3 Epiphany
21 Jan 2024
John the Baptizer, that charismatic leader, is in prison and his followers are at a loss. He was the glue that held them altogether. He hadn’t, apparently, left a succession plan. The group had not broken up; maybe they were hoping John might get out of prison, but they were rudderless. Peter, with a wife and family and a well established business, had gone back to fishing along with his brother Andrew. James and John had re-joined their father’s business, one that was successful enough to employ others. I wonder what they had expected from John the Baptizer and what they were thinking now that he was out of the picture. Then along comes Jesus with an offer they apparently could not refuse: to become fishers of people. Two questions: what did Jesus mean by that and why o why did they decide to follow him? Oh, and a third question: what would we have done and what will we do now?
What makes a person decide to follow someone? It could be for the worldly benefits of power, profit, or pleasure. That plays out every day in the news. Someone aligns with a business or a politician because they see their own star rising with that person. It plays out in our decisions about where and for whom we will work; we normally seek a good paying job with benefits and a nice place to live. Normal human behavior and it is neither intrinsically good nor bad. When one hitches one’s wagon to a despot, However, it usually ends badly.
Yet those that hitched their wagon to John were not out for the usual rewards. Maybe they saw John as a Messiah who would save Israel, but I am skeptical they thought they would become rich and powerful. Maybe they knew their lives were destined to be cut short in some way.
And now they, in typical Marken fashion, dropped everything to follow this new leader. Jesus pulled his closest followers from the group John had gathered, I daresay the women as well as the men, although none of that is recorded.
To make an intentionally really bad pun, they went for Jesus, hook, line, and sinker. Actually, they were pulled into his net, for that was how most fishing was done in those days.
Have you ever asked yourself why they did so? Was it Jesus’ personality? This was the first time they had really talked to him; although they may have seen him they did not know him. He was not one of John’s followers. Was it some sort of promise? What did he mean about making them fishers of men? Or was he the one they thought would take over the revolution, whatever that was supposed to mean? In Jesus time, even as now, fishing was done with line and hook, as well as nets, and, while the expression getting off the hook dates from the 1800’s, hooking someone meant catching them doing something that was wrong. So maybe, just maybe, Jesus talk of fishing meant catching those who engaged in deceit and fraud, or who took everything from those who had nothing to begin with. A rather different sort of fishing for people. I wonder who he would be fishing for today.
The remarkable thing is that those disciples did just leave everything and followed Jesus. Luckily, they did not have a Jonah in their midst, the greatest naysayer in the entire Bible (in my humble opinion.) Jonah was all about being self-absorbed and self-righteous. He only did what he had to do, and then with the utmost reluctance. I wonder if the people who put together the lectionary did so to put in stark contrast the response of the disciples and the response of Jonah to his call.
How would you have responded? How have you responded over the years to your sense of call? For we are all called. Our first calling is to the ministry of all the baptized. The call for all of us is to live our lives in a manner worthy of the children of God that we all are. It is to love God and love our neighbor and serve one another and the community. Beyond that we are each called in our own particular way. In much of European history, those called to be clergy or religious (e.g. monks and nuns) were someone thought to be of a higher order than common folks. We cannot seem to avoid hierarchies, can we?
Yet today religious orders exist that reflect an entirely different view of what it means to be a “religious”. Those in religious communities may live independently as associates or oblates or be part of a physical community. These communities are often great sources of spiritual guidance for all of us. Today is the Sunday we honor those who have committed themselves to a religious vocation.
So the call is always there and it changes over time. I thought my call was to be a physician, and it was, but then I heard another call. You may have been called to teach or to do whatever it is you do, but in a manner that serves others and honors God. My father was a postal clerk and, while he would never have used the word call, he felt he was to do his best to get the mail sorted and delivered to people. It wasn’t just a job; it was a vocation.
Keep the door open to call. It can come at any time, at any age, and from the most unlikely of places. And whatever it is you do, consider it your call, your way of becoming a fisher of people.
Since today is appropriately designated religious life Sunday, I will close with the collect for religious life.
Collect For Monastic Orders and Vocations: O Lord Jesus Christ, you became poor for our sake, that we might be made rich through your poverty: Guide and sanctify, we pray, those whom you call to follow you under the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, that by their prayer and service they may enrich your Church, and by their life and worship may glorify your Name; for you reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
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