“Our Lord’s Urgent Request”

Matthew 4:13-25

Robert Obach and Robert Kirk: … Matthew is teaching his [church] what it means to be disciples of the Lord. Just as the first disciples promptly answered the invitation of Jesus to follow, so too must the members and potential members of the church in Matthew’s day. Just as the first disciples were called to be missionaries, to go out and be “fishers of men,” so too are members of Matthew’s community called to bring others to Jesus. Just as the first disciples left profession and family to follow Jesus, so also the members of Matthew’s community must be ready to sacrifice job security, and even family, if they find themselves in a position in which they must choose Jesus or livelihood, Jesus or family. Matthew, then, speaks also to us, telling us the call of Jesus to follow and be a fisher of men no matter what the cost is a call given to all Christians. It is a call given not only to the first four disciples, nor only to first century Christians, nor only to [modern] Christians ready to enter seminary… The call to discipleship summons each of us.

[prayer]

Today’s Gospel text must be interpreted on several different levels. There is the historical level, Matthew’s reporting of an actual event – Jesus calling his first four disciples. There is the literary setting, why the text appears where it does in this particular Gospel. There is the situational context of where this event happened in the life and ministry of Jesus. There is the situational context of the church to which Matthew originally addressed the Gospel. Finally there is, for us, the situational context of the church in modern America, more specifically this place we call Grace Presbyterian Church.

At the first level Matthew wants his readers to know that the event he is describing is a historical reality – it really happened. On the second and third levels the text occurs early in the Gospel and at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee. It follows his baptism and temptation and the arrest of John the Baptist. It lets us know that Jesus didn’t just walk out from Nazareth one day and start preaching.

First came his baptism, where he received the gift of the Holy Spirit and his Father declared that he really was who he said he was. Then came his forty day trial in the wilderness, where he withstood the Devil’s tri-fold temptation to abandon his God-given mission.

A brief sidebar: Jesus’ ministry beginning in Galilee had both historical and theological significance. Judea was a dangerous place for him following the arrest of John the Baptist. W.F. Albright and C. F. Mann believe that the move to Capernaum signified that Jesus had totally left his old life in Nazareth behind.

Theologically his move to Capernaum was a fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy. The Sea of Galilee’s coastline fell within the confines of Zebulun and Naphtali, two tribes of Israel who were named by Isaiah just prior to his prophecy of a people who sat in darkness. Jesus was the light that shined in their darkness.

Of more theological significance was the fact that Galilee was in many ways Gentile territory. It was surrounded on all sides by Gentile nations. Its population, even its Jewish population, was viewed as second-class citizens by the so-called real Jews. The beginning of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee rather than Judea was a clear sign of the universality of Jesus’ mission. He was God’s gift to the entire world.

Moving on: Matthew wanted his initial readers to know that the terms of discipleship had not changed following the resurrection and ascension of Jesus. Following Jesus still involved at one level or another, the renunciation of the world. Everything – work, family, possessions, social status, or whatever – took a backseat to faithful discipleship. This had great significance for Christians who lived under the threat of persecution. The call of Jesus to follow him is always an urgent request to drop everything and go.

Interpreting this urgency to the modern Christian in America is hard. We can understand the history. We can grasp the theology. We can see the importance of Matthew’s words to those first century Christians. What we can’t do is recreate the original settings of those words. We do not live in the time when Jesus began his ministry in Galilee. We do not live the kind of lives that Peter, Andrew, James, and John lived. We are not first century Galilean fishermen. We cannot begin to comprehend the social and cultural hurdles of leaving behind one’s family, of telling our dad that we’re not going to carry on the family business or be around to take care of him and mom in their old age.

Moving on, we have no idea what persecution is. We’re not experiencing it. We can’t begin to know what it’s like to exist as a small island of faith in a sea of hostility. Yes, American society no longer asks “how high?” when we say, “jump.” We are no longer the dominant force in culture that we once were. In an increasingly pluralistic and secular culture it is becoming more and more impossible to convince non-Christians that this is a Christian nation.

Those are sobering realities to which we must make painful adjustments. I don’t like them. You don’t like them. But measured against the level of persecution being experienced by Christians in other places at this very moment, we cannot say with a straight face that such things constitute persecution.

All that being true how do we identify with Peter, Andrew, James, and John? How do we identify with first century Christians? First of all, we profess Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. Secondly, we have promised to follow Jesus in the way of the cross. Thirdly, we proclaim the same Good News, the same Gospel, telling all people that the Kingdom of God is at hand and imploring them to repent, to recognize what God is doing in Jesus Christ and then change their lives accordingly.

We too have been urgently requested and commissioned by Jesus to go forth and be fishers of men and women. For better or worse, living in a pluralistic and secular culture means that there are a whole lot more fish in the sea than there used to be. We are surrounded by people who do not know Jesus. Our nation is one of the largest mission fields in the world. Christians in other nations are sending missionaries to us!

I don’t know how I feel about that. At one level I rejoice that the Gospel is being proclaimed no matter who’s proclaiming it. At another level I’m embarrassed. And it didn’t feel very good several years ago when a Presbyterian pastor from Kenya chastised some of us because our churches were so scantily attended on Sunday mornings. He couldn’t believe that we, with all our resources, were a shrinking, dying denomination.

Somewhere, somehow we stopped fishing in our own backyards. While sending missionaries overseas we neglected the mission field in which we live. We became lazy. We became complacent. Christianity became too easy. We expected our culture and society to teach the morals and ethics Jesus has called the church to teach. We wrongly assumed that all our neighbors were Christians. We pulled our boats in from the sea, put away our nets – eventually forgetting how to use them – and rather permanently planted our fannies on dry land. We stopped fishing. We stopped being a missionary church.

Grace Presbyterian Church is an anomaly in our presbytery and in our denomination. We’re growing. Our tribe is increasing. But the bulk of our growth has come from members transferring in from other churches and the confirmation of our own children. I’m not complaining. It is good to be growing instead of shrinking.

But we’re not doing a whole lot of fishing. Your pastor doesn’t do it. He has, in fact, never been taught how. He can’t teach what he doesn’t know. If I polled our deacons, elders, trustees, and Sunday school teachers, how many of them could honestly say that they’d been fishing lately? I’m afraid to find out. I’m embarrassed enough already by my own non-fishing status.

The cure for this is both simple and difficult. It’s simple in that all we have to do is obey Jesus by doing what he told us to do – by doing what he modeled for us. It’s difficult in that, despite all the glossy advertisements to the contrary, there are no flashy easily emplyed “1, 2, 3 easy step” programs out there. It’s difficult because it’s scary for a landlubber to head out to where the fish are.

But if persecuted Christians can do it, why can’t we? Nobody’s going to kill us if we do. We might get rejected or embarrassed. We might get our feelings hurt. So what? Jesus never promised us that it would be easy. He just told us to do it, and that when we did he would be with us.

Folks, just as it arrived for Peter, Andrew, James and John, and just as it arrived for first century Christians, the time has arrived for us to go fishing. Amen.