Leaving Boats, Nets, and Dad

Mathew 4:12-23

Ordinary 3

January 26, 2020

William G. Carter

Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the lake, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: ‘Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles—the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death,  light has dawned.’

From that time Jesus began to proclaim, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’

As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the lake - for they were fishermen. And he said to them, ‘Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.’ Immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.

Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.

Back in graduate school, I had a next-door neighbor from Egypt. He stayed to himself, for the most part. Perhaps it was the language barrier or the cultural difference, but he has a pleasant smile and dark, wise eyes. In the four months that our dorm rooms were next to one another, we had a nodding acquaintance.

There was only one conversation that I can recall. It was dinner time, and both of us emerged at the same time from our rooms to head over to the cafeteria. “Ibrahim,” I said, “tell me about your family.” He broke into a big smile and said, “I have six brothers and four sisters.”

What do they do? “Oh,” he said, “we have a family business. We run a corner market.” That’s interesting, I replied. How long has your family been running the market? He paused on the sidewalk, thought for a minute, and said, “About three thousand years.” Here he was, leaving all of them to study and do something different with his life.

That’s what strikes me about this well-worn story of Jesus calling the four disciples. The local economy was well-established. One of the fishing boats had a hand-painted sign on the side of it: “Zebedee and Sons: Purveyors of Tilapia and Other Fine Fish.” Jesus comes along and disrupts a family business.

It's the immediacy of Matthew’s account that I’ve always found so striking. Jesus collects two sets of two brothers: Simon and Andrew, James and John. All four of them are working the water. When Jesus walks by, Simon Peter and Andrew are hurling a net into the sea. Jesus calls out to them, just as the net leaves their hands, and they leave it in the water. As far as we know, it’s still there.

A few steps beyond, James and John are in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending the broken strands of their nets. Jesus calls, and James and John immediately walk away from their father, leaving him behind to keep fixing their nets. “Follow me,” he says. He doesn’t say where. He doesn’t offer a map or any directions. So far as we can tell, all five of them stick around Capernaum for a while. It has become Jesus’ home base.

But that day, for whatever reason, four professional fishermen walked off the job.

As a kid, the story was explained to me by Wilma Caswell, our favorite Sunday School teacher. She said, “They left their work as fishermen to go into the ministry.” As a second grader, I thought long and hard about that. I was glad I didn’t like to fish because I was sure that I never wanted to become a minister.

My dad was an impatient fisherman. He never stuck to much fishing, so he became an engineer. And the pastor of our church – I don’t know if he liked to fish, but he had come to town on a motorcycle. My parents hated motorcycles and said I could never have one, so I was pretty sure I would never ever become a minister. I could breathe easily!

All of that may sound like garbled reasoning, especially given my present occupation. But it struck me at the time as a garbled story. This was the call of the first four disciples. What did it have to do with the rest of us?  It is a particular story about a particular foursome of men. It’s not about us.

In fact, I’ll bet one of the people in the story – old man Zebedee – was a good bit annoyed that Jesus the woodcutter kidnapped his two hardest workers. We don’t know. File that under “Zebedee: The Untold Story.” It does make me wonder why Zebedee himself was not invited to come. We don’t know!

And to be clear: Simon Peter, Andrew, James, and John were not called into the ministry, whatever that is. They were invited to follow Jesus. They didn’t know where he was going. Maybe back to his hut in Capernaum, maybe wandering around the region to preach and heal. He didn’t tell them up front, he just went – and then he invited them to come with him.

He didn’t say, “Let me get my clipboard and make assignments. Simon Peter, you take crowd control. Andrew, you go ahead of me as my publicity coordinator. James, you serve as my lead usher when the crowds show up. John, you handle the t-shirt sales in the lobby.” But Jesus never said anything like that, so far as we know.

No, the invitation to follow is an invitation into a relationship, to stay with him, to listen to what he teaches, to watch what he does, to come close enough to see that God is ruling over heaven and earth, that God is coming close enough to heal and renew. That’s what it means to follow Christ – to stay with him, to take on the habits that help us to stick to him. As Jesus invited the first four fishermen to come, they chose to leave their nets behind. That sounds so dramatic . . . but there’s more to the story.

We know a bit more about Simon, Andrew, James, and John. For one thing, they got back into the boats. Jesus goes with them on one boat ride after another. All through the Gospel of Matthew, he insists on going back and forth across the Sea of Galilee. For every day they spent on the sea, they needed something to eat; you may recall Jesus was not one for turning stones into bread.

One day, in fact, a huge crowd showed up as he taught and healed. There were five thousand people, as far as the eye could see. Jesus asked, “How are we going to feed them?” One of the disciples said, “I have a couple of fish.” (Matt. 14:17) Well, of course he did. Just because he once got out of the boat doesn’t mean he didn’t go back into it. Just because he once dropped the net doesn’t mean he didn’t take it up once again.  

I have known people like that.

• I remember the oral surgeon who shut down his office and went to seminary. When he graduated, you know what he did? He went to West Africa to pull out broken teeth.
• Or the attorney who closed down her practice to study the Bible. When she re-emerged, she started the practice again and took on death row prisoners who were unjustly condemned.
• Or there I was, a few years ago, in a remote New Mexico monastery. At dinner, I discovered one of the monks had been the director of development for the Santa Fe opera. It’s one of the biggest opera companies in the world, and he was their fund raiser. Now he raises money for the monastery and its mission work among the poor.

All of them dropped their nets and picked them up again. All of them used the skills they had developed for years to bring the Kingdom of Heaven ever closer. They did the spiritual work of getting closer to Christ – prayer, study, spiritual formation - and then they picked up their fishing nets again. Their lives were not about making money – they were about making a difference. They were finding a greater purpose for themselves, for the greater purpose of bringing God closer to a world in pain.

They were following Jesus, who was teaching and feeding and curing and preaching and healing every disease.  Matthew’s favorite description of Jesus is “authority.” He has authority over everything that damages us. When we follow him, he has authority over us. When we continue the work that he does, especially out in the world, we see his authority slowly spreading over those we care for.

When we follow Jesus, do we have to leave our nets behind? Maybe or maybe not.

There’s that man on Keiser Avenue during tax season, dressed up like a green Statue of Liberty. He’s out there in front of a tax preparer’s office, and he must be freezing. That job can’t pay very well. People pass by and honk and gesture and laugh. If Jesus were to come along and call that man to leave that job behind, would he do it? I hope so. A lot of us remember jobs that we would never want to do again.

But sometimes we leave the job behind because we believe it is not worthy of God or the kingdom. Some years ago, we had a seminary student spend a year with us. Roger was a second career student, sensing Christ’s invitation to serve the church. One day over coffee, he said, “So how do you get away with it?” Get away with what? “How do you get away with playing jazz as a pastor?”

I said, “It was killing me not to do it, so I tried to find a way to integrate who I am with what I do.” He was most curious. Then I discovered he had an electric bass, that he used to play at the pavilion at Harvey’s Lake, that his band would often back up the traveling rock stars who passed through this region. That’s how Roger Griffith played the bass for Chubby Checker!

“Roger,” said, “why aren’t you playing the bass?” And he said: “It never occurred to me.” Within a few months, he put his rock band together, and they have been playing ever since.

What I’m saying is this: When Jesus invites us to follow him, he invites the whole person to follow him. The whole person, the whole package.

• If God has given you a family, they are as important as any work you do, and probably more so. Caretaking our loved ones is part of our calling.
• If you have a brain, use it.
• If you can sing, sing like a bird.
• If you can tutor a child to read, find a kid to teach.
• If you have a heart for people in need, give your heart to them.
• If you have any special skills or abilities or super-powers, there’s a very good chance that God gave those abilities to you for a really good reason. After all, if Jesus wanted to go back and forth across the Sea of Galilee, it was a good idea to befriend some fishermen.

Beneath it all, there is often a difference between the work that we get paid for and the work that we were put on the planet to do. Sometimes they overlap, and that is a blessed gift; sometimes they do not, but life is always more than that. I have known people who had well-paying jobs that they hated, but their daily work made possible the other work that they are really here to accomplish.

And sometimes, we can work and work, putting in long years to labor at something that does not seem so exciting. In fact, it’s a long routine. But all that may be a rehearsal, preparation for the moment when we are invited to save somebody’s life or cure somebody’s pain. During all that time, perhaps God has been preparing us for that one defining moment. It’s too early to tell.

As Jesus walks by the fishing boats in the town where he lived, he invites two people to follow him. Then he invites two more. The spiritual life is always an invitation. Christ beckons us to draw closer to him. The church is here to help us do just that. We worship, we pray, we study, we serve, because our souls are at stake. We come to listen to the One who invites us away from the things that are diminishing our souls, and move toward the things that can give life to us and to the world.

Why did Simon, Andrew, James, and John drop everything? Why did they stop what they were doing and draw closer to Christ? Because they were ready.  Whatever was going on in them - or around them – was sufficient to prepare them. When the Lord came and said, “Follow me,” they went. They left their nets, they came back to their nets, and they were never the same.

For as they drew near to follow and spend time with Jesus, they saw with their hearts that God has begun a salvage operation in Jesus to save the world. His invitation was for their daily work to be part of that. It made all the difference. It still does.

Maybe Mark Twain said it best. "The two most important days of your life are the day you are born, and the day you find out why."

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.