up.  In short, when it comes to the church, the magic number of true fans would seem to be much less than 1000. After all, Jesus settled on twelve, and he found that most doable.  Actually he started with fewer than a dozen.

         First, there were the four fishermen he came upon during his solitary early morning stroll along the shoreline of the Sea of Galilee.  As he picked his way amongst the seaweed and driftwood, he came upon Peter and Andrew, who were hauling in the last of their nighttime catch.  “Follow me,” Jesus famously said, “And I will make your fish for people.”  “Follow me, and I will show you how to capture people’s hearts.”

         Apparently those were just the words these two young men needed to hear because the Gospel writer of Mark tells us that they followed Jesus without a moment’s hesitation.  We will never know why, but maybe it was the idea of travel and excitement and challenge that hooked them. 

         Or maybe it was their so wanting to get out of the first century Galilean fishing business, an industry that was politically and economically embedded in the Roman imperial culture and taxation system.  According to Biblical scholar K.C. Hanson, fishing was controlled and sustained by either the political hierarchy or elite families (most likely an incestuous combination of both)….these fishermen (like Peter and Andrew and James and John) were (heavily) indebted to local brokers for their fishing rights, boat leases, and harbor slips.

         They were anything but independent businessmen, and so it was not a particularly easy life that Peter and Andrew chose to leave.  And, of course, the same goes for James and John, Zebedee’s sons.  Not only did they leave the fishing industry cold, they left their father and his leased boat high and dry - along with a stack of unmended nets.

         In short, as Reformed preacher Scott Hoezee notes:  “Smelling of fish and looking every bit like the working-class folks that they were, Simon, Andrew, James, and John hitch their wagons to Jesus’ still nondescript program and begin to follow him. Jesus does not tell them where they are going. Beyond some cryptic promise to become “people fishers,” he also does not tell these four the specifics of what they might expect to happen next. He certainly does not promise them riches or rewards or anything tangible whatsoever. Yet they follow - but their doing so hardly is the stuff of great promise or portent.”

         Face it!  When it came to picking disciples, Jesus went out of his way to choose ordinary people to be his fan base.  I mean, he asked illiterate, low class fishermen to do the unexpected things that characterized his mission and ministry.  During the next three years or so, their traditional beliefs and religious inclinations would be challenged.  Though they would on occasion sit at table with wealthy businessmen, more often they would be serving a meal to the poor on a hillside.  They would get kicked out of places and get way too close to lepers for comfort. Their lives would become increasingly complicated and downright dangerous.  And all those people they had been taught to look down on?  They would learn that it was precisely those types living on the margins that were the ones God inevitably favored. 

         Jesus chose ordinary people to be his first disciples.  Surely that is one idea that the Gospel writer wants to convey to us.  And, if we have any doubts about it, Mark also includes another story of Jesus calling someone, and that is the story of Levi the tax collector. 

         Once again, we find Jesus strolling by the shore of Lake Galilee.  He was in the midst of a crowd this time, and so he found himself both walking and teaching - mostly about God and repentance and the dawn of a new age, a new reign, God’s kingdom come to earth. 

        He ended up in town and saw the local tax collector, Levi, sitting in his office, chewing the eraser end of his pencil and furiously calculating the dreaded upcoming tax bills on his abacus.  Jesus stopped, the crowd backing up behind him, bumping into each other.  Jesus stuck his head in the doorway, cleared his throat a couple of times to get Levi’s attention, and then offered his quick one sentence invitation:  “Follow me.”  And just like the fishermen, Levi got up and followed – not even bothering to lock the office on his way out. 

         The men and women listening to Jesus were aghast that he should initiate any sort of a conversation with a tax collector. You see, the crowd might have been largely a group of marginalized folk, but tax collectors were the lowest of the low. 

         As one blogger I read this week wrote, “The actual collection of taxes was contracted out to private tax collectors. A tax collector paid the tax for his entire territory upfront, and collected the individual taxes from the populace later. To make this profitable, he had to charge the populace more than the actual tax rate and the tax collector pocketed the mark-up. The Roman authorities thereby delegated the politically sensitive work of tax collection to members of the local community, but it led to a high rate of effective tax,

and it opened the doors to all sorts of corruption.”  No wonder most of the Jewish populace despised people like Levi.  He was robbing them all blind!

         Levi, however, for his part, was so excited at meeting Jesus’ that he had him over for dinner that very night with a bunch of his tax collector and assorted low life friends.  Some Pharisees (who thought pretty highly of themselves and their grasp of Jewish religious mores) wondered out loud how Jesus, if he really was a rabbi, could justify hobnobbing with such outcasts.  Jesus answered them plainly. 

         He had come for the sick and the needy – and there was no time to lose.  He had come to invite the lowly and the sinners (like tax collectors) into God’s Kingdom that was, he believed, on the brink of becoming real.  The so-called respectable types would have to fend for themselves. 

         You see, the gist of Jesus’ message (at least in the Gospel of Mark) is this:  The Kingdom of God is at hand.  The world is about to turn – and so Jesus needed disciples, followers, to lead the way with him. 

        There is a sense of immediacy unique to this Gospel – and that is another idea that the Gospel writer wants to convey to us.  In fact, Mark uses the word “immediately” or “straightaway” over 40 times in his 16 chapters.  The Kingdom of God is at hand.  The time is now – and – even over two millennia later - the message has not changed.  It is the same for us – as individuals and as the church.  The Kingdom – God’s dream – the way life should be - is so close.  It is so within our grasp.

         You know, often we live our lives in response to the time-honored (if not Biblical) adage:  Look before you leap.  As Methodist pastor Alyce MacKenzie notes, we “take days, even weeks, to consider each potential choice, to prayerfully enter into it, to weigh all the implications and all the ramifications.”  We crave preparedness – all the fish off the boat, every last net mended, each tax calculation completed and the abacus put away – all the risks accounted for and controlled.  And perhaps there is a time and a place for risk-free living.

         However, our theological lens this morning – and for these next few weeks of our worship series – is the Gospel of Mark.  And the writer of this Jesus narrative argues for the urgency of Jesus’ message – the need to immediately minister to the sick and the homeless, the need to immediately become peace-makers and reconcilers, the need to immediately turn our sights to who we are as individual Christians and to what our vision is for the Christian church in the 21^st century.  There is no time to lose, and so the writer of this Jesus narrative looks to another time-honored (if not Biblical) proverb:  He (or she) who hesitates is lost.

         Mark wants us to get on with kingdom building.  We may not feel prepared.  We may not be prepared.  Heaven only knows – Peter and Andrew, James and John were not prepared because Jesus was not looking for a few good men to ensure that there was a fish on every plate in the evening.  Levi was not prepared either because Jesus was not looking for someone whose fingers flew over the abacus with no errors. 

         Jesus was looking for folks who, at the very least, were captivated by the wild and crazy idea that here was a man who looked, as Scott Hoezee wrote, looked “like someone who offered…a chance to bring people into that kingdom whose nearness Jesus had been talking about ever since arriving in Galilee.  And maybe the thought of reeling folks in to that better place was just intriguing enough (for) these men to start modeling their lives on the life of the man whom they did not previously know but who seemed to believe (and this is important) seemed to believe in a future greater than could be imagined in that present moment.”

         And so it is with us – as individuals and as this church.  Jesus is not asking to see a resume.  He is not doing interviews and calling references.  He is simply offering that terse invitation – “Follow me” – along with the prospect of a life purpose more significant than any we have ever known. All the preparation we need is just being a little bit intrigued by his message and by the accompanying notion that changing our lives and maybe even our little part of the world deserves a high priority in our busy lives. 

         However, for us as a congregation, I sense that we are not all that sure what our vision is for our church and how we actually go about changing lives in our community and in the world.  My sense is that the first part of our mantra of “small church, big heart” may just be becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Not that there is anything wrong with being small in numbers, but being small in vision, small in energy and commitment, is problematic. 

         We have a couple of very important volunteer positions opening up this year.  We need a treasurer to help us strategize how to manage our money, so we can focus on what the church is all about – loving one’s neighbor.  We need a Missions Coordinator who can ensure that our outreach monies are being spent not only to assist people but also to encourage their independence rather than their dependence and sense of entitlement. 

         There is Jesus work to be accomplished, and Christian ministry to be done and, according to Mark, there is no time to lose. And, in the end, it really all comes back to the fan base.  As communications consultant Mark Behan recently noted in a conversation about churches, “Your greatest asset is the people who are already sitting in your pews.” He would point out that all of you are the true fans of this church. If you do not engage, no one will.  However, Behan would note, if we have a vision and are willing to think outside the box and take risks to follow our calling, then we can do just about anything.

         So – in conclusion, close your eyes for a moment and imagine…You are at the shoreline of your life and the life of this church.  Together we stand in the midst of all possibility. Imagine your feet planted firmly in the sand as you gaze out to the horizon, waiting to receive what comes in with the tide. Imagine climbing into your boat, sometimes rocking in the gentle give and take of church life and sometimes straining against the storms.  Here at the shoreline, we are alive, and anything is possible.  Here at the shoreline, we hear the voice of Jesus calling once again, “Follow me…”

         Are you ready?  Probably not.  But, hey, this is the Gospel of Mark, and the message is this:  The Kingdom is so within our grasp.  The spirit-filled direction of this church lies at our fingertips.  The world is about to turn.

         So - are you ready?  Probably not.  But neither were Peter, Andrew, James, John, and Levi, and Jesus called them, so let’s go anyway.