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Epiphany 3, 01/22/2017
Sermon on Matthew 4:12-23, by Luke Bouman
12Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. 13He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, 14so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: 15“Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles— 16the 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.”17From that time Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
18As 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. 19And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” 20Immediately they left their nets and followed him. 21As 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. 22Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.
23Jesus 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.
Valued and Called
Walk with me. Take off your sandals and feel the warm sand and smooth rocks under your heels and between your toes. As you walk closer to the water, you feel the sand moisten under your feet until the it is almost like walking on stone pavement after a soaking rain. You tie your tunic high up, through and around your legs, so that you can wade into the water without getting it completely soaked. Your partner, maybe he's your brother, has pulled the boat out alongside you. He waits patiently as you cast your net wide. The rocks, used as weights around the edge of your circular net, first propel the edges outward from the center, then cause the net to drop, trapping everything below it in the shallow water. Carefully you gather the edges of the net and haul it up to the boat. Your pulse races as you see the fish inside. There aren't many this morning, but they will be enough to sell to the fish merchants. It is the last catch of the day. Your family will eat tonight.
As you pull your nets and the boat back to shore, you gradually become aware that you are being watched. The new Rabbi in town has stopped and is staring intently at you as you do your work. He is somewhat of a local celebrity. He has already gained a reputation as a straight talking teacher. There have been rumors of some trouble down south, where his cousin, John the Baptizer, has been arrested. But locally this Rabbi, this Jesus, is more well known for the amazing stories of healing that are being reported. You have heard him speak. His talks are inspired. He speaks of God's favor returning, finally, to Israel. He speaks of life, forgiveness, of good news to the downtrodden. You are suddenly very self-conscious. You look away. You return your attention to your nets, your tiny boat, and your meager catch of fish.
Out of the corner of your eye you glance up again. He is still staring at you. Once again you stop, as this time he speaks. "Follow me," he says. You look up, then at your brother and partner, then back to Jesus. "Follow me, and I will make you fish for people!" Such quiet insistence in his voice. "This is crazy talk," you think to yourself. "Fish for PEOPLE?!? What utter nonsense." Then you realize that Jesus is serious. His gaze never wavers. It is as if he were looking not at you, but deep inside you. There is something about that gaze. It is as if he knows everything about you without ever asking. There is a wisdom, the kind that is born out of both great sadness and great hopefulness, about him. You look at your brother and he is already jumping from the boat. You drop your nets, your fish, your life. You answer the call.
You are tempted to look backwards as you leave the water. Your life, as you knew it, is both ending and beginning. But somehow you never look back. Jesus' call to you has somehow taken up everything that you are and pulled it into a new purpose, and new journey, a vocation that is at the same time both new and yet somehow familiar. You sense, somehow, that your life and the world are being turned upside down. Your pulse quickens, just as it did when you hauled in the nets. The future is open, brimful with expectation.
This is what happens when we encounter Jesus. "But he doesn't come like that anymore," you say. We've put in our time at work, at home, at school, even at church, and Jesus has never come calling like that. That was for disciples long ago. Truly, I tell you, Jesus comes. Even now, even today, Jesus comes calling. Epiphany season is the time of the church year when we remember how God appears, how God's light shines in and through our lightless existence. We remember not in the way of a simple recall of past events. We remember as we relive God active in Christ in our lives. Today. In the here and now.
There are just a few differences between how Jesus comes to our various "lakeshores" and how Jesus came to those first disciples. You are right when you say that Jesus doesn't come like that anymore. How he comes today is at the same time mysterious and plain. It is mysterious in that he comes through a variety of means rather than directly. But this does not mean that his coming is any less personal. It is plain, in that we have the benefit of seeing how Jesus came before, so we know a little be more about his coming and his call than those first disciples. In the end it takes no less faith to follow for us today. But we have a bit more understanding of where Jesus is headed and perhaps that makes a difference.
The mysterious means through which Jesus comes are through churchy words like Word, Sacrament, and Community. In simpler terms, when we gather in Jesus' name, there is Jesus in our midst, as he promised, calling us to "follow." It is mysterious because it isn't always easy to see Jesus that way. We might have an idea how Jesus comes through the words that we read from the Bible. We can hear the stories of Jesus acting. We can read of Jesus saying things. But it is often harder to extrapolate what those ancient words have to do with today. We might have some idea that Jesus comes in the water of life that we call baptism. But it is often too easy to see that water as a onetime event rather than the ongoing cleansing water of forgiveness, calling us daily to return to God as the one and only Lord of Life. We might have some idea that Jesus comes in the meal that he gave his disciples, through the bread and wine that are, somehow, though mysteriously, his body and blood. But it is often harder to hear that meal as something that calls us into a vision of how God's future will look, with everyone of every time and place gathered around God's giving, feeding presence. It is easy to miss the notion that through communion we are called week after week to live as if that future were true in the here and now.
We might have some idea that the community that is called and gathered by God's Spirit into worship is somehow bigger than just a collection of individuals. But it is harder to see ourselves as the Body of Christ, that is to say to see ourselves and the living, breathing presence of God in the world, not only when we are gathered but also when we are sent. We are the voice of Christ proclaiming the good news that is Jesus himself, God with us. We are the feet of Christ, journeying wherever there is oppression to stand in solidarity with the oppressed. We are the hands of Christ blessing the world with God's peace, that peace which passes understanding. We are the living love of Christ, sent to be healing for a broken world. Yet are hard as these things are to see, they are even harder to be and to do. They mystery is that God does them not just when we follow and get it right, but even when we fail, even when we, as church, get it wrong. God works through us when we are imperfect as much or more so than when we are perfect. (Not that we use this as an excuse not to try, but rather that we recognize that it is God at work in us, and not we ourselves.)
What is plain, however is that having seen the whole arc of Jesus' earthly ministry we do have some sense of where he is going and where we are called to follow. Jesus is going to death. He is going not just to death, but through death to life. He is leading the way for us. He chooses this path as the only one that will make whole again our broken humanity. This makes all the difference as we follow this difficult path because it promises not only new life after death (perhaps not even primarily new life after death) but new life for the here and now.
In the most recent season of the BBC/PBS Masterpiece Mystery series, Sherlock (a modern take on Arthur Conan Doyle's "Sherlock Holmes" mysteries), a character gives her life in order to save Sherlock's life. Sherlock reflects on this sacrifice and says, "In saving my life she conferred a value on it. It is a currency that I do not know how to spend." I found these brief words to be uncommonly profound for television. They speak beyond the show's meaning about how each of us lives in the light of Jesus' death and resurrection. They speak of how we now are called to follow. We do not follow in order to earn something from God in the process. We answer Jesus' call because we have been given something. In dying for us, Jesus has conferred upon our lives a value. We who were broken are made whole. But rather than being a "currency we do not know how to spend," we instead know exactly how to spend it. We know it because we know how Jesus spent it. We give ourselves. We give ourselves to the broken world. We live with joyful abandon.
And like those first disciples, we do not see our calling as giving up who we are or what we do. Peter, Andrew, James and John do not stop being fisher folk. They simple start fishing for something else. They start fishing for people. We do not stop what we do. We simply now follow by doing it in the service of something else, or more precisely someone else. We do it for the sake of the one who made us whole, so that we might join the project to make the world whole. LISTEN UP! Jesus is calling us. He has looked us in the eye, washed us in the waters of Baptism, fed us with word and meal, and invited us into the world with him. He has conferred upon us inestimable value. In turn, we spend our lives, for God's sake and the world's, as the living breathing Body of Christ.