Called into Life

“Called into Life”

Based on Matthew 4:12-23

An Ordinary Morning Today we hear the familiar story from Matthew of Jesus calling his disciples to leave their nets behind and to go with him. Before we dive to deeply into this calling, I want us to really set the scene for ourselves of what happens in Matthew’s telling of this story: Matthew does not mention that the disciples had a long night of fishing with nothing to show for it. Matthew does not speak of any instruction from Jesus to the fishermen to go back out into the deep and throw their nets out one more time.

Matthew does not offer a miraculous story of nets filled with such overwhelming numbers of fish that the disciples struggle to bring it in.

No… there’s nothing like any of that here. Instead, we see Simon and Andrew as well as James and John just having an extraordinarily ordinary morning. Simon and Andrew are on the shore, still actively fishing. They hadn’t given up what they were doing and preparing to turn in for the day. James and John, on the other hand, hadn’t even started fishing yet. They’re in the boat in the process of getting ready for the work to come. It’s just another day in the life of four fishermen when, without warning, Jesus suddenly walks into their lives.

The Calling “Follow me!” Jesus says, “…and I’ll make you fish for people!”

The extraordinary, perhaps even miraculous moment in our Gospel story is that for both encounters between these two separate sets of fishermen and Jesus, we see the fishermen responding by dropping their nets and following Jesus. For the next three years or so, these four will be largely committed to tagging along with Jesus as he goes from one miraculous moment to the next all the way until he is arrested, put on trial, and executed on the cross.

We may find ourselves hoping that if Jesus were to walk by us today and call us, that we would recognize him and follow just as those four fishermen did 2,000 years ago. We may find ourselves hoping that we, like those fishermen, would have the courage to drop whatever it is that we have going on in our lives and just follow. But Can We Go? Or, perhaps, the thought of taking our calendars and clearing off all the meetings and appointments and every little plan we have for the next three years absolutely terrifies us. Maybe as we hear this story we say to ourselves that those were “just” fishermen, and their responsibilities were few. We might say to ourselves, “We have people who depend on us. We can’t just get up and leave.” Or maybe we would say something like, “Jesus, I’ll go if you can’t find someone else… but if you can find someone other than me I’d sure appreciate it!” We might even try to find reasons to discredit the Jesus in front of us… maybe he's not the real Jesus after all. It would sure be a much easier decision for us if we could convince ourselves that it isn’t the Son of God calling us to follow! If we were to take a brief survey and were honest with ourselves, there would probably be a lot more of us who felt like we couldn’t leave than those who would just drop everything and go with no questions asked. At the very least, most of us would want some time to tie up some loose ends for the things and people we are responsible for before hitting the road with the Messiah. Even if we’re going to clear our calendar, don’t we need to contact the people who were going to leave in a lurch? Aren’t we going to make sure that people know where we’re going and why we’re doing it? Could we really just jump ship on a moment’s notice and leave? Sure we could cheat a little and use our cell phones these days… but remember those disciples didn’t have cell phones in their day.

Still, a Desire for Christ So again, would we be willing to sign up to go and leave on a dime? I think the answer for most of us is… likely… no. And yet, we also yearn to hear the Good News that Christ proclaims. We also want to sit at the feet of Jesus and learn from him and grow from him. I mean, that’s why we’re in church today, isn’t it? We do come to church to worship, yes… but don’t we also come to church to be reminded of God’s words? To hear God’s promises? To hear words of grace and forgiveness? To hear God’s encouragement in our lives? To hear how we might live with and for one another? To hear words of encouragement on how WE might turn around and offer that same grace and forgiveness to others?

We come to church not just to be sideline observers of faith or armchair theologians, but we come to be participants in faith. We come with the hope of transformation for a very broken world and, if we’re feeling particularly wild for change on a given Sunday, we might even come with the hope of transformation for ourselves… for our own lives… for our own ways of walking with the “call” Christ has given us.

A New Question

Maybe the question for us is not, “Would we drop everything and go like those four fishermen did all those years ago?” Maybe it’s less important to focus on what we leave behind and more important to consider what we are being invited to seek. Rather than getting hung up on the details of what we are afraid we would have to give up… we can look to the excitement of life in Christ that first drew those disciples in! Again, there weren’t any miracles here! There weren’t 5,000 fish and loaves of bread being pulled out of a magic hat… the disciples are inspired to follow based on just the essence of the person calling them.

As we lean into the experiences of those first disciples and consider together the WONDER that they experienced in Christ’s presence, we can find inspiration for our own modern-day discipleship journeys. Called Into and then Sent Out

You who come to hear words of grace and forgiveness, come and listen! You who seek to hear a word of encouragement and love, come! You who desire to know God’s promises of new life, be present at the table! Let us join with the disciples of old and the disciples yet to be born. Let us give thanks to the one who calls us to get up and to follow. Let us come and follow the one who bears resurrection for the world and look for that resurrection in our own lives. Let us come and experience the transformative love of Christ in our lives!

But this is NOT just a once in a lifetime calling to come and follow… it is a daily calling! To paraphrase Martin Luther, we are called to see the old sinful creature of yesterday die and then awaken today as a creature created anew in the light of Christ as we remember our baptism.

Today, just as yesterday and the day before that, Christ invites us to come and to follow. Christ invites us to sit at his feet and to learn from him. Christ invites us to grow and be transformed in the fullness of the Holy Spirit!

And then… Christ invites us to be sent back out into the world bearing the love of God to those experiencing the brokenness of this world and this life. Because, we are called to seek life; not just life for ourselves but life for all creation.

God’s everlasting presence be with you as we walk together in this discipleship journey that Christ has called us to. May we set our hearts and minds on seeking the life that only the Messiah can bring. Peace be with you. Amen.