The Call

       Three recruiters showed up to address high school seniors. Each recruiter — representing the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps — was to have fifteen minutes.

       The Army and Navy recruiters got carried away, so when it came time for the Marine to speak, he had only two minutes. He walked up and stood utterly silent for a full sixty seconds, half of his time. Then he said this: "I doubt whether there are two or three of you in this room who could even cut it in the Marine Corps. But I want to see those two or three immediately in the dining hall when we are dismissed." He turned smartly and sat down.

       When he arrived in the dining hall there was a mob of students interested in the Marines.

       The recruiter knew that commitment comes from appealing to the heroic dimension in the heart.  He learned that from Jesus call to us to a life of discipleship.

       There are some calls that are genuinely life changing and take us somewhere worth going.  One of these is the call of Jesus to you and me to follow Him.  This morning we look at Jesus call of his first followers and what that call means to you and me today.

       Not everything that God does starts big.  Twenty four years ago if you had called the phone number on the “future home of sign” (show picture) over here on the corner of our property you would have reached the Stueck home.  The answering machine would say, “Howdy!  If you are calling about insurance, Tupperware of the new Presbyterian Church please leave a message and Jim, Mickey or Dave will get back to you.” 

       That’s not a big beginning.  But God doesn’t always need a big beginning to do His work.  What he needs are a few people who are willing to be faithful and follow. 

       In Matthew’s chronology, Jesus has just come out of the time of testing in the wilderness.  We looked at that last June.  One temptation Jesus rejects is the temptation to get His ministry off to a flashy start by putting on a show.  Jesus rejects the easy road to power without the cross.  He chose a way that is much less flashy and more relational.  Listen to Matthew 4:12-22:

Read Matthew 4:12-22

       Matthew tells us that after John the Baptist is arrested by Herod Antipas and put in prison that Jesus withdrew into Galilee.  He moves His base of operations from Nazareth where He grew up to the lakeside town of Capernaum.  Matthew doesn’t tell us the fact that Luke tells us – that the people of Nazareth actually tried to throw Jesus off a cliff because they were so offended by his one and only sermon there.   That would be a good enough reason to leave Nazareth.  But He comes to Capernaum because Capernaum is strategic.

       Capernaum sits on the Via Maris, the main trade route between the Mediterranean and Damascus.  It is far removed from the Greekized cities like Tiberius and Sepphoris where Herod hangs out.  And Capernaum is well suited for reaching Galilee which is far and away the most densely populated part of Israel.  The Jewish historian Josephus said that there were 204 cities in Galilee that had a population of more than 15,000.  That’s not bad for an area fifty by twenty-five miles.  Josephus knew this because he was the military commander of the region. 

       Matthew, however, highlights the spiritual reasons for the move.  He quotes the prophets to show how it had always been God’s purpose to bring the light of the good news to that area – to the Jews of Galilee and to the Gentiles who hem Galilee in on every side.  Matthew is a very Jewish gospel.  But Matthew knows that it was always God’s plan to bring good news to Gentiles too.  He reminds us of this in chapter two with the story of how God reaches out to Persian wise men to come to the place of Jesus; birth.  Now he reminds us that Jesus has come to Galilee of the Gentiles for a reason.

        Jesus begins His proclamation of God’s good news with the word “repent.”   Now repent doesn’t sound like good news.  When we hear “repent” we think of stopping doing stuff like drinking, smoking and running around with fast women.  But to repent simply means to turn around.  It has just as much to do with how we think as what we do. 

       For the Jews, repentance isn’t just stopping their evil deeds.  It also means throwing away all of the wrong ideas that have about who God is and what God wants.  The people had been taught by the Pharisees to believe in a bean-counter God who wants people to live by a bean-counter religion.  So when Jesus come along and says, “God is like a man who throws a party” well that is good news.  When He begins his ministry turning water in to wine at a wedding, then it’s clear God isn’t what people have made Him out to be – an old man yelling at those darn kids to get off the lawn.  He is a God who wants to call people into an abundant life.  And that is good news.

       The thing that shines through this whole section from Matthew is the absolute centrality and total authority of Jesus.  Jesus isn’t like a preacher I once heard of who finished all his sermons with the words, “But then, what do I know?” and then wondered why so few people bothered to listen.  

       Jesus didn’t comes with maybes and probablys.  Jesus announces the royal proclamation – the king’s law, the king’s decisions and the king’s command:  “Turn away from your own ways and turn to God.  Lift your eyes to from the earth and look to heaven.  Reverse your direction.  Stop walking away from God and begin walking toward God.  This command is urgent because the reign of God is beginning.  Eternity has invaded time.  God has invaded earth in Jesus Christ.  So it is vital that we choose the right side and the right direction. 

       Jesus immediately demonstrates His authority and His call with four fishermen by the Lake.

        In the first century fishing was a thriving industry on the Sea of Galilee.  There were sixteen bustling ports and several towns on the northwest shore, including Bethsaida ("house of the fisher") and Magdala – home of Mary Magdalene ("fish tower"). There were so many fishing boats that Josephus was able to commandeer 230 of them during the war in Galilee in A.D. 68.

        Jesus comes to four fishermen, Andrew, Peter, James and John and commands. “Come, follow me.” 

        Jesus is sometimes called a Rabbi but this is not Rabbi-like behavior.  Entry into a rabbinical school depended on the initiative of the student, not the call of a rabbi.  But Jesus is in charge here. He’s the one who issues the command.  For the Rabbis, the allegiance was to the Torah, not to the person.  But Jesus issues the invitation and places Himself at the center.  He doesn’t say, “Follow God’s way” or “Follow the law” but “Follow Me.” 

      We need to see how Jesus always puts Himself right in the center of His own message.  He called God’s kingdom, “My kingdom.” He claimed to be the Truth. He claimed to be the Bread of Life, the Light of the World, the Resurrection and the Life, the Way. He identified himself clearly as the One of whom the prophet Isaiah wrote. He also said, “I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”          

       Jesus made both direct and indirect claims to be God. He referred to himself as the “Son of Man” -- a title of divinity from Daniel 7. He accepted the description, “Son of God.” When Simon Peter confessed his faith that Jesus was the Messiah, Jesus commended Peter’s insight. He said, “I and my Father are one.” The response to this was that the Jews picked up stones to stone Him, accusing Him of claiming to be God. After all, if that wasn’t true, it was blasphemy. Jesus claimed to forgive sins. Only God can forgive sins. He claimed that He can give life. Only God can give life. He claimed to teach the truth. He claimed to be the judge of the world. How many great claims could a person make? Then, to top it all off, He came back from the dead.

       Jesus calls the fishermen to Himself on the basis of His own authority. The call is not rooted in the Torah or even in the name of God, but completely Jesus' own messianic authority. 

       Why did Jesus chose these four, Peter, Andrew, James and John to be the nucleus for the church He came to create? 

        Sometimes I read accounts of the call that make it sound pretty random – or a result if divine insight.  Some people say that Jesus set out to find the four biggest losers He could find so He could really show his stuff – and who could be bigger losers than some fishermen.

        But these four had already demonstrated a spiritual openness.  John tells us that Andrew and John had been disciples of John the Baptist.  We looked at their first encounter with Jesus on June 21.  Peter, Andrew and John had travel with Jesus to the wedding at Cana where they first became aware of Jesus’ power and grace.  We looked at that on June 28.  This lakeside encounter is a call to active ministry but it’s not their first encounter.  They’ve already had significant encounters with Jesus at key places in their lives.

        Second, these four weren’t the illiterate day-laborers some writers make them out to be.  Fish was the staple food of the Greco-Roman world. Fish from the Sea of Galilee were exported and prized in distant Alexandria in Egypt and Antioch in Syria. Fishermen in Galilee competed in the larger Mediterranean market.  That testifies to their skill, prosperity, and ingenuity - and probably to their command of Greek, which was the international language of business and culture. In order to survive in their market league, they had to be shrewd and successful businessmen. 

       Third, they were fishermen.  And fishermen had the training and temperament Jesus needed. Good fishers of fish have the qualities which enable them to be good fishers of people.

       A good fisherman has patience and perseverance. A fisherman on the Sea of Galilee with its sudden storms has courage.  A good fisherman knows how to fit the bait to the fish – just as Paul later wrote that he became all things to all people if by any chance he might win some.

       Fishing is noticing the weather, watching the wind and the clouds. Fishing, like sharing the gospel is always done in context. It does no good to sit at one lake and wish you were on some other lake. It does no good to stand at the ocean and wish the weather were different. On that day, in that place, you fish in context according to what the conditions are.

       Jesus says to them, "'Follow me, and I will make you fishers of people.”  The Greek words are actually more nuanced: "'I shall make you become fishers of people.”  In other words Jesus said, “You do the following and I’ll do the changing.”  Their job is to follow.  Jesus’ job is to make them become something great. 

       The process of becoming disciples of Jesus is a slow and painful one for the Twelve.  It is not easy to understand, to watch, to follow, to suffer persecution for the cause of Jesus.  This service is costly.  It requires separation from former ties in order to be free for the new allegiance to Jesus,   The fishermen must leave their nets behind, and they must also leave their own families.

       There is nothing inherently wrong with nets or families.  Nets are essential to fishing, and families to life. But for these four even these must be abandoned if they get in the way of responding to the call of Jesus.

      When Hernan Cortez landed at Vera Cruz in 1519 to begin his conquest of Mexico with a small force of 700 men, he purposely set fire to his fleet of eleven ships. His men on the shore watched their only means of retreat sink to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. With no means of retreat, there was only one direction to move, forward into the Mexican interior to meet whatever might come their way. In the same way, Jesus summons these men to burn their boats and journey inland with Him.

       Years ago German Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was martyred by the Nazis, wrote about the meaning of what Jesus calls us to in his The Cost of Discipleship.  He contrasts what he calls cheap grace with what God actually calls us to in Jesus Christ.  I want you to listen closely to these words and think about where you stack up on the cheap grace/costly grace continuum. 

       “Cheap grace,” writes Bonhoeffer, “is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the Cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

       “Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble, it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows Him. Costly grace is the Gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock.

       “Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it costs God the life of His Son: "ye were bought at a price," and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon His Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but deliver Him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.”

         When Jesus calls these four fishermen to discipleship He does not say, "Follow me, and I will save your souls."  His promise is not their salvation but others.  Jesus said, "Follow me and I will make you fish for people." To follow Jesus is to fish, not simply to be caught passively in a net ourselves.

       To follow Jesus is to fish. And I believe that we need to do more and better fishing as a congregation.  It’s not enough to open these doors and wait for people to show up.  We need to go where they are and bring them in.

       Anyone in business has heard the story of how John Sculley, CEO of Pepsi, came to work for Apple Computers back in 1983.   John was sitting tight in a nice job in a secure company raking in options and money.

       Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak birthed the Apple IIe.  Apple was successful and tapping into a new market, but at the time, they were no PepsiCo.  But here’s how Steve Jobs recruited John Scully. He asked him: “Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to change the world?"   That challenge to John was what drove him to leave his safety and security and help change the world.  

       Follow me, and I will bring you into the net? No, Jesus said. “Follow me and I will let you help drag the net. I will let you cast the net, mend the net and care for the net. Follow me and I will let you go out into the deep even over your heads. Follow me and I may make you struggle against the current. Follow me and I will send you into places of great peace and I relaxation and also great joy and excitement.

       We sometimes worry, and rightly, about the ambition that burns within us. We want to be somebody and to do things; and it is not always easy to sort out how much of this wanting is selfish and how much is Christian. Jesus addresses this ambition.  He says, "Do you want to make something of your life?  Do you want to move beyond success to actual significance? Then follow me!"

       At the end of the day, that is what Jesus is calling us to do.  We are to let the dead bury the dead, drop our fishing nets and follow him, pick up a cross and follow him, and essentially be broken and poured for other people.  There is no safety or security in answering this call.  There is no promise of cash, glory, safety, or security.  But we get to change the world.