You have to check this out!

Have you ever had a meal so good you just had to have some more?  So good that you had to tell all your friends about it?  It's hard to imagine why these Galilean fishermen we read about today leave their entire lives behind to follow Jesus.  One way to look at it is that they had tasted the goodness of the kingdom of God, and they could not go without experiencing some more.

3^rd Sunday after the Epiphany (Year B) – Sunday, January 22, 2012

Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church, Lancaster, PA

Texts: Mark 1:14-20

Brett, my wife, and I really love Asian food...well, truth be told, we like just about any kind of food, but we go to this Vietnamese place up on Lititz Pike called Rice & Noodles. And it is so good. And we always get these spring rolls. They're wrapped in rice paper with fresh basil and greens inside, and this char-broiled chicken, so fresh. But it gets better – they give you this peanut dipping sauce that as soon as I tasted it, I decided I am coming back to Lancaster for the rest of my life, even if only to eat here. I could tell you about the spicy beef stew, but that's gotta be another sermon.

When a new restaurant opens up some place, if it's good, they don't really even need to advertise. Word spreads like wildfire. You gotta try this place. Oh my goodness, it is so good. That peanut sauce. I've gotta have some more - I am definitely going back. Once there's a buzz around town, that restaurant is set. People just start going in droves, and especially once they've tasted how good it is, you can't keep them away. They have to have some more.

What if churches are a bit like restaurants? Yes, we have a meal here every Thursday and every Sunday, but it seems as though churches today don't have quite the buzz they used to. In the past churches were like the only diner in town – people just went there because it was what everyone did, and they knew all the waitresses and the owner was in their bowling league and the like. It was where you met people. But now, there's so many choices! There's chain places and Mexican and not just run-of-the-mill Italian but nice places with Tuscan and Sicilian cuisine. There's not just Chinese but Vietnamese and Japanese and Korean. Have you tried that new Peruvian place?

People have only so much time and money, and so they go where it tastes good! People spend their precious unscheduled hours to do things that feed their souls, to help them make sense of their lives. Many people in the past surely felt a call to be a committed disciple of Jesus, but many came to church because it's what everyone did. Now people ask, “what does church add to my life? I mean, I have laundry to do. Sunday is my only day to sleep in. There's a yoga class at 10 that really helps me relax and get in touch with my spiritual side.” Amidst an endless menu of choices about how to spend our lives, church seems to some like that familiar, comfortable, but not particularly captivating grilled cheese from the diner.

But you all here have a different perception, I imagine. You have tasted the goodness of God. Maybe it's the people, or the music, or the Word proclaimed, or the Lord's Supper, but something is so important about church that you can't stay away. But your neighbors, your co-workers, your adult children, why aren't they raving about this place? When they come around saying, “that was so good, I have to have some more,” and I'm not just talking about food, they've probably been somewhere other than church.

We're always perplexed about why those fishermen decide to pack up everything and follow Jesus. I mean, this wasn't a day trip or even a 3-month cross-Judea bus tour. They were leaving everything behind - wives, children, jobs, everyone and everything they knew, any sense of security. As always, Mark is sparing with the details. Maybe they knew Jesus from earlier in their lives, maybe they'd heard about his baptism, and they expected Jesus to pick up where John left off when he was arrested. I don't know. But I do think they had smelled what Jesus was cooking, and they had to taste it.

They had to find out what following this Jesus would be like. Many others, just like so many people today, didn't think much of anything good would come from following this Jesus. Does it smell good? Does it look delicious?

Just before Jesus met those fishermen, Mark tells us that he was proclaiming the good news around Galilee that the kingdom of God had arrived. And this kingdom of God would prove to be some pretty good cooking! In the gospel of Mark, Jesus is a man of few words and many quick, bold actions. Jesus rushes from place to place, feeding the crowds with a few measly loaves and fishes, raising up the dead, healing scores of the sick and showing the demons and unclean spirits who's boss. Over the next three weeks, we're going to hear episode after episode in Mark of the unstoppable Jesus putting everyone on notice that the kingdom of God is in town and here to stay.

It's clear in Mark's gospel that wherever Jesus is, so is the kingdom of God. Jesus' presence on earth is the kingdom of God. Wherever Jesus goes bringing the kingdom, people are healed. Crowds are fed. Evil is cast out and replaced with love. Religious rules are bent. Outcasts are included. Where the kingdom is, things are different – another world is possible. It tastes good.

Jesus also proclaims here that people should “repent.” And while part of what “repent” means is to turn back to God asking for forgiveness, especially in the Greek word Mark uses here it also means “to change one's mind.” But not like a decision. It means to transform your perspective, the way you perceive things. In this case, it means to wake up and smell the coffee, to perceive the goodness of Jesus who is bringing the kingdom of God and opening up a new world of possibilities – a tasty brew, indeed.

I believe those fishermen, and the other disciples who would be called, and the crowds who followed them, began to get a taste here and there of the kingdom of God, and they had to have some more. They repented, they “changed their minds” about the new thing God was doing in Jesus and they couldn't stay away. It tasted too good. This is what trust in God, or faith, is about. Those disciples had tasted such good things from God that they trusted what would come in the future would be good because of who it came from. 

Faith isn't about getting exactly what we want, it isn't all about our desires, but it is about trusting that what comes from Jesus Christ will be good. It's that connection that develops once we get a taste and have to have some more of God's goodness.

Brothers and sisters, I believe that you are here today because Jesus Christ has given you a taste of the goodness of God. I imagine you might keep coming back because you trust that the meal Christ serves is good, and it's served for you.

As the Church, we're given this taste so that we can tell other people just how good God's kingdom is. We're called to be the wait staff of the kingdom, serving up the goodness and mercy of God first to each other, and then to people God puts in our lives. You might say to someone, “If you haven't heard, we run a pretty good special here every Sunday – not a perfect life, not everything you want, not glory or success, but total forgiveness, new life, membership in the Body of Christ, your life transformed, so that you may take part in Christ's work of transforming the world with the hope of God's kingdom, all of it – absolutely free. Let me tell you, it's so good! I can't get enough of it!”

That's what it's all about, that's how the Christian Church was built the first time and how it will be renewed today. One believer sharing her heart with another. One disciple, a guest at God's table, preparing a place for a new guest at the feast of God's grace. Person to person. When they see how what happens here changes your life, in how you raise your children and spend your time and money, and conduct yourself at work, and how you stand beside the poor and left out, they will say to themselves, “you know, that looks good. I got to get me some of that!” We get to keep inviting our neighbors to “taste and see” how good this journey of faith can be, how with Jesus, in the kingdom of God, everything is different.

I want some more of that, and I think other people do too. Amen.