Faith by Sight
Matthew
4: 12-23 (NRSV)
Now
when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. He left
Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, 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 sea—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.
Looking over these words
from Matthew, I think the question of the day is this: what would make you
leave your job?
What would make you leave
your job?
And ,really, the question
this Gospel lesson begs is more like, what one sentence could someone say to
you that would make you leave your job?
And if you just heard that,
and what you’re thinking is, well, nothing, because I’m retired, or because I
never worked outside the home, then let’s consider this idea of “work” a little
more like Jesus’ very first disciples would have.
This morning, our
lectionary-appointed Gospel story is the story of Jesus calling his very first
four disciples—Simon, Andrew, James, and John. Two sets of brothers, all young
adults like Jesus himself, and four men who all had one common occupation:
fishing.
This is a very different
world than ours. These men didn’t list “fishing” as their occupation on their
IRS tax forms, they didn’t report to an overt kind of “boss”, and, most
importantly, they didn’t have a set Monday through Friday kind of schedule,
where they punched in at 9 and punched out at 5.
Fishing, to these four men,
was much more than just what we might want to call their “job”. Fishing was a
whole way of life for Simon, Andrew, James, and John. As we can see by the fact
that Simon and James fish with their brothers Andrew and John, and by the fact
that James and John worked with their father, Zebedee, fishing was the family
business for these four men. Simon, Andrew, James, and John were probably
raised from the time they were little boys in the art of fishing.
Some of us might have grown
up in a particular family, or in a particular culture, where we, too, faced
serious expectations of what we were going to be when we grew up, but for
Simon, Andrew, James, and John, there wasn’t even a question. They were going
to be fishers.
We can guess these four men
were from the lower working class—James and John were clearly at least a little
better off than Simon and Andrew because they owned a BOAT (Simon and Andrew
had to just sit on the shore with their net). Still, though, we can expect
these four young men didn’t have much of an education, and wouldn’t have seen
much more of the world than their own hometown—fishing was quite probably all
they knew.
We need to understand that
in order to be able to understand just what they were taking on when Jesus
called them. Simon, Andrew, James, and John left behind more than just their
nets—they left behind their homes and families, too.
And this is why that one
question came into my head this week while I was reading over this scripture
text: What would convince you to leave your job? And, specifically, what one
sentence could convince you to walk away from your job?
Because, if you do work
outside of the home, then surely you could tell me lots of things that would
convince you to walk away from your current employer—retirement, or an illness
or injury, or family obligations, or bad hours, bad pay, bad working
conditions, a boss you don’t get along with, or perhaps a better work
opportunity opening up somewhere else, with better compensation, a shorter
commute from home, or a promotion in your responsibilities.
There’s lots of reasons why
you might leave the office you’re in—especially if you know exactly where
you’re going next. Especially if it was your idea to leave, and you have a
plan.
But what might be so
compelling that it would convince you to do what Simon, Andrew, James, and John
did? What could someone say to you that would be so convincing that you would
leave behind everything?
And what could this look
like in our world? What would a contemporary Jesus, calling you to God’s
service, look like?
The only image I could come
up with—one that still doesn’t totally fit the experience of Jesus’s first
disciples—is if someone you had never seen before came up to you at your place
of work and said,
Hey,
I’ve got a car outside, get in! Where I’m taking you will be so much better
than where you are now
I don’t know about you, but
that wouldn’t convince me. No way would I want to be hanging around with a
stranger. No way would I walk away from the profession that puts a roof over my
family’s heads and food on their table. No way would I give up the comforts of
what I know for just a vague promise that something better is in store.
Yet, I must pause to
consider—I did indeed make it into the ministry. And along the way in my life,
words were spoken to me that maybe didn’t convince me to leave my home and
family, but that definitely convinced me to take the untraveled road, never
knowing what would happen next.
In the same way, all of you
made it here to help make Benton United Methodist Church happen, with your own
talents and labor.
What convinces us to keep going?
What convinces us to work for God?
What convinces up to serve
someone we can’t see?
For Simon, Andrew, James,
and John, one sentence was enough—Follow
me, and I will make you fish for people.
Jesus didn’t just promise
those four young men a better, more exciting, more fulfilling life.
I asked you before, what one sentence would convince you to leave
your job?
For Simon, Andrew, James,
and John, that was it. And why did that one sentence do it for them? Because
just that one sentence, just those ten words, explained to them the entirety of
the Gospel. All the Good News of our Lord was summed up in ten words:
Follow
me, and I will make you fish for people.
I’m in a bit of an
interesting, peculiar position as a clergywoman. It doesn’t come up all the
time, but when you meet new people, people that want to drum up some small talk
with you—friends of friends, acquaintances at a party, new neighbors, the clerk
at the grocery store, the receptionist at the doctor’s office (you get the
idea)—when people want to know a little more about you, one of the first things
they ask is, what do you do for a living? Let me tell you, anytime I tell
someone who doesn’t know me that I’m a pastor, I hear nothing but the most
interesting responses. It’s something about the way that our culture regards
ministers. Frequently, and sometimes out of nowhere, I’ll hear stories about
someone else’s faith journey. And, frequently, I’ll start hearing apologetic
reasons for why someone hasn’t been to church in a while—hey, you don’t owe me
an explanation, but if it makes you feel better, I’m all ears.
But maybe more than
anything, the follow-up question I end up hearing is, why do you believe? In
our modern, advanced, technological world, why would I believe in something I
can’t see, something I can’t touch?
Well, I believe for the same
reason that Simon, Andrew James, and John left behind their nets and decided to
become fishers of people.
You see, I might not be able
to see God, but I can see God’s works. I might not be able to see
God, but I can see the Good News.
Jesus reaches our own hearts
with the Good News that we need. Jesus reached four fishermen by telling them
the fishers’ Gospel—you will be fishers of people.
Jesus might reach our own
hearts with the teachers’ Gospel, the nurses’ Gospel, the musicians’ Gospel,
the mothers’ Gospel, the fathers’ Gospel, the grandparents’ Gospel.
And the words that you hear,
when you hear your own Good News, might not feel as earth shattering as what
Simon, Andrew, James, and John heard, but they could be your daily bread—one
sentence that reminds you, if only for today, why you do what you do for God.
My Good News, my daily
bread, is all of you.
Whatever you do this week,
do it for the glory of God. If someone can see God’s works in you, they can see
God. And if they have seen God through you, then you have been a fisher of men
and women.
May it be so.
Amen.
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