GIVE US GRACE, O LORD, TO ANSWER READILY THE CALL OF OUR SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST AND PROCLAIM TO ALL PEOPLE THE GOOD NEWS OF HIS SALVATION, THAT WE AND THE WHOLE WORLD MAY PERCEIVE THE GLORY OF HIS MARVELOUS WORKS; WHO LIVES AND REIGNS WITH YOU AND THE HOLY SPIRIT, ONE GOD, FOR EVER AND EVER. AMEN.
Not many of us who have answered the call to follow Jesus Christ were fishermen when we were called, nor tax gatherers, nor religious leaders of any sort. But, all of us, no matter the circumstances of our lives were just as surely called to follow Jesus as were those first century fishermen who were busy with their nets hauling in the catch and helping their dad at that job.
Think about it: you are sitting in your comfortable office as an attorney or in your classroom teaching students or giving medical advice to your patients, or busy building a new home, or working as a highly paid chef or getting ready to board the airplane you will fly across the wide sea, or buried in your books in your classes which you must finish before some appointed deadline… or, or, or….
And along comes Jesus. Hey there, he says to you: Leave what you are doing and follow me. This is not someone you have met before, not someone you were expecting to meet, not someone about you whom you had even heard…and yet, this stranger, literally calls you from the comfort of your life as it is and asks you to follow him.
The fishermen he called dropped their nets… their livelihoods… and started walking/following Jesus. There is no reason in Scripture for us to believe that they had ever heard of this man. They were not looking for new work. They were not seeking some cult leader to better their dull lives. They were, as we were and are, doing their day jobs… they were as we were living their lives…
And Jesus shows up and calls them to follow him. The same Jesus who has shown up in all of our lives… one way or another… and reached out to us to drop our lives as we knew them and give it all up to follow him… where… they and we did not and do not know. We only know that for some reason… and many of us are still busy working on that reason… we dropped the direction of our lives and turned to follow this Jesus wherever he would lead to do whatever he wanted.
They were still fishermen and tax gatherers even after the call. Just as you and I are still the same people doing the same jobs we were before the call to us… but there is an important difference about the before and after in all our cases.
For this time forward, after beginning to follow Jesus Christ, the direction of our lives will forever be different. His call begins in every one of us a sometimes long process of learning to live for others, of learning to lead a life of service, of beginning to let go of self-interest for the common interest, of sacrifice. Why would they have responded and followed him. Why do we in this day and time respond to His call and strive to follow him. He is an unlikely leader, even an unlikable leader. Yet something about Him caused those fishermen to drop their lives and follow. They knew nothing about this Man who came along and turned their lives upside down and around.
We have the benefit of knowing more about this Jesus than they would have known. Yet our knowing about this Jesus turns out to be worth nothing unless we, in fact, seek to know Him more fully by following Him wherever He may lead us. Knowing about Jesus and knowing Jesus are not the same thing, I used to be told as a young Methodist layman. One is knowledge of him and the other is knowing Him as the Source of ones life who calls us to follow where he leads and to live our lives as He lived his life… living for others, not for self.
I confess that this following of this Jesus turns out to be anything but easy and simple. I confess that I have to begin again almost every day to do this. I would rather live my life on my terms and do the things in life I want to do without regard for my fellow humans. My natural inclination does not easily bend to this Man’s call. I suspect some of you hearing my words today are like me in finding Jesus anything but easy to follow. We know that we should want to follow Him but what that means always seems to turn out to be messier than we anticipated. And deep down inside we doubt that we are, in fact, actually following him. We suspect that it is all some sort of show full of sounds and lights but with no substance.
Simon and Andrew and James and John show us how it is done. They left their lives as they had planned them to Walk the Way of Love to quote our good Presiding Bishop. That Way of Love to which we also are all called by Jesus turns out to be a bumpy ride and difficult walk often. Still, it is the Way.
The desire to follow Jesus, even when we do not know if we are doing it right, suffices. If you wonder about your own devotion to Him, know that desiring to be like Him counts. However haltingly, we all have some proclaiming to do…that the World may perceive the Glory of His marvelous works.
Let us lay down our lives my fellow disciples of Christ and Thomas the Apostle and follow.
Let us pray:
GIVE US GRACE, O LORD, TO ANSWER READILY THE CALL OF OUR SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST AND PROCLAIM TO ALL PEOPLE THE GOOD NEWS OF HIS SALVATION, THAT WE AND THE WHOLE WORLD MAY PERCEIVE THE GLORY OF HIS MARVELOUS WORKS; WHO LIVES AND REIGNS WITH YOU AND THE HOLY SPIRIT, ONE GOD, FOR EVER AND EVER. AMEN.
Stephen Waller
