Mark 1:14-20 Dear Working Preacher, I still remember learning the meaning of “kairos” my first year in seminary. It was such a cool and compact lesson in the difference that knowing even just a little bit of Greek made. You likely remember that as well. Chronos – root of “chronological” – as the steady, even relentless beat of the time that marks our days, our work, our waiting and watching, contrasted with Kairos, the special, even royal time of God’s intervention into human affairs. The time when chronos is interrupted by promise, presence, and fulfillment. And speaking of fulfillment, “pleroma” was...

Mark 1:14-20 Dear Partner in Preaching, I don’t know about you, but I suspect it didn’t look like God’s kingdom had come near to any of the persons Jesus first called to be disciples. I mean, they still had to work, long hard hours to scrape out a living as fishermen. Whatever challenges they had at home were still there. Whatever unfulfilled dreams they entertained were no closer to being realized. Moreover, Rome was still in power. They were still living in an occupied nation. Herod was the brutal puppet leader of their region and Pontius Pilate still governed Judea with an iron fist from Jerusalem. No, I doubt that it looked very...

Dear Partner in Preaching, I’ve always found this passage both inspiring and vexing. I find it inspiring because of the decisiveness and immediacy of the response of the four disciples mentioned in today’s reading. But I also find it a tad vexing because it seems to set the bar so high. Leave everything…to follow an itinerant preacher into an unknown future…immediately. To be honest, I find it hard to imagine doing as these four did, and I wonder if our folks might feel the same. And that might not be a bad place to start: asking our folks if they can imagine picking up and leaving everything to follow Jesus. If you do that, make...