Standing Confident and Assured, She Took the Podium to Recite Her Poetry

Standing confident and assured, she took the podium to recite her poetry. Amanda Gorman, first national youth poet laureate of the United States, raised by a single mother, Harvard graduate, stood at the microphone safely distant and unmasked so that those listening could hear her powerful words delivered with passion. In her poem “The Hill We Climb” Gorman spoke into the time and circumstances of her life as young African-American woman with her words of honesty and hope. As she was in the process of writing that poem for President Joe Biden’s inauguration, a violent mob, stoked to anger by the damaging words of a man holding on to his power, stormed the Capitol in Washington, DC. Though the context of her poem was a moment of political transition in another country, Gorman’s words reached out across borders. She said that in writing her poem, her intent was speak healing into division. Not shying away from her country’s racist and colonial history, its struggles, and also its dreams, her words ultimately landed on hope for all people: Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree and no one shall make them afraid. 1 Mark’s gospel this morning tells us of Jesus’ message and the call of those first disciples. But the story begins with words which hang ominously in the air: “Now after John was arrested.” Right at the beginning of Mark’s account there arises that very brief mention of John the Baptist’s arrest. Mark doesn’t explain the arrest until we get to chapter six of his gospel account. There we finally hear that John questions Herod’s morality as a leader, as a king, with Herod’s marriage to his niece and his brother’s wife, Herodias. 1 For full text of the poem click on link: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/20/amanda-gorman-poem-biden-inauguration-transcript Mark lets us know that John’s voice is silenced, shuttered behind prison walls. It is Jesus now, baptized and anointed, tempted to forgo his identity in the wilderness, who takes up John’s message of repentance and proclaiming the good news of God, saying, “the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near, repent and believe in the good news.” We know from those five brief words, “now after John was arrested,” that there is something inherently risky in asking people to turn away from sin, all those ways of separation, division, destruction, and death. There is something inherently risky about proclaiming the good news of God. Yet, it is this initial message which forms the core of Jesus’ preaching and teaching. Repent, sadly a word overused and misused, used as a hammer instead of as an invitation, means to make the critical decision to change one’s ways, to move in a new direction, to turn ones’ life to God. Why does Jesus command it? Because there is good news! And the good news has to do with the kingdom of God - God’s authority to rule - that kingdom which has come near, which has dawned in Jesus. Turn. Repent. And trust in this good news. Believe. Stake your life on it. As one commentary noted: “...in Jesus, God makes it possible for God’s people to do more than rerun the past. That is the gospel, the good news, the glad tidings toward which Jesus invites us to stop, turn, or turn again, and hold on to for dear life… things do not have to stay the way they are now! In fact, to follow Jesus means that things cannot stay the way they are.” 2 Things cannot stay the way they are and Jesus calls his first disciples. God’s good news elicits a response. God’s word spoken shall not return empty. Jesus sees two sets of brothers, fishermen all of them. First Simon and Peter, casting their nets into the sea. Jesus sees them and says, “Follow 2 Feasting on the Word, John Knox Press, 2014, p. 23 me.” They drop their nets. Then Jesus sees James and John, the sons of Zebedee, in their boat mending their nets. He calls to them and they leave nets, boats, and father behind. Jesus tells these two sets of brothers that he will teach them how to fish for people, that is to join his mission to restore the exiled, the lost, the missing, and bring them home. Mark doesn’t give us any details as to the brothers’ motivations, doesn’t explain why these men would simply drop what they were doing, give up their livelihoods, their family business, give up their fathers and wives - later on in this same chapter, we learn that Simon is married - to listen and to follow. What is important for Mark is that these uneducated, hard-working, marginalized, ordinary people see and experience something in Jesus, the hope he brings and they understand at that moment that divinity walks among them. They hear in Jesus’ invitation a kairos moment, that opportune time, that critical time of decision-making and action. Mark’s gospel will show us what following will look like and that kingdom of God will be primarily revealed in healing. As the kingdom becomes present in Jesus, Mark will tell us of destructive forces, of principalities and powers, that want nothing to do with Jesus’ healing and fight tooth and nail to keep things the way they are. In spite of that, broken hands, legs, and minds are healed. People are restored to themselves and their communities. We will hear the good news of God in things like a lamp on a lampstand giving light to a room, or like a mustard seed that grows into a great shrub. We will hear that the slow, steady growth of God’s reign happens when people turn to hear the call of repentance and the good news together. Things cannot stay the same. There is always that note of risk, however. That note which comes with the good news and the call to a life of following Jesus. For many of us it might not look like those two sets of brothers, leaving everything behind so quickly. But the life of discipleship does mean giving up something of ourselves to heed Jesus’ call; notions of power and success, of ego and self-interest, of self-sufficiency and comfort. Listening to Jesus’ call means a daily returning to the waters of our baptism, where we trust that we have been claimed and called for a life of healing and purpose, in spite of what we see around us, in spite of what happens to us, in spite of all the difficulties and struggles, of our own brokenness. We have heard Jesus call to turn and to believe in a present and a future ensured by God. Things cannot stay the same. Like those brothers by the sea, Jesus looks into our eyes and calls us to join in with what he is doing - the good news of God. Like those brothers by the sea, we too walk with hope when we hear the words of a young poet named Amanda Gorman who tells us all, “...when the day comes we step out of the shade aflame and unafraid, the new dawn blooms as we free it. For there is always light if only we’re brave enough to see it, if only we’re brave enough to be it.” 3 Amen. 3 The Hill We Climb, Amanda Gorman .

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