A New Family Business?

3 Epiphany B  January 21, 2024

Jonah 3:1-5, 10 Psalm 62:6-14

1 Corinthians 7:29-31 Mark 1:14-20

 Lectionary Link

Can you imagine being on the shore of the Sea of Galilee where the fishermen have their boats moored? Perhaps there were some shingles with the business names on them. One might say, "Jonah and Sons fishermen," and another might read, "Zebedee and Sons Trawlers." For a long time, businesses were mainly family businesses and if one was born into a family, the sons in the family knew what their future vocations and callings would be.

There was no luxury of going to a liberal arts college for six years with undeclared majors in order to wait for one to discover one's true interest or be loaded up with so much college debt that one is forced choose to do something to start to dig out from under the debt.

When businesses are generational and handed on, the next generation of the business are important. One can imagine that Jesus of Nazareth going along the Sea of Galilee and enticing sons from their fathers' fishing businesses might be quite controversial.

Jesus himself, perhaps had left his father's carpenter business to pursue desert seminary training with his cousin John the Baptist.

It is true that a son may not have the same aptitudes as his father. Did Jesus say to his father Joe, "Dad, I don't like to do woodwork, can I do something else?" Could Zebedee have thought, "James and John, never had their hearts and minds into the fishing business; it's no wonder they were coaxed away by a rabbi preacher." Did Jonah think that Peter was too impatient for fishing and he was a hot head, and his brother Andrew always had to steer him in toward doing something more compatible with his personality.

The other possibility for both fathers, Zebedee and Jonah was that they were relieved to lose their sons to the calling of Jesus. It could be that there were other sons and the fishing business could only support so many, and so when Peter and Andrew, and James and John left, there was perhaps more to go around for the other brothers.

Whatever the circumstances, the call of Jesus upset the generational lines of the family business.

One might say that in the message of Jesus, we encounter a fatherization of God. Jesus called God his father, and he taught his followers to do the same.

So what does this mean as regard the main business of life? Jesus came to teach us that there was a new family business. It really was not a new business, but only a forgotten business or a neglected business or an undiscovered business. Adam and Eve in the creation story are proto-typical man and woman and son and daughter of God their maker. On them the divine image resided, the very spiritual DNA of God.

The phenomenon of sin is the habit of forgetting that we are supposed to realize our calling within the family business of God our Father.

Jesus left the carpenter shop, not because he did not love and respect his father and his trade; he left his carpenter vocation to promote the original but new family business, the family of God the Father.

The wonderful thing about the new family business of God the Father, is that you can be called and involved in all earthly business and still acknowledge the family business of God the Father-creator. But for a few, some had a particular vocation of going far and wide to proclaim the reality of this original but new family business of God the Father. This business was not about telling people that God was a human male figure in heaven; rather that God was divine originating personality of life who shared personal essence within each person by being the Word of God inhabiting the human community.

Peter, Andrew, James, and John were called from their fishing trade, in order to become involved in a persuasive trade of using words. They were to model and speak what it is like to be made in the image of God in the ways in which Jesus as God's unique Son showed them.

The stories, the history, and the legends regarding where their callings took them are many. But it's safe to say they went far beyond the Galilean Sea even to the capital city of the Empire and throughout the known world of their days.

They were called to go beyond their fathers' family businesses to the ends of the world to be people who reminded their listeners about God the Father's business, which is everyone's business to realize once one accepts oneself as a baptized son and daughter of God, with whom the Father is well-pleased.

The Gospel for you and I today is to embrace the Family Business of God our heavenly Originator and be energized to fulfill our family heritage which is stamped upon us as God's image.

So whether we're in ordained ministry or any vocation at all, let us realize that we are first in the family business of God, our heavenly parent, and Jesus is our CEO big brother on earth who has given us the business mission to proclaim membership in the family of God known through the practice of love and justice with each other. Amen.