I am going to begin the sermon this morning by telling you about a dream that I had sometime ago. I realize the risk that I am taking in doing this. There are psychiatrists and psychologists in this congregation who may feel compelled after they hear this sermon to hand me their card. Also, you may know more about me after this sermon than you bargained for. But I have been assured that this dream is universal, so I trust that you have had similar ones.

Actually it happened many years ago, but I remember it because I wrote it down shortly after it happened. That was a period of my life when I was fascinated with what is called "dream analysis." I had read about it in a book, I believe it was called Dreampower, which suggested that you keep a notebook and pencil by your bedside, so if you woke up after a dream, you could jot down the revelation, the wisdom, the insight, that came to you in that dream. I did that.

I also read the Bible, and I know that many people in the Bible received revelations from God in their dreams. For instance, in the Bible, if your name was Joseph, that increased your chances of receiving a revelation from God in a dream. Joseph, the son of Jacob, had wonderful dreams. You remember as a boy, he dreamed that his brothers would kneel down and worship him. He advanced his career as a bureaucrat in the government of Egypt by interpreting the Pharaoh's dreams. His namesake, Joseph, the husband of Mary, received in a dream the revelation from God that Mary was going to have a baby. And in another dream he was warned that he should take the holy family and flee to Egypt to escape the evil Herod.

I knew all that, so I had my notebook ready. Once in a while I would actually awaken after a dream, and I would write down this insight, or that wonderful pearl of wisdom that came to me in the dream, then go back to sleep, wake up in the morning, rush to that notebook to see what wisdom I had recorded, and find I was unable to make heads or tails of what I had written. So I gave that up.

Back in those days I had a dream that unfortunately I could not forget. I call it my Franz Kafka dream, because it was so similar to the stories that Franz Kafka wrote about people in the modern world, the 20th century, being confronted by the impersonal and sometimes menacing powers of bureaucracies, which seem to have power to control our lives. The result is a feeling of being trapped, our destinies controlled by hostile powers.

My dream was like that. It was Kafka-esque. I was traveling in a foreign land, part of a tour. We arrived at a place that looked like an American colony, a familiar place. We were greeted by attractive young people, the kind you see at Disneyland as hosts and hostesses. It gave you a good feeling. It was like a homecoming.

But then I began to recognize these people. I had seen them before. This was not some friendly place. This was a dangerous and hostile prison we had stumbled on. We had been deceived. The workers who were so helpful in getting our party settled were really agents of a power that was seeking to do us harm. I tried to warn the others, but as I went towards them, the aides would take them by their arm and lead them away from me.

I tried to find our leader, but, of course, he was no where to be found. I went into the main building. There he was on the phone. My hopes increased. I thought he had discovered the plot and was calling for help. But as I made my way toward him, out of the shadows came the face of the one that I recognized as the arch-enemy. I looked at the tour leader's face, and I could see that he was already under the control of the enemy.

Then that menacing figure came toward me. I threw out my fist and hit him. But he kept coming. I threw out my fist again and again. And that's when I woke up, and discovered that I narrowly missed Jean, who was lying their next to me.

I analyzed that dream as revealing the anxiety that I have about living and working in a world that I fear beneath my consciousness is against me and not being for me. That is the most basic and most primordial of all human anxieties. It is called existential anxiety, because it means we are anxious about our existence, we are fearful that the foundation of our life, that which we depend upon for our existence, will not support us.

Mark begins with the announcement at the beginning of his gospel that Jesus has come in order to free us from that kind of bondage to fear. "The time of waiting is over, the Kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe this good news."

Immediately following that announcement in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus goes to work battling the demons of this world. If you were to sit down and read the Gospel of Mark in one sitting, which you could do in less than an hour (you should try it sometime, it is a wonderful exercise), you will be astounded at the number of battles that Jesus engages in with the demons and the evil powers of this world. Especially in the opening chapters of the Gospel of Mark. In the first several chapters he goes from one encounter to another, as furiously as he can go, so that he has to stop and go apart by himself to rest and regain his powers.

We read that description and it occurs to us that that world is a world that is alien to us. It is something strange to our experience. And in a sense, that is true. But if you read the stories of the demons in Mark, you will notice that they resemble the scenarios of our dreams. Beginning with the Temptation story of Jesus in the first chapter, and continuing through all the encounters with demons who seek to do us ill, and keep us in bondage.

We don't talk that way anymore, but we still dream that way. When we talk about our problems and our fears we use the language of our time, which is the language of science. We use the language of medicine, psychology, and sociology. Then we keep busy in our cluttered lives, and we keep preoccupied with amusements to fill our leisure time, so we don't have opportunity to think about our existence, until we sleep, perchance to dream. Ah, there's the rub. And in our dreaming, our fears and our anxieties about our life don't have scientific names. They have bodies and menacing appearances, just as they are depicted in the literature of all ancient people, and even the Bible.

In our day we call them anxieties and fears. In Jesus' day they called them demons, and principalities, and powers. In both times, whether the powers are visible, out there in the world, or invisible, in here in our minds, they hold us in bondage. And Mark tells the story of Jesus in a way to let you know that he has come to set you free. That is why Mark begins the story of Jesus with the announcement, "The time of waiting is over, and the Kingdom of God is here." The next line in the text reads like this: "Repent, and believe this good news."

In the Bible there are only two kinds of time. There is a time of waiting and there is a time of choosing. In the Bible you are called to make a choice about the kind of life that you are going to live. That is what repentance means, especially as it is used in this text. It means turn from your life of anxiety and fear about the demons that possess your life, and choose the life that God is promising you, the life of freedom from these fears, the life to be free to enjoy the creation that God has given to you.

Over 2000 years of Christian history, more and more the word repentance has come to take on a negative and moralistic meaning. For most people today, repentance means being sorry, somehow even paying for things that you have done in the past. In other words, repentance has come to mean something like penance.

I think that is why people whose lives are not grossly immoral, feel they have no need to repent. So they continue to be miserable. They feel that this is all that they can do. This is all that life can offer them. This is their way of being faithful. As if being miserable is the proof that you are religious.

But they miss the point of the gospel. Repentance means, choose the life that God is offering you now. The time of waiting for that life to come to you is over. The reign of God is here. Repentance means, reject the idea that you are trapped by something so that you can't realize the life that you want to live. As far as your salvation is concerned, there are only two times. There is the time for waiting for it to come, and there is the time of choosing it.

The coming of Jesus into our world, casting out demons, means the time of waiting is over, the new age is here. Now your life is in your own hands. Will you live it as if Jesus has come, or as if he has not?

Then finally this passage is about the calling of the disciples. It says that Jesus came to them where they were, and said, "Follow me." Which means, they had to choose. Were they going to continue to live in the old age, or are they going to follow Jesus into a new life?

The disciples are there to show us that this is the way it will happen to us. Jesus will say the same thing to you, "Follow me," and you will have to decide.

I point out to you that there are really three callings in the gospels. This is the first calling, the calling to be a learner. That is what "disciple" means, to be a learner. After the call the disciples begin the process of learning what it means to be a Christian.

Now this can come at different times in our lives. For many of us, it came in our youth when we were at summer camp, and there was a call at the campfire to come forward, and we gave our lives to Jesus. We promised to follow Jesus.

For others it comes in adulthood, when something happens in our life that reveals to us our vulnerability and our fallibility, and then we think maybe we need something else in our life. I notice this commonly happens to young men when they become fathers for the first time. They realize that they now have responsibilities for someone other than themselves, and they feel inadequate to the task.

Or, it comes later in life when one asks, surely there is more to life than what I have been able to experience. They look for deeper meaning in life, so they choose to follow Jesus.

You notice in the gospels that is exactly what the disciples do. They literally follow Jesus. And that is about all they do, because they are learners. They are like those interns, following doctors around the hospital from one room to another, observing. That's what the disciples do at first. They are apprentices.

That's what many Christians today think discipleship is all about. It stop there, it ends there, with apprenticeship. So it means sitting in church and listening, or sitting in a Sunday School and discussing.

But one day a second call comes. I have identified that second call as when you are asked to test what you have learned. You can find that second call in the story of Jesus walking on the water. It's a wonderful passage.

The disciples are in the boat. Whenever disciples are in a boat, incidentally, that means "the Church." For the early Christians used the ship as the symbol of the Church. You are sitting in the part of the church called the "nave," which is Latin for "ship." The Church in those days saw itself as a ship on the stormy seas of this world, with Jesus as their captain.

But in this story Jesus is not in the ship. He's walking on the water. He's not with them. They are by themselves now, as we are, Jesus is not here, not present with us anymore. When Jesus walks on the stormy waters it means Jesus is more powerful than the storms of life. Jesus is the ruler of the sea. He's still in charge, so you have nothing to fear.

The story says it was about the fourth watch. That means it was about three o'clock in the morning, the darkest time of the night. The storm is raging. The darkest time. The scariest time. Peter, in the safety of the boat, calls out to Jesus, "Bid me come to you on the water." Which means Peter is saying, I'm ready now to step out of the safety of the Church, and to test my faith in the real world. So Jesus, call me. The second call. Call me from apprentice to practitioner. Call me from learner to doer.

So Jesus says, "Come." Which is like saying, follow me. Peter steps out of the boat, takes two steps, and all of a sudden realizes what he's doing. The fear and the anxiety return. He begins to sink. Jesus reaches out, catches him, and says, "O man of little faith. Why did you doubt?" Why did you doubt that I am in control of the forces of evil in this world?

The time will come when each of us will have to face rough times. We will have to step out, as Soren Kierkegaard used to say, over 70,00 fathoms, trusting the promise that Christ is in charge, and therefore I won't sink.

But there is a third call. It came at Caesarea Philippi when Peter was asked by Jesus, "Who do you say that I am?" And Peter said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Which is like the final exam for the disciples. And Peter passes it with flying colors. "You are the Christ. You are the Son of God. You are the one we have been waiting for. You are the ruler of this world."

Now they are ready for the third call. It comes immediately after Peter's confession. Jesus says, "If you would come after me, you must deny yourself, take up a cross, and follow me. Anyone who would save his life will lose it, but anyone who will lose his or her life for the gospel, will find it."

Peter, who sank when he stepped out of the boat, now stumbles when he takes his first step as a full-fledged disciple, and says, "Whoa. Wait a minute, Jesus. I thought you were going to say we were on our way to glory now. All these human limitations, the pain and suffering in this life, are now behind us, because we are now Christians."

But Jesus says the time will come in every disciple's life when they will be asked to face a cross. The question that will be put to them then is not do you want to do this, but how will you do it? Will you do it in fear, or will you do it by following me? As the spiritual put it,

Jesus walked this lonesome valley
He had to walk it by himself
Nobody else could walk it for him
He had to walk it by himself.

You must go and stand your trial
You must stand it by yourself
Nobody else can stand it for you
You have to stand it by yourself.

Years ago Alan Paton, a great South African novelist, wrote about his country, in a number of stories, living under the tyranny of apartheid society. The article became something of a classic. It had the title, "The Challenge of Fear." He talked about how our lives were determined not so much by forces or powers outside of us, but by the fears that are inside of us. That is what controls our lives. Fears, in the case of South Africa, that are nurtured by separation and segregation, and ignorance and pride, fears that hold the whole society, black and white, in bondage.

He concluded that article with his own personal word. He said, "What then has life taught me? She has taught me not to expect success to be the inevitable result of my endeavors. She has taught me to seek sustenance from the endeavor itself, and to leave the rest to God. It is a lesson that I learned twice. I learned it in my youth with Sir Galahad and the Holy Grail, and I learned it in my age as Christ, and the road to a cross."

Three calls then. At least, three calls. One is to learn. The other is to risk. And the third is to lose your life in order to find it. In each case the choice is to trust that "the time of waiting is over. The Kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe this good news."