Casting and Mending
Mark 1:14-20; Jonah 3; 1-5
Casting and Mending
Last week we read about God calling Samuel and how it changed the course and the cause of his life. Today we read about how God called Jonah and about how Jesus called the first disciples. Let us start with the calling of the disciples first.
I love the way this story starts. It mentions heavily odds stacked against Jesus. John, who just prepared the way and pointed to Jesus was jailed, just as Jesus’s public ministry started out. With such a scenario, one would expect an incoming Messiah to promise revenge and retaliation. One would expect a call to arms. Whenever there was an uprise it was soon followed by such proclamations of woe and war to all in the Roman empire. It was the norm.
Yet it says that Jesus proclaimed good news. He didn’t tell people that war is near. He also didn’t tell people that hell is awaiting them soon. No, He told people that in the midst of all the bad news, unreasonable demands and dire circumstances…God is near. That there is a way to orientate one to the way God is doing things. Jesus opens with an invitation, not a warning.
This is the message the church was entrusted with in time. This is sadly not the message we often hear from Christians. It is more like: “Doom is near and there is nothing you can do about it”. “Jesus is mad and He is coming for you!” as a bumper sticker read. What a far cry from Jesus’s invitation and proclamation of good news: God has come close to you and He is stretching out a humane hand of help to you! Turn towards it.
But I guess talk is cheap. That is why Jesus illustrates what he proclaims by extending a more personal call to two fisherman. Not men of status or wealth. Not religious leaders but to two working groups of brothers. If Jesus includes these guys, many others will feel included.
Now both pairs of brothers were fishermen, but Mark goes into an interesting detail. He tells us what Simon and Andrew were busy with specifically and he tells us what James and John were busy with specifically. Simon and Andrew were casting the nets whilst John and James were mending them. Now there are discontinuation in this story. Both pairs discontinue their fishing and in a way, their occupation and become followers of Jesus. But in these two details about casting and mending, Mark very subtly points also to continuation. What they were busy with, the casting and the mending, they will keep on doing although be it in a different way. Disciples of Christ are casters and disciples of Christ are also menders. What does that mean?
Casting
Something that is cast out like a net, is moved from its origins to another destination. The deep waters in the case of the net. But a net was also something held on to and secured to it’s source. A net is returned to its origin. A net never returns empty handed or shouldn’t if it is cast right.
A wrong understanding of us being casters is that we cast Jesus to other people who don’t know him. That we bring Jesus to places He has never been… That is not how God’s casting work. We are the ones being cast into unknown territories, to unknown people and to the depths of human experience. This experience can be quite a shock. It can make one feel disorientated, sometimes even lost. It takes us out of our comfort zones and into our con-front zones. Two things sustain us however. The fact that we are secured to Christ, that he never let go of us. Secondly the fact that He is already where He sends us to.
What I just explained is very well illustrated in the story of Jonah. His story is one of casting. He is send out to where He does not want to go. In another Bible book, we have evidence that Jonah was a nationalist, someone with a burning passion for his people, a “Israel first” kind of guy. Yet God casts him out to a people he didn’t want to engage with and a people whose salvation wasn’t really a passion of his. He fights being cast. He ends up being cast overboard and then on dry land, back into God’s plan. Some say he was an extraordinary preacher because he just says: “Three days and Nineveh will be destroyed” and then everyone repents. I think he was the worst preacher ever because look how his message differs from the one Jesus brought. No grace, just condemnation. No invitation, but just warning. But because God cast him just right, even his fire and brim sermon hits the spot, the people respond wholeheartedly. It means they did not only become aware of God when Jonah got to them. It means God was in Nineveh long before Jonah. God used him for the final nudge, not because God cannot save the people without Jonah. Probably because Jonah (and us) needs some saving through this experience himself.
Listen carefully. You are God’s net. He wants to reach people through your agency. He intertwined godly agency with human agency to reach people’s hearts. But He is already at work in the lives of all the people He is sending you to. Your job is not to carry him to them as much as it is to recognize His grace at play in their lives and draw out the Jesus that is already in them and around them. What makes a net castable is the fact that it doesn’t have a will of its own. It is dead. What makes us effective nets is when we surrender our wills and die of our ego’s, when we die in Christ so that Christ can shine in us and so that we can recognize Him at work in the places he sends us to. And when God reaches out to others through us, He never loosen His grip on us. Neither Jonah’s unwillingness, stubbornness, fleeing or suicide attempt could change God’s grip on his destiny. Had he played along, his story would be much more of a heroic story than a comedy but God can work his purposes as well through a comedy as He can through a heroic tale.
It is kind of arrogant to tell people the meaning of their lives. Even assuming you know it perfectly, it would be like giving a spoiler to a beautiful story disclosing it. But the Bible kind of dares to do just that. The Bible says the meaning of your life is to know Christ. You shouldn’t be lonely because its painful? But what if your loneliness equips you to reach out to other people who are all alone and you end up knowing Christ better? Then you should experience it. You shouldn’t get cancer? But what if your cancer gives you a new appreciation for life and a deeper understanding of Christ’s healing power? Sorry, but then you being cast into the experience of having cancer is ultimately a good thing through which Christ triumph will shine. You shouldn’t go through bankruptcy or scarcity? Well, it was only after Jonah wasted his money on a boat ticket to his la-la land away from God, that He met his destiny and learned God’s ways (by the way the money Jonah spend on that ticket according to some commentators was a year’s average wages. It’s amazing to what extremes we sometimes go to avoid being cast…and then end up being cast back anyway). You wished you lived your life without going through a pandemic? Well, you know that 95 year old grandma of yours that have such an inspiring faith? Well, she is now on her second pandemic and also lived through a war and the great depression. Could it be that she got to know Christ this well because of that? It could be! Maybe because of this pandemic experience and how God keeps his hand on you in it, you will be the inspiring anchor of faith she is at 95!
The purpose of your life is not to be comfortable, snug or even happy. It is to know Christ. You cannot know him without being cast into experiences and sent to people. Don’t fight it and turn your life into a comedy. Embrace it and praise the Lord!
Mending
The nets are not only cast, they are also mended. There was no coming out of this task for a good fisherman. It was as important as casting the nets. Because a net that is not mended will not catch anything. It will waste time and energy. The two goes together and works together like legs.
It is easy to spot the casting in the story of Jonah and it is almost as easy to spot the mending. In the fish, Jonah’s sense of call and his theology is mended to the point where he could again be cast. God mends the wicked ways of the people of Nineveh. God mends the badly bruised Jonah when he feels sorry for himself outside the city with shade. God has mended his wrong ideas and self-centeredness once more. We know that because he told his story and you only tell a story where you are not the hero, but God is, if you have come to your senses. Because God mended Jonah, we have his story to read today.
In Ephesians 4 it identifies the main task of ministry to equip the saints. The Greek word used for that “equipping” is Katartizo and it is the same word used in Mark for mending. It could also be translated with to restore, to fit together, sewn together. Mending is not self care. It is God caring on us. But it is also something we can partake in in many ways.
Those of you who are into literal restoring would know the joy of giving old furniture or a car a new lease on life. Something that is restored well has an even greater value than the same object would have new. It excites people and gives them hope when they see something restored. It repulsed Jonah when God restored Nineveh because his own heart was at that stage far away from God. If you love someone, you rejoice in that person’s restoration projects. I am currently restoring a car. My friends all liked the picture of it I posted. They love me and rejoice in whatever I am restoring. Some even offered help. God posts about his restoration projects. Not on Facebook, in our lives. Do we even see it? Do we rejoice and partake in it?
Close
Discipleship is the formation of Christ in us. The early Church spoke of followers of Christ being Alter Christus, “another” Christ while all of us is also simultaneously have ipse Christus, “the same Christ” living in all of us. We are being cast and call to cast. We are being mended and called to partake in God’s mending work. We carry in us an AI, an artificial intelligence others do not have. Our AI is knowledge of Christ. Our call is not to emblazon Christ on others nor is it to embryoid Christianity on everything. It is to embody Christ. To be a Christian means to become a “little Christ” that grows to maturity.
So, I have bad news for you and I have good news for you. The bad news is we cannot gather, share meals or visit from home to home yet. You already know that. The good news is about what you can do. You can cast and you can mend. Follow Jesus and He will show you where and how. The Kingdom of God has come close in Him. It is close enough to you for you to jump on board and start (or continue) casting and mending.
Amen