Year A, Epiphany 3, January 22. 2017
Isaiah 9:1-4; 1 Corinthians 1:10-18; Psalm 27:1, 4-9; Matthew 4:12-23
Fan or Fanatic… Follower or Disciple?
When I read the gospel passage for today’s lessons, I could not help but think of the two old coots who star in the “Grumpy Old Men” movies. Here are two guys who will do anything to catch the fish of their dreams. Old ‘Catfish Hunter’ was the biggest, ugliest catfish to live in the local lake. They chop holes into the ice… they play a game of dueling boats to compete for prime fishing spots… they even go fishing in their tuxedos “for just 5 more minutes” on their way to a very important wedding. They are, in a word, fanatics, and proud of it. They are in a fishing frenzy. Fishing is not their vocation but is their avocation, the thing that gives them the most joy and identifies them to all who know and love them.
Many of us can claim to be fanatics about a lot of different things. Sometimes, our fanaticism revolves around events that include our family or friends. Other times, we enjoy them in solitude or with complete strangers. I posted something about the Clemson game on Facebook Friday and my sister, an Alabama grad, asked me how much longer I was going to bask in their glory. My response – 35 years is probably good for 35 days of posts. Her response… Oh, joy… I’m sure that all of us can think of people who will use any excuse to ski, swim, run, sew, knit, crochet, quilt, do their jobs, or even watch a favorite television program at the drop of a hat.
When I left my job as a medical technologist to go to Duke Divinity School, the Board of Ordained Ministry asked me what the hardest part of choosing to go to seminary was. Without hesitation, I replied, “giving up my Clemson season football tickets.” They laughed, but I knew that once I gave up those 45-yard line seats, I’d never see them again. And at the time, it was the most concrete example I could think of to represent what that move and change of careers was all about.
I used to wonder what the disciples gave up to follow Jesus. Matthew doesn’t give us much to go on. The passage is clear on these two accounts; 1) that Jesus said “follow me” and 2) they did. No questions, no arguments, they got up and were gone, just like that. From this encounter, it is starting to become clear, even in the early chapters of Matthew that Jesus makes an indelible, a permanent claim on our lives, just as he did in the lives of Peter and Andrew, James and John.
They left everything to follow Jesus, who didn’t say to them, “Have I got a deal for you,” but who instead promised them a new life’s work, that of bringing people to God. And as Matthew describes the scene, in the blink of an eye, their lives are changed. Jesus called them to follow him, and their lives were never the same.
It’s been 30 years since I made that first trip to Duke, 26 years since taking my first church, 25 years since my first date with my husband, 22 years since we got married, 12 military moves, 3 more pastoral appointments… There have been so many things that I have given up in order to follow the call of Jesus. And so many more things gained. Gradually I have realized that while it’s good to honor what we have left behind, it’s what we gain that marks us for life as people dedicated to the Way, the Truth and the Life, of Jesus Christ.
Through Christ, we gain our identity, our forgiveness, our ability to even understand what our sins are and how they are hurting our relationship with him, with others, and within ourselves. Through Christ, we begin to see the possibilities for us and for our neighbors if we follow when he calls. Through Christ, our possibilities are endless, and our lives are eternally bound to him.
Put into those simple terms, it sounds almost easy. But it’s also a struggle and challenge to be called. The disciples, all of them, left particular lives for the one which Jesus offered them, with many unexpected and often precarious outcomes. Their lives were never the same after they answer the call to follow him. And ours, too, are not the same either once we have heard him call and followed him.
Each of us can probably think of a time in which we said to ourselves, “I know I ought to take this step… I want to be more committed to a life of faith… but I can’t see down that road, and I’m afraid. So, I’ll stay with the comfortable rather than risk failing or disappointing myself or others, or being thrust into the unknown.”
Isn’t that our nature as human beings, to take the sheltered way which is often easier rather than standing apart from the crowd and following Christ? I can hear us now… “Who me? I don’t have the skills Jesus needs. There’s nothing really extraordinary about me.” And that’s why this scripture is important.
Matthew’s story reminds us of at least two things. First, we have to remember that when Jesus called the disciples by the lake, he called ordinary people, people just like you and me. And in that call, came the promise to change their lives AND our lives forever. All Peter and the others had to do was get up and follow. Jesus didn’t say, “follow me and be perfect,” or “follow me and be my puppet.” Jesus knew what he was letting himself in for when he chose God’s children. All he asks for is the willingness to try… and the courage to allow God to use us as mirrors of his grace and peace.
Part of being that mirror, that conduit of grace, is reflected in the way that people experience Christ through us, through both action and words. It isn’t enough to assume that people know that we are Christians just because we come from a certain town or family, or because we hold certain theological positions. Somehow, we each have to find the courage within us to share the good news by the way we live. We have to live in such a way that others would want to follow him, too.
Second, Jesus took the every day, customary skills of Peter and Andrew and gave them a new direction. Peter and Andrew didn’t stop loving fishing just because they left their father’s boats. They just replaced those fishing nets with nets of a different kind. This is the way the call of God comes; while we are doing the everyday, normal things of life.
Every once in a while, God will call someone away from the life of a store clerk or lab technician to the pulpit. But more often the call is to stay where we are, to witness to what God’s Kingdom is all about in all that we do in our everyday lives. Jesus’ call is one which tells us to keep on fishing… to keep on being ourselves, remembering that we are first and foremost called to fish for Christ. It doesn’t matter if we think we’re special or extraordinary enough to serve God - God gives us the gifts we need. All we have to do is be willing to receive them.
Wouldn’t it be unbelievably grand if we could put as much energy and intensity and love into following Christ as we do when we follow our favorite team or participate in favorite activities? That’s the hardest part about following, because we have to be careful to follow with our whole hearts, rather than pretending to follow or following without putting our whole lives into the process. It is only when we allow ourselves to be totally used by God, without being stopped by our own fears and excess baggage, that we can begin to see the possibilities that God’s love can work in our lives and other people’s lives, too.
I was a campus minister for a couple of years in North Dakota, and I had a conversation with a student once that stuck with me. He told me that he thought Christianity was boring. There were too many rules, the bible was too hard to understand, and too many of the Christians he knew were not really nice people. I thought about that for a long time, and a few weeks later, I told him that the Christ I followed isn’t boring at all… he is scary, not because he’s going to punish me if I screw up, but because he forgives me and expects me to go out there and try again.
Will Willimon once shared a story about a Duke sophomore who we’ll call Mark. He was a young man from a mainline Protestant background, who felt called to work in inner-city ministry after hearing Dr. Tony Campolo speak. Through a rigorous interview process, Mark was asked to join a summer mission team in Philadelphia and later described his first-day experience to Will.
In mid-June, Mark met with a 100 other youth in a Baptist church in Philadelphia. They sang for about an hour before their leader arrived, and when he did, the youth were all worked up and ready to go. Dr. Campolo preached to them for about an hour, and people were shouting and clapping and standing in the pews. Then Tony said, “OK gang, are you ready to go out and tell them about Jesus?” “Yeah,” the kids replied, “let’s go.”
So, he loaded them up on buses, singing and clapping. But as they began to enter the poor neighborhoods of Philadelphia, the kids gradually stopped singing, and the bus Mark was on got very quiet. Then they pulled up to one of the worst housing projects in the country. Tony stood up, opened the door, and said, “OK gang, get out there and tell them about Jesus… I’ll pick you up at five.”
The young people made their way reluctantly off the bus. And they stood in little groups and prayed as the bus made its way into the distance. Mark walked down the sidewalk, faced a run-down tenement building, said a prayer under his breath and walked inside. There was a terrible odor. Windows were out. There were no lights in the hall. Babies were crying behind thin, scrawled walls. He walked up one flight of stairs and knocked on the first door he came to.
“Who is it?” a voice called out. The door cracked open, and he could see a woman holding a naked baby. He told her he wanted to tell her about Jesus. With that she slammed the door, cursing him all the way down the stairs and out into the street.
“What made me think I could do this,” he thought. “What kind of Christian am I?” He sat down on the curb and cried. When he looked up, he noticed a store on the corner and remembered the naked baby in the lady’s arms. So, he went in and bought a package of diapers and a pack of cigarettes, and went back and knocked on the lady’s door again.
“Who is it?” the same voice called again. When she opened the door, Mark slid the diapers and cigarettes inside. She looked at them and invited him in. He put a diaper on the baby, his first, and smoked a cigarette, his first and last, and sat there listening to the lady and playing with the baby all afternoon. About four o’clock, the woman looked at him and said, “Let me ask you something. What’s a nice college boy like you doing in a place like this?” So, he told her all he knew about Jesus. It took about five minutes. And she replied, “Pray for me and my baby that we can make it out of this place alive.” And he prayed.
That evening, when they all got back on the bus, Tony asked, “Well, gang, did any of you get to tell them about Jesus?” And Mark said, “I not only got to tell them about Jesus, I met Jesus. I went out to save somebody, and ended up getting saved myself. Today, I became a disciple.” [1]
We have been lured into the belief that being a Christian is about having the right theology, instead of understanding our call to service and love. We have been told that we need to make Jesus (and our churches) more exciting and relevant so that younger people will buy in to his message, instead of living that excitement and relevance in a way that people recognize Christ in us and in the work, we do. [2] When we help someone in need, reach out to people who are different from us, stand up for those who are bullied, when we practice humility, generosity and truthfulness, we are living out our faith. When we live, speak and act justice and peace… when we act with love and reverence and forgiveness… when we open seats at our table for anyone in need of food or fellowship, with the help of the Holy Spirit we are being the fanatic disciples that Jesus calls us to be.[3]
And Matthew said, “As Jesus walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon Peter and Andrew, going about their everyday lives, and 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, and change your life forever.’ Immediately they left their nets and followed him. (Matthew 4:18) [with my interpolation]
Wesley Covenant Prayer (1755)
I am no longer my own, but yours.
Put me to what you will, rank me with whom you will;
put me to doing, put me to suffering;
let me be employed by you, or laid aside for you,
exalted for you, or brought low by you;
let me be full, let me be empty,
let me have all things, let me have nothing:
I freely and fully yield all things to your pleasure and disposal.
And now, glorious and blessed God,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
you are mine and I am yours. So be it.
And the covenant which I have made on earth,
let it be confirmed in heaven. Amen.[4]
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