A Homily from Pr. James Smith

Focus: Jesus calls us to life-giving work.

The movie The Founder1, available on Netflix, is about how, “After a fateful encounter with the

McDonald brothers, struggling salesman Ray Kroc becomes driven to change the way hamburgers are made and sold.” 1 The title plays on who really is the founder of McDonald’s.

Technically, it’s the McDonald’s brothers. They gave the restaurant its name and founded the

first couple locations in California. But McDonald’s then was very different. It wasn’t fast, and

the menu was wide-ranging and hardly recognizable. In some ways, you could argue that it was

a slightly better restaurant, but it wasn’t McDonald’s. Ray Kroc had a critical insight: there are

tons of restaurants where you sit down, pick out one of many items, and wait a while for a

moderate price. For Kroc, McDonald’s needed to focus on where they were needed and what

they were good at. Ray Kroc is the real founder because he made McDonald’s what it is today:

By simplifying the menu, originally eliminating just about everything but hamburgers and fries,

he allowed McDonald’s to focus on low prices and fast food that was, well, fast, all while having a business that was easy to franchise and expand across the country. The rest is history—and a decent movie. 

There is a similar moment in today’s Gospel story from Mark (Hang with me, now). In Jesus’s first day in ministry, he has cast out demons and healed many people who were sick, including Peter’s mother-in-law. The disciples realize this is a pretty good gig; think how popular someone would be who could simply lay on hands and perform a one-time vaccine right now 

  (without the poke); and they want to capitalize. This is good business for their reputation and social standing if nothing else: “Everyone’s searching for you!” Only the next morning, Jesus is gone. Mark says that Simon Peter and the disciples hunted for Jesus almost like he’s some sort of raccoon that they’re trying to corner. Where did their meal-ticket to fame and fortune go!? 

When they finally find him, he surprises them. The most powerful and popular sensation in all of Galilee, is alone, praying in a deserted place. And when they tell him to get up and get moving and healing, he says, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.” 

This is not exactly what they had in mind. Neighboring towns means travel, it means saying 

goodbye to friends and family that you have in your hometown of Capernaum, it means having

to rely on others’ hospitality: this crew isn’t rich. More than any of that, it means starting over. Instead of cashing in on their popularity at home and also healing the people they know and love, it means going to some town where you might not know anyone, and where they don’t know you and might be suspicious of you. This is not the “business model” that any of the disciples had in mind after only their first day on the job.

In our reading for prayer breakfast for Tuesday, theologian Frederick Buechner wrote about “vocation,” a word that means “the work a person is called to do by God.” Most of us probably don’t show up or tune in Sunday mornings to hear about work; that’s what we do the rest of the week! But in a way, that’s Buechner’s point. He writes, 

All different kinds of voices call you to all different kinds of work. Which is the voice of God? A good rule for finding out is this: the kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work (a) that you need to do and (b) that the world needs to have done. If you really get a kick out of your work, you’ve presumably met requirement (a), but if your work is writing cigarette ads, the chances are you’ve missed requirement (b). On the other hand, if your work is being a doctor in a leper colony, you probably met requirement (b), but if most of the time you’re bored and depressed by it, the chances are you have not only bypassed (a), but you probably aren’t helping your patients much either….The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deepest hunger meet.2 

The message from today’s reading is about vocation, about calling. Jesus knows his vocation.

His disciples don’t—not yet. What is his vocation? He spells it out for us: “To proclaim the

message—the Good News—for that is what I have come to do.” His disciples not only don’t

understand that, but they are distracting him from that message. The devil tempts Jesus to use

his superhuman powers to impress others or even to fix very real social evils, and in a way, that’s what the disciples want him to do, too. There is nothing wrong with any of this! Except that if all he does is heal friends in Capernaum, it gets in the way of what Jesus came to do: proclaim the saving Good News to all who can hear it. 

What is our vocation? What is our calling? Where does our deep gladness meet the world’s deepest hunger? There are sooooo many things we could do as a church; every day my e-mail is inundated with marketing campaigns featuring everything from online tech services to new organs to campaigns to send money to missionaries in China and everything in-between. As individuals, we also face the same questions: how will we spend our work-time, our free-time, our family-time, our service-time? The problem in our world, in our church, and in our lives is not a lack of calling. It’s a lack of direction. 

Jesus’s solution: It’s every bit as counter-cultural then as it is today. Prayer. Martin Luther once supposedly said, “I have so much to do today that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer.” It’s funny. And grossly impractical, we say to ourselves. We have so much to do every day! But what if that time for prayer, far from wasting time, actually frees up time? What if prayer is asking God: Where do you really need me? What are you really calling me to do right now? I can’t promise that’s how it will work in your life—you’ll have to find that out for yourself—but I can tell you that’s how it has worked in mine and in my ministry. 

God is not calling us to endless busywork nor thankless grinding. Frankly, that makes God way less demanding than our jobs, self-help campaigns, or 21st century culture. The people who are worst at this work are the disciples: who are restlessly moving, searching, hunting through the night to find Jesus and make him do what they want. The people who get it? Jesus who prayed. And Peter’s mother-in-law who has just experienced rest and restoration and then is able to serve. 

As we begin another year, maybe it’s worth giving discipleship a chance. After-all, over the last 11 months, we’ve tried everything else. This is not to give you more work to do. But to prayerfully discern the work God and the world need you to do and to experience the deep gladness that comes from answering God’s call. 

Amen.

1 https://www.netflix.com/title/80101899, accessed 2/3/2021.

2 Frederick Buechner, Beyond Works: Daily Readings in the ABC’s of Faith (New York: HarperOne, 2004), 404-5.