Jesus said to them, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people” (Mark 1:17). That’s the famous verse in the Gospel reading that is suggested for this coming Sunday, the third Sunday in the season of Epiphany. They are striking words, coming at the very start of the public activity that Jesus undertook in the region of Galilee (see Mark 1:28, 39; 6:6b, 56; 9:30).
What do you think of when you hear these words? Perhaps you are guided by many sermons you have heard and devotional material you have read, and so you imagine that Jesus is calling his earliest followers to participate in the mission that he has in view for his life and for those who follow him? After all, at a crucial point in his ministry, he sent his earliest followers through the villages of Galilee with a message of proclamation (6:12).
Inspired by this instruction, and despairing at the lack of a satisfactory conclusion to this shortest of Gospels, one scribe later added a “longer ending” that concludes by re-affirming this missionary orientation: “they went out and proclaimed the good news everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by the signs that accompanied it.” (This appears as Mark 16:20 in many Bibles today.)
In like manner, another scribe provided a much more succinct “shorter ending”, declaring that “Jesus himself sent out through them, from east to west, the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation.” (The language is most un-Markan—just one of the clues that this ending was a later addition to the Gospel.)
This line of interpretation is fostered, no doubt, by the fact that other Gospels frame their accounts of the life of Jesus with statements about his missional directives. “As you go, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them … and teaching them …” is how Matthew ends his Gospel (Matt 28:19)—leading multiple interpreters to regard the visit of the Magi from the east (Matt 2:1–12) as a prefiguring of this mission. (I have a different take on the role played by the Magi.)
Luke is more forthright from the start of his “orderly account”. Inspired by the Spirit as he lays eyes on the infant Jesus, the aged Simeon tells his parents, “my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel” (Luke 2:30–32). Decades later, as he reports the activity of John the baptiser, the author includes the affirmation that “all flesh shall see the salvation of God” (Luke 3:6, quoting Isa 40:5).
Luke ends his account with Jesus telling his followers that “repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem” (Luke 24:47). He then begins the second volume of his account with Jesus commissioning these followers, “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). The missionary impulse is clear.
These passages play a large role in shaping our understanding of the words and activities of Jesus as being oriented strongly towards mission. Certainly, that was a key impulse as the followers of Jesus grew and the faith gatherings that were established made inroads into their local communities with the message of the good news. But is that what is going on in the excerpt from Mark (1:14–20) that we will hear this Sunday? Let me offer some different thoughts.
(The direction that I have taken in the comments below has been inspired by a short commentary by Chad Bird, in his daily devotional book, Unveiling Mercy, pub. 2020.)
Was Jesus focussed on a world-wide mission from the very start? I want to propose that Mark’s account—the earliest “story of Jesus” that we have—does not suggest this. Not only is there no “mission commission” at the end of his Gospel, if we accept the earliest manuscripts do not include this; there is no call to mission anywhere in his narrative.
It is true that in chapter 6, Mark notes that the disciples are sent out to proclaim repentance; but this does not build through the following chapters into a persistent and expanding mission. In fact, in Mark’s narrative, rather than being empowered for mission, the disciples remain ignorant and unknowing.
“Do you not understand this parable?”, Jesus has asked them as he was teaching, continuing, “Then how will you understand all the parables?” (4:13). A little later, Mark notes that “they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened” (6:52). Mark reinforces this view of the disciples as he reports Jesus asking them, “do you also fail to understand?” (7:17), then “do you still not perceive or understand?” (8:17) and “do you not yet understand?” (8:21), before concluding “they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him” (9:32). The disciples, in Mark’s narrative, remain unrelentingly obdurate. So much for the idea of energetic, enthusiastic missionaries!!
Jesus, according to Mark, is not intent on developing a crack mission team. Rather, he is focussed on calling people to metanoia—to a full, deep, all-pervading change of being that reorients their lives and resets their priorities. The first word of Jesus in Mark’s early account is clear: “the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent (metanoeite) and believe (pisteuete) in the good news” (1:15).
In this programmatic Markan announcement, the two statements (in the indicative mood) about “the time” and “the kingdom” are followed by two commands (in the imperative mood) to “repent” and “believe”. The imminence of the kingdom is the motivation for the call to repent and believe.
This fourfold declaration sits immediately before the story of the call of the fishermen, who are called to follow and told, “I will make you fish for people” (1:17). It is the imperative of metanoia and pistis that is at the heart of the enterprise that Jesus is engaged in. It is this dual imperative that should most strongly inform the way that we hear and understand the call to “fish for people”.
Fish are referenced in Hebrew Scripture texts on a number of occasions. Along with “every animal of the earth, and every bird of the air, and everything that creeps on the ground”, all the fish of the sea are integral to God’s created world (Gen 1:26, 28; 9:2; Deut 4:17–18; 1 Ki 4:33; Job 12:7–8; Ps 8:7–8; Ezek 38:20; Hos 4:3). But the Markan text is not quite about the fish of the sea; rather, the language of fishing is used as a metaphor for what Jesus is calling his disciples to undertake.
The prophet Jeremiah displays this kind of use of language, with metaphorical references to describe a known process. After he has warned Israel that the Lord God is “weary of relenting” and is now determined to bring punishment on a sinful people (Jer 15:2–9), he envisages that there will come a time when he “will bring them back to their own land that [he] gave to their ancestors” (Jer 16:15).
However, before this occurs, God makes this threatening promise: “I am now sending for many fishermen, says the Lord, and they shall catch them; and afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks … I will doubly repay their iniquity and their sin, because they have polluted my land with the carcasses of their detestable idols, and have filled my inheritance with their abominations” (Jer 16:16–18). The men looking to catch fish, and the hunters looking to catch miscreants, are carrying out the work of the Lord God, bringing judgement on the people.
Is this the task that Jesus is calling his followers to undertake, when he says, “I will make you fish for people”? Centuries earlier than Jeremiah, Amos had warned the “cows of Bashan who are on Mount Samaria” of the punishment in store for them: “the time is surely coming upon you, when they shall take you away with hooks, even the last of you with fishhooks” (Amos 4:1–2).
A little later, Habakkuk uses similar imagery as he complains to God, “you have made people like the fish of the sea, like crawling things that have no ruler; the enemy brings all of them up with a hook; he drags them out with his net, he gathers them in his seine; so he rejoices and exults” (Hab 1:14–15). This is the way that God undertakes his task of “destroying nations without mercy” (Hab 1:17). To fish for people is to execute God’s righteous judgement.
Consistent with this understanding, the prophet-in-exile, Ezekiel, is charged with proclaiming this oracle of judgment against the Pharaoh of Egypt: “I will put hooks in your jaws, and make the fish of your channels stick to your scales. I will draw you up from your channels, with all the fish of your channels sticking to your scales. I will fling you into the wilderness, you and all the fish of your channels; you shall fall in the open field, and not be gathered and buried.” (Ezek 29:4–5). Once again, in the prophetic rhetoric, the metaphor of fishing for a human being indicates the means of carrying out the judgement of God.
Is Jesus, in Mark’s Gospel, engaged in a mission to declare divine judgement and warn of the wrath to come? Most certainly he is! Indeed, the instruction that he gives his disciples as he sends them out on mission (Mark 6:7–11) appears to be that they are to preach judgement; Mark comments that “they went out and proclaimed that all should repent” (6:12). Such repentance is the foundation of the message of Jesus (1:15; cf. 4:12).
Repentance, metanoia, entails a complete and thoroughgoing transformation of the individual, in light of the imminent appearance of God’s realm (1:14; 9:1; 14:25). This apocalyptic orientation (“the kingdom is coming, and coming soon”) governs the distinctive flavour of the preaching of Jesus, which is apocalyptic in that it is oriented towards the message of divine judgement. The coming kingdom of God, and the present need for metanoia, together show this clear orientation.
That Jesus expected God to act, to intervene in history, to redeem the faithful, is evident in his teaching: people will see “‘the Son of Man coming in clouds’ with great power and glory” (Mark 13:26, quoting Dan 7:13). Indeed, the expectation is that this will be very soon: “there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come with power” (Mark 9:1) and “this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place” (13:30). So he warns his followers to “beware … keep alert … keep awake” (13:33, 35, 37).
There is no doubt that the Jesus portrayed in each of the Synoptic Gospels was an apocalyptic preacher with a fervent presentation of an intense message. It required a whole-hearted and equally intense response. “Follow me” is his clarion call (1:17; 2:14). Such following means that they must “deny themselves and take up their cross” (8:34); it is akin to losing their own lives (8:35–37).
No wonder when Jesus called one man in Judea to “sell what you own, and give the money to the poor … then come, follow me”, we are told that “he was shocked and went away grieving” (10:21–22). It is equally unsurprising that people in Galilee were saying of him, “he has gone out of his mind” and “he has an unclean spirit” (3:21, 30). Following Jesus was not for the faint hearted! Mark makes this clear; Matthew and Luke each intensify this in their portrayals of Jesus.
On the apocalyptic preaching of Jesus in Mark, see
and
So the call to “follow me” and the indication that “I will make you fish for people” (Mark 1:17) is intense. Fishing for people, if we understand it in the light of the Hebrew scriptural usage of this idea, is an apocalyptic enterprise, which means undertaking the daunting task of announcing the imminent judgement of God, calling those who listen to a complete life-transforming metanoia, and letting them know that “life as you once knew it is over”, as Chad Bird says (Unveiling Mercy, 11 Nov).
An Informed Faith 