Mark 1:16–20

Easterhouse, 1987

Everybody knew where the lines were.

Nobody had drawn them on a map. There were no signs telling you where one territory ended and another began.

You just knew.

Which streets were yours. Which weren’t. Which shops you could stand outside. Which shortcuts became considerably longer depending on who was hanging about.

And you knew your own.

You had to. Stray into the wrong bit and you might get battered.

The two young men were leaning against the metal plate covered windows outside the shops. One smoked while the other watched a van disappear around the corner.

Friday night was starting.

“Whit we daein?”

“Dunno.”

They both knew that wasn’t true.

There was always something.

Someone would turn up. Someone would have drink. There might be a party. There might be a chase. There might be a fight.

Friday nights weren’t really arranged, they just happened.

A man had been around the scheme for a few days.

Not from Easterhouse. That much was obvious.

Preacher, apparently.

That happened sometimes, although they were normally in Salvation Army uniforms and stood outside the shops or wandered around giving out wee bits of paper telling you Jesus loved you.

Sometimes the boys took them.

Sometimes they rolled them up and smoked something in them.

This guy was different.

He wasn’t carrying anything.

He’d been seen talking to people. An old woman outside the Charlie’s shop. A couple of weans kicking a burst ball against a wall. Someone said he’d sat beside one of the garden party drinkers for nearly an hour.

Mostly, though, he seemed to listen.

Which was unusual for a preacher.

He was walking towards them now.

One of the boys nodded in his direction.

“Here’s that Jesus guy.”

“Jesus?”

“That’s whit they’re calling him.”

“Some name.”

The man stopped in front of them.

“Awright?”

“Aye.”

He looked at them.

Properly looked at them.

Most adults didn’t.

Usually the clothes came first. The haircut. The trainers. Then that wee change in their face when they’d already decided what kind of boy you were.

This guy seemed to have missed that bit.

“Come wae me.”

They looked at each other.

“What?”

“Come wae me. I’ve got things tae teach ye.”

One laughed.

“Whit, like school?”

“Naw. Life.”

“And we just follow you?”

“Aye.”

“Where?”

“You’ll see.”

“That’s no really an answer.”

The man smiled.

“No.”

There should have been more questions.

Who are you?

Where are we going?

How long for?

What do you want?

And probably the most important question in Easterhouse:

Who else is going?

Because you didn’t just walk away from your people.

Your people were your safety. Your reputation. Your place.

If somebody came for you, they didn’t just have you to deal with.

There weren’t many places where nobody asked what your family was like, how you were doing at school or what you were going to do with your life.

You turned up.

You belonged.

The stranger hadn’t slagged any of that.

Hadn’t told them they were wasting their lives.

Hadn’t told them to get respectable, get a haircut or start going to church.

He’d said three words.

“Come wae me.”

One of the boys took a last draw of his cigarette, dropped it and crushed it beneath his trainer.

“Awright.”

His mate stared at him.

“You serious?”

“Aye.”

“Just like that?”

He shrugged.

Then the stranger looked at him.

“Come wae me.”

“Aw, for…”

He pushed himself away from the shutters.

“Wait up.”

And suddenly there were three of them walking through the scheme.

They hadn’t gone far when they saw another group.

Slightly older this time but still late teens.

Known faces.

One was crouched beside a car, hands buried somewhere beneath the bonnet, while his brother passed him tools. A few others stood around watching.

Jesus stopped.

The two boys behind him knew straight away this wasn’t clever.

Wrong street.

Wrong people.

One caught his sleeve.

“Mate.”

Jesus turned.

“Maybe just keep walkin.”

He didn’t.

He walked straight towards them.

The boy beneath the bonnet stood up.

“Whit de ye want?”

Jesus said his name.

That got his attention.

“How dae you know my name?”

Jesus didn’t answer.

“Come wae us.”

Someone behind the car laughed.

“Where’s he gaun wae you?”

Jesus looked at the brother.

“You tae.”

Now a few of them were laughing.

Except the brothers.

And their dad.

He’d been standing nearby, watching the whole thing.

The first brother wiped the oil from his hands onto his jeans.

Looked at his dad.

Then his brother.

Then Jesus.

This was harder.

There were things you didn’t just walk away from.

Family.

Your mates.

Your street.

Your name.

They told you where you fitted.

They told other people where you fitted as well.

Take all that away and what were you left with?

Jesus hadn’t explained.

No programme.

No promises.

No plan for the next five years.

Just: “Come wae me.”

The brother looked at the spanner in his hand.

Put it down.

His dad watched.

Nobody said anything.

Then the two brothers walked.

By the time they reached the end of the street there were five of them.

Jesus in front.

Four young men behind.

Nobody looked particularly religious.

Nobody had prayed a prayer.

Nobody had joined a church.

As far as they knew, nobody had even asked them to.

They were walking.

One of the first two glanced back.

The shops were still there.

His mates would be gathering by now.

Someone would notice he was missing.

By tomorrow there would be questions.

He turned back around.

Jesus was still walking.

“Here.”

Jesus looked over his shoulder.

“Whit exactly are we daein?”

“Learning.”

“Learning whit?”

Jesus stopped.

“People.”

The boy frowned.

“Whit?”

“How tae see them.”

That didn’t help much.

“See them daein whit?”

Jesus smiled.

“The way I saw you.”

Then he started walking again.

The boy stood for a second.

Looked back towards the shops.

Then ahead at Jesus.

And followed.

For now, that was enough.

A note on how this piece developed

This started out as another of my occasional “If Jesus Was a Weegie” pieces — taking a Gospel scene and imagining how it might sound and feel if it happened in the Glasgow I knew. Mark 1:16–20 seemed straightforward enough: move the shoreline to Easterhouse in 1987, replace the fishermen with young men involved in the territorial gangs of the time, and let a travelling preacher called Jesus walk into their world and say, “Come wae me.”

But it very quickly became something more than a contemporary Glaswegian paraphrase. Setting the story in a world I actually knew raised questions about what those first disciples were being asked to leave behind. Gang involvement in Easterhouse could involve violence and danger, but it could also provide belonging, identity, friendship and protection. In Mark, fishing similarly represents more than something the disciples need rescued from: it is work, family, community and an established way of life.

The creative piece therefore became a way of exploring what happens when Jesus enters an already meaningful world, sees people beyond the labels others might give them, and calls them towards an identity and future they cannot yet see.

The commentary that follows grew out of that conversation between Mark’s Gospel, lived experience, creative practice and contemporary research.

Commentary: When Jesus Crosses the Lines

Mark tells the story in considerably fewer words.

Mark 1:16-20 (NKJV) ¹⁶ And as He walked by the Sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and Andrew his brother casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. ¹⁷ Then Jesus said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men.” ¹⁸ They immediately left their nets and followed Him. ¹⁹ When He had gone a little farther from there, He saw James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, who also were in the boat mending their nets. ²⁰ And immediately He called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants, and went after Him.

Jesus is walking beside the Sea of Galilee when he sees Simon and Andrew casting a net into the sea.

“Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men.” — Mark 1:17, NKJV

Then Mark gives us one of those words he loves:

Greek: euthys — immediately.

They leave their nets and follow him.

A little further on, Jesus sees James and John in a boat with their father Zebedee. He calls them too. They leave their father with the hired servants and follow.

That’s Mark 1:16–20 – No lengthy explanation of what they were feeling. No account of the family conversation afterwards. Mark doesn’t even tell us whether Zebedee thought this travelling preacher had just lost the plot.

Jesus sees.

Jesus calls.

They follow.

Suzanne Watts Henderson, in her study of discipleship in Mark, argues that we need to begin understanding Mark’s picture of discipleship here, where Mark himself begins it, rather than reading everything backwards from the later teaching about taking up the cross.

That’s important for this creative post as these men don’t yet know where the road leads.

They simply encounter Jesus in the middle of the life they already have.

What you leave can matter to you

I grew up around the world I’ve imagined here.

I don’t want to romanticise gang culture. There was violence, sometimes serious violence. Territorial lines were real, and crossing the wrong one could have consequences.

Yet violence wasn’t the only thing happening.

There was belonging too.

Your people knew you. There could be friendship, humour, protection and an identity you didn’t have to explain.

Research increasingly recognises this complexity. A recent study by Jagjit Sandhu and Zoe Stephenson explored the experiences of young men involved in gangs. One of the major themes they found was simply “The gang and I: A sense of belonging.” The young men described gangs as capable of being both harmful and supportive, meeting needs around identity, connection and social support.

Other research makes a similar point: even harmful peer networks can provide belonging, identity, companionship and practical support. That doesn’t make the harmful behaviour less harmful. It helps explain why simply telling someone to leave may completely misunderstand what they believe they are being asked to lose.

That’s why I’ve deliberately avoided writing Jesus walking into Easterhouse and telling four gang members:

This life is terrible. Come and I’ll rescue you from it.

Mark doesn’t tell us that fishing was terrible either.

Simon and Andrew had a trade. James and John had family, work and a place in the world.

In fact, Mark’s small detail about Zebedee remaining with “the hired servants” matters. These weren’t necessarily four desperate men with nothing to lose. Scholarship on the passage notes that James and John appear to have belonged to an established family fishing enterprise. Henderson puts the cost sharply: they leave not simply nets, but a father, boat and an entire enterprise.

Jesus walks into something established, then calls them towards something they cannot yet see.

That’s a much more uncomfortable call.

Sometimes what we leave has hurt us.

Sometimes it has also helped us survive.

Sometimes both statements are true at once.

He saw them

Before Jesus calls any of them, Mark tells us that he saw them.

He sees Simon and Andrew.

Then he sees James and John.

That can disappear when we rush towards “Follow Me.”

I wanted that to happen in the fictional story too.

If you’ve spent much of your life being labelled, you’ll know there’s a difference between being looked at and being seen.

People can look at your clothes, behaviour, reputation, addiction, mental health, record, family or the people you hang around with and decide they already know the rest.

There is good reason to take that seriously beyond theology. Research into leaving gang involvement has warned that labelling and stigma can actually reinforce gang identity and dependence, while supportive relationships can affirm dignity, belonging and a sense that a person matters.

That’s remarkably close to what I’m trying to capture creatively when Jesus looks at these young men.

He doesn’t begin with their label.

He sees them.

Then he calls them.

He doesn’t simply take away their identity

There is another detail I’ve come to appreciate.

Jesus doesn’t tell fishermen that everything they know is useless.

He says: “I will make you become fishers of men.”

There is continuity as well as disruption.

Something they already understand becomes part of what Jesus will make of them.

Commentators have noticed this too. Their work involved patience, persistence, cooperation and hard physical effort; Jesus takes imagery from the world they already inhabit and redirects it towards people.

That influenced the final exchange in the fictional piece:

“Learning whit?”

“People.”

“Whit?”

“How tae see them.”

“See them daein whit?”

“The way I saw you.”

That’s obviously imaginative rather than something Mark records Jesus saying.

But it’s trying to capture something I think Mark does show us.

Jesus doesn’t erase these men’s history before He can use them.

He begins with fishermen.

And starts forming disciples.

They didn’t understand what they were signing up for

This might be my favourite part.

Those four fishermen had absolutely no idea what following Jesus was going to involve.

Read the rest of Mark.

They misunderstand him.

They argue.

They get frightened.

They ask daft questions.

They sometimes think they understand when they clearly don’t.

Eventually, when Jesus is arrested, they run.

Mark’s story of discipleship begins with an immediate response, but it certainly doesn’t give us instant maturity.

That’s why euthys interests me.

Immediately doesn’t mean completely.

They respond immediately.

Understanding takes considerably longer.

That feels much closer to real life.

And perhaps it also explains why Jesus’ words are:

“Follow Me.”

The object of the call is a person. As scholarship on the passage observes, Jesus initiates the invitation and calls these men to follow him, rather than simply signing them up to a set of teachings.

Understanding comes on the road.

What if you’ve never been religious?

This might even be the first thing about Jesus you’ve read in years.

Maybe ever.

You might not practise Christianity. Church might not be your thing. Perhaps something happened years ago that made you want nothing more to do with it.

I’m not going to squeeze a conversion pitch into the final few paragraphs.

I’d rather leave you with the Jesus Mark introduces.

A travelling preacher walks into the ordinary working lives of four men.

He sees them.

He calls them.

And they begin walking together.

They don’t know everything about him.

They certainly don’t know what they’ll become.

Mark gives them no theological entrance exam.

They know enough to take the next step.

And perhaps that is still where discovering Jesus begins.

You don’t need to pretend you believe things you don’t believe.

You don’t need to understand everything before you start looking.

You can begin where these four men began.

With Jesus.

And perhaps the question is simply:

Would you walk with Him far enough to find out who He is?

If this gied ye a smile, there’s mair here. This is pairt o the If Jesus wiz a Weegie series.
If ye’re lookin for somethin heavier, that lives here.

There’s other rooms in this place anaw.

For mair eh ma story click here

For mair eh ma writing here is good