Neill Morgan
Sermon Delivered January 27, 2008
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.
Sitting Backwards on a Train
Robert W. Two Bulls tells the story of an early twentieth century American Indian preacher named White Plume. White Plume lived on a reservation during a time when the United States government had instituted a policy of assimilation. Part of that policy was to require of the American Indians on the reservation that they be baptized and convert to Christianity. Another part was that they conform to a settled docile lifestyle as farmers, leaving behind their ancient customs as members of nomadic hunter warrior societies to live in a log cabin on a tract of land assigned to them.
Baptism and conversion to Christianity was imposed upon them as part of the assimilation policy, as a requirement for them to conform, to become more like the new dominant society that surrounded them.
The irony, when we read today’s gospel passage, is that these original disciples of Jesus Christ, Simon Peter and Andrew, James and John, were called to repent, to turn away from the expectations of society, away from the docility of cultural demands, and into a new life, an adventurous life of risk and self-giving.
Don’t get me wrong. The life of a fisherman in first century Galilee was hard work. The taxes they paid were horrendous, and it was hard to get ahead, no matter how competent, no matter how lucky they were.
But, sons born to fisherman fathers grew up knowing what they would do in life. They would fish. Part of it was economic – they would grow up knowing a skill that could feed them and their families. But a big part of the reason they would grow up to fish was their culture’s understanding of the commandment to honor your father and your mother. To give up fishing was to give up on one’s duty to family. That line in the gospel is shocking:
“Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.”
In contrast, Robert Two Bulls tells us that many of the Indian conversions were a matter of going through the motions, going along to get along, an outward conforming so as to avoid trouble. The old ceremonies of their ancestors simply went underground for a while.
As long as they attended church services regularly, had their children baptized, and learned to read well enough to read from the Bible, they could live under the radar. They would, for the most part, be safe from the watchful gaze of the Superintendent of Indian Affairs.
But, there were some conversions to Christianity that were deep and life-changing. White Plume was one of those. Not long after his conversion, he began to preach. Not long after that, Two Bulls writes, White Plume was ordained, and then he was called
“to live and preach on another part of the reservation. Hitching his team to the wagon, packing the most personal and bare essentials and loading up his family, he embarked on his journey. He left behind his home and all that was familiar. It was said that he even left behind his livestock and as he was rolling down the road in the wagon his remaining animals were following him. They eventually gave up the chase. His house stood empty and alone, and it was soon veiled by the tall prairie grass.”
That image of White Plume is haunting and sad when we focus on what he left behind. An abandoned house, livestock following the wagon, that’s as sad an image as old Zebedee, sitting alone in his boat with the half-mended nets, watching his sons walk away.
The sadness of these images can only be overcome when we focus on the beauty and wonder, the adventure and excitement, of the life in the footsteps of Jesus. Matthew is frustratingly sparse in his details, so he gives us hardly a clue as to why these fishermen would get up “Immediately” as he says and follow Jesus in response to his call.
But, this much we know. If the status quo is fine with us, we will hardly hear a call to a new life.
If we are satisfied with our culture and its customs, the call to follow Jesus Christ, the call to repent, to turn around and go the opposite way, that call is hardly audible, much less attractive enough to get us moving.
But, if we are not satisfied with the status quo, if we see the brokenness and violence of the world around us as less than what God intends, then the call to a new life cuts through the background noise. It clarifies and becomes attractive, not because it is easy, but because it matters.
When we are no longer satisfied with a world in which those who are born to privilege have access to the best schools and those who are born to poor and uneducated parents are locked into the worst schools;
When we are no longer satisfied with a world in which those born into poverty have so few handholds available to climb out of the hole of hunger, homelessness, and chronic illness that each generation brings more poverty than the one before;
When we are no longer satisfied with the superficiality of a society obsessed with things; with the superficiality of sexuality that is separated from love and commitment; with the superficiality of entertainment that would distract us from the reality of how brief a time we will walk through this life;
When we see through the myth that we are kept secure and safe because of our bank accounts or home equity or status or educational degrees; then, we are ready.
We are ready to hear the call of Jesus Christ to a life of adventure, exploration, discovery, hardship, and joy. We are ready to follow the One who says, “take up your cross and follow me.”
We are ready to hear the call to repent not as a call to feel guilty and shameful, but as an invitation to live a life that matters, to begin living right now in the Kingdom of God that Jesus proclaimed is near, right here, at hand.
I heard someone say something at a funeral once that I thought was insightful. Reflecting on the life of someone who lived with an eye toward the future, he noted how unusual it was. “Most of us live as though we’re sitting backwards on a train. We don’t see what’s around us until we’re already past it.”
The call of Jesus Christ is a call to repent, to turn around and face forward. It takes some courage. It takes some gumption. Most of all, it takes a willingness to reorder the priorities of our lives away from the world’s priorities and toward the priorities of Jesus.
Over the past four decades, as the mainline church has declined in influence and number of members and all the indicators that the world counts as success, there have been a variety of responses. One response is panic. The church we love is not the church of our childhood and the panic response is to clutch as tightly as we can to the past, to do whatever we can to recover the church we have lost.
But, there is another response among those whom Christ calls. It is counterintuitive. It is to let go. It is to let go of the nostalgic hope we have to recover the church and to turn around, face forward, and take hold of Jesus Christ. It is a different orientation, to trust that if we hold tight to our Lord Jesus Christ, we will live with the Kingdom of God always at hand, always near. Instead of trying to build up the church the way we want it to be, we instead build our faithfulness to Jesus Christ as a community and trust Christ to shape the church into his image.
What would Jesus do? It’s a great question when we face the ethical dilemmas of our lives. But, there’s another question on top of that:
“What is Jesus doing?” What is Jesus doing in this world? When we focus on that question, we get a new orientation to life, we turn away from the priorities of the world and our culture and turn toward the Prince of Peace, turn toward the Cross, turn toward the empty tomb.
As we focus on our call to invite, and welcome, and connect people with the church, the call of Jesus in this gospel story shapes what we do and how we do it. First, there’s nothing here about the institution of the church. When we invite people into community, we are inviting them into discipleship. It is a call not to add something to their social calendar, but a call to turn their lives upside down and backwards. It is an invitation to turn around from living as if sitting backwards in a train and face forward, take hold of Jesus Christ, and enter into an adventure.
We also know that this invitation to radical change in the gospel is answered with immediate obedience: they left their nets and followed Jesus.
I don’t know about your experience, but in my experience, people do not respond to me that way. And that’s really the point of the gospel. As long as we are asking people to respond to us, we will not be effective.
It is when Jesus lives within us, when our lives become a clear reflection of his presence shining through, that we become instruments of Christ’s call to live with the kingdom of God at hand. That is when the call to a new life, an adventure, a call to a life that matters more than our comfort and security takes hold.
When we turn around from sitting backwards on a train and look ahead, into the future where Jesus is leading, the look on our faces, the excitement and joy we take in each day of life, turns the orientation of others in the same direction. “What are you looking at?”
“There. Right there. Turn around and look for yourself. God is at work in the world right there in front of us. Turn around and face forward!”
Thanks be to God. Amen.