Off the Boat – B Epiphany 3 – January 22 2012
Greg, imagine you are in the middle of harvest, its been a stressful harvest, tractors
breaking down, weather has been poor to say the least, and you are pushing that combine to the max to use as much of this brief window of time as possible. A man pulls into your field with his beat up truck and says, “Follow me and I will make you farm for people.”
What do you say?
Well, you’ll say one of three things,
“Sure, let me just finish this row” or field, or harvest or whatever success is contingent on.
Or you might say, “Are you stupid? Not on your life.”
Or maybe, “Sure.”
Let’s change the scenario, just a little bit. You’re still pedal to the metal to get this crop off, and Ryan is driving combine and the man calls to him and says, “Follow me and I will make you farm for people.” Ryan stops the combine, gets down, jumps in the truck and splits. No saranoya, no see you later, and definitely nothing about being back to help finish this field. What are you thinking?
So why do these four, Simon, Andrew, James and John, leave what they are doing, to follow Jesus? For all intents and purposes, Jesus is a crazy man. Fish for people? I can’t see a reasonable person responding positively to that one. And perhaps Jesus’ first miracle isn’t turning the water to wine, but getting grown, hard-working fishermen to follow Him, because we can not explain why these men would drop their nets and follow Jesus into uncertainty. And to be honest, uncertainty is an understatement, isn’t it? Jesus makes no promises except that they will fish for people. Can anything else besides a miracle be going on here?
Martin Luther’s explanation of the Third Article of the Apostle’s Creed makes this point:
I believe that I cannot my own understanding or effort believe in Jesus
Christ my Lord, or come to him. But the Holy Spirit has called me through the Gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, sanctified and kept me in true faith.
In the same way he calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth and keeps it united with Jesus Christ in the one true faith.
In this Christian church day after day he fully forgives all my sins and the sins of all believers. On the last day he will raise me and all the dead and give me and all believers in Christ eternal life.
This is most certainly true.
So there is something more to this call process than the Gospel lets on. As Paul S. Berge from Luther Seminary writes, “These are epiphany moments early in the Gospel. As readers and hearers, we too have no preparation this early in the Gospel for such a story…God in Jesus Christ comes to us in our most unexpected moments. God’s kingdom, God’s kingly reign and rule in our lives breaks in even ‘immediately’ as pure gift.”
This is Epiphany, the realization, the recognizing that more than meets the eye is going on. Just as in Baptism, we are no longer just a part of creation, we are claimed, not just children of God, but heirs, there is more than meets the eye. Just as in the Gospel today, this is not just Jesus talking to men, but His calling, the breaking in of God’s kingdom, love being shown and experienced.
And this love breaks the disciples free from their ordinary lives. Now we have to be careful to call fishing or if we were to transfer that to our lives and call our lives ordinary, but the call of Jesus, the moving of the Spirit, breaks the disciples free from ordinary, and releases them into the Kingdom. And today’s Gospel is full of imagery of this release from ordinary. Is it not fitting that Simon and Andrew leave their nets? Nets are used to…. Catch or trap. This might get a little hokey, but bear with me. So not only are Simon and Andrew called, but they are also released from these nets of life that have them trapped. But leaving the nets, they are no longer entrapped by the ways of this world, their ordinary, work-away-world.
And then Jesus calls to James and John, and they get out of the boat to follow Jesus. What is another story in the Gospels about leaving the boat? Right, Peter leaving the boat to join Jesus in faith. In these stories, there is something about being in the boat that is undesirable for Jesus, since He calls James and John out of the boat, and He calls Peter out of the boat. What is it about the boat?
Pastor Bill’s tag-line for his sermon today is that in order to leave, as the first disciples are doing, you have to cleave something, that is leave something behind. As Bill says, “Jesus calls the disciples (and us) and we leave something behind to answer the call of Love. So, Love draws us into something new and in order to take up the call we often will be leaving something else behind us. In other words, to “cleave” to the call we must leave… something.”
Take a moment, and reflect on your personal story. What will you leave behind as we answer the call to Love? What will you leave behind as we answer the call to Love the down-trodden, the broken-hearted, those in need? What will you leave behind as we answer the call to Love your enemy?
Reflecting on this for myself, I will leave behind the boat. In the boat is an old way, a way that I am comfortable with, a way where I don’t share and I stay in the boat, a way that I keep things and my Love to myself in the boat. It’s comfortable in the boat, and at times it is much easier to live in the boat.
Leaving for a life of being Love is not as simple as dropping our nets or getting out of our boats. We are trapped in those nets, and we are stuck in those boats. But Jesus comes to us, with the Spirit and calls us out, bringing us out of our mixed up and entangled lives. This is a miracle, that we can leave those nets and we can get out of those boats, and live the lives we were meant to live, to be who we were created to be. Hebrews 12, one of my favourite verses, fits perfectly, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Thanks be to God.
