Reading: Mark 1
Thoughts by Lamar Williamson, Jr.
It is not hard to answer a ringing telephone.
The compelling urgency of a call is at least part of the undiminished power of the call narrative in Mark 1:16-20. Jesus’ call of his first four disciples had evidently long been treasured in the communal memory of early Christians. The direct and vivid style, the stringing together of clauses with “and,” and the repeated point about leaving all to follow Jesus suggest the use of this story in the earliest preaching of the church.
In Mark, as the very first incident in Jesus’ public ministry, this passage introduces the group which, after Jesus himself, will be the second major concern of the entire story: the disciples. As soon as Jesus announces the Kingdom of God, he calls persons to enter it (“Follow me”) and to invite others to enter it, too (“I will make you fishers of men”). Although Mark lacks the strong church emphasis of Matthew, here too, the kingdom is corporate. Mark offers no solo salvation, no individualist reign or rule of God.