by Fr. Bill Garrison
Please note that the following sermon text was provided prior to the audio recording. The two versions may differ substantially.
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.
—Matthew 4:12-23 (NRSV)
As a reminder we are still in the season of Epiphany. It is the time of the year when we expect the unexpected, and that which was not visible becomes so. We look at things from a different angle and see things from another perspective. This week we are going to look at being ready when the moment comes. Here is one example.
The strongman at a circus squeezed the juice from a lemon between his hands. He then said to the audience, “I will offer $200 to anyone in the audience who can squeeze another drop from this lemon. A thin scholarly looking woman came forward, picked up the lemon, strained hard and managed to get a drop. The strongman was amazed. He paid the woman and asked, “What is the secret of your strength?" “Practice," the woman answered. “I was the treasurer of an Episcopal Church for thirty-two years!"
Photo by Almog
The gospel this morning is one with which we are familiar. It’s the story of Jesus beginning to call his disciples. He has returned to Galilee after his time in the desert and his baptism and is walking beside the Sea of Galilee close to his new home in Capernaum. The Sea of Galilee, by the way, hasn’t changed much in the last two thousand years. It’s the lowest fresh water lake in the world at seven hundred feet below sea level, and it is thirteen miles long and eight miles wide. In places it is a couple of hundred feet deep.
Walking along Jesus came upon two sets of fishermen working on their nets. Without any preamble he asks them to follow him. He promises to make them fishers of men. Immediately they do so. Game, set, and match; it’s the end of the story.
Well, obviously Jesus is pretty charismatic. I imagine we have a number of politicians in this country that wish they could do the same trick Jesus just accomplished. Tell people to follow them, and so they do.
Today, I want to look at this story from the fisherman’s perspective instead of the perspective of Jesus. I want to spend some time thinking about them and why they might have been so ready to jump up and follow Him.
Let’s set the stage. This is the first century and Rome is completely in charge of everything. They have their fingers in every pie. Herod, the local Hebrew King, is an awful man. He would have you executed for looking at him the wrong way. The back of the average person was breaking under the Roman yoke. To make matters worse the Temple Priests were in cahoots with the government as were some of the Jewish people who had become tax collectors. For the average person it was a matter of survival every day.
One of the tenants of prayer at that time was that if you hadn’t prayed for the messiah to come, you hadn’t prayed at all. Everyone was hoping and praying for the savior, someone to lead them out from under the weight of The Roman Empire.
And so we see these men sitting there mending their nets knowing this was their prayer too. They were simple fishermen. But please note they may not have been poor fishermen. When they left Zebedee in the boat, they left him with the hired help. You don’t hire employees if you are broke. The point is you could make a decent living as a fisherman at the time and they were probably up to date regarding the world around them.
Now let’s speed ahead into the Gospel of Luke for a moment. Do you remember when Jesus was arrested? I’m sure you will remember that Peter cut the ear off one of the Roman guards. So we know they weren’t pacifists.
Let’s think about Galilee. What sect of Judaism was based in Galilee? Well there were four sects for the most part. The Sadducees were the Temple priests in Jerusalem. The Essenes had given up on society and moved out of town to write the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Pharisees were trying to figure out how to live a Godly life correctly. That just leaves the Zealots. They lived in Galilee primarily. They were the ones that started a war with Rome that commenced thirty years after the crucifixion of Jesus. They were a wild bunch, ready to fight, impetuous, and really tired of Roman rule.
If you listen to the descriptions of Jesus’ disciples you find men who are violent, impetuous, wild, and ready to do things on the spur of the moment. I submit to you, as do many scholars, that if they weren’t Zealots.
And so when Jesus beckons them they are ready to go. Perhaps they already knew him. Personally I think they did. The point is that they think they have found their leader, the messiah who was going to throw Rome off their backs. They were ready to follow him.
You see Jesus was telling everyone that the Kingdom of God had come close. The time was here. God was in charge of the cosmos, not Rome. This was music, a war cry, to their ears. Never mind that the messiah they expected was not the messiah they got. That came later. For the moment they were ready to go to war with him.
I have heard it said that the transition of the disciples from the band when Jesus met them to the Apostles that led the early church is the final and greatest miracle of Jesus. I think there is a good case to be made for that.
We too have heard the call of Jesus, calling us to follow him, and we have chosen to do so. Perhaps our decision isn’t as dramatic as the stories of the disciples, but we have been called to follow never the less.
We ask ourselves, can a person follow Jesus without leaving everything behind as the disciples did? Should we become priests or join a holy order or work in a soup kitchen? Simply put can we be Christians in place without changing our basic lifestyle?
The answer I think is yes and no. Yes we can remain where we are, doing what we do. But we will not remain the same people from the inside out as we were before we started consciously following the example Jesus has set for us.
You see the Holy Spirit resides within each and every one of us. Where we were when Jesus called us, and where we are today are not the same place. The spirit of God within us changes us slowly into the people we are becoming, the creations God intends for us to become. This is the very best of the grace of God; God working within us as an answer to God’s call.
So I submit to you there is another miracle going on we might not be aware of. The disciples followed Jesus and became different people, the early apostles of the church. We too are just such a miracle as God changes us within as we answer God’s call and learn to live life from the inside out with the Holy Spirit rather than outside in as the world would have us believe we need to do.