Here is a link to our Gospel reading for today from Matthew:
http://bit.ly/1ivc4o2
And Jesus said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him. Matthew 4:19-20
The story of Jesus’ call of Peter, Andrew, James and John has always fascinated me. It is a very short but potent story. We have these men. Presumably normal every day kinds of people. People who get up each morning and do the hard work of earning a living to support their families. People who regularly participate in their religious community, going to synagogue every week and yearly to the Temple in Jerusalem. People who are faithfully carrying on the work of their fathers and grandfathers. And then we have Jesus. Jesus approaches them and says very little, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” He doesn’t preach a great sermon, heal the sick, offer them great wealth or security. He says next to nothing. He only promises them that he will make them fishers of people. That is it. And immediately these men walk away from all their security, all their comfort, all that they have known and all that they have been. Immediately they embrace Jesus’ call to them and they leave behind all that they had worked their whole lives to create, in order to embrace the life that Jesus is offering to them. It is actually a pretty stunning story when you really take some time to think about it. Who leaves everything behind, all that they have, to follow a man who has said only one sentence to them?
Put yourself in the story for a moment. You are sitting at your desk at work. Your job is ok. Maybe it doesn’t fill you with passion, but it pays the bills and allows you to support your family. Your life is comfortable. You feel like you have some control over your life and your family’s life. Your children are respectable and good. You bring them to church to learn more about being good and about God. You are living a comfortable, orderly, and pleasant life. Maybe you have moments of panic or angst, when you wonder if this is all there is. Maybe you have also know deep sadness and pain and wonder when you will find your way out of the darkness of that pain. But you have built some pretty good protections against this suffering, and it only pops up from time to time. So overall, your life is mostly comfortable and feels fairly secure.
And then this very compelling person approaches you. He looks you right in the eye. You feel seen by him in a way that you have perhaps never felt seen before. He sees past your comfort and respectability. He sees past your attempts to be good and to live the life of a good person. He sees past your striving for security. He sees you—a child of God who is whole and complete. He sees your pain and you feel understood and heard. You know when he looks at you that you are both significant and insignificant all at the same time, and this feels like a relief. You know that you do not have to be anything or do anything to have his love. And then he says to you, “follow me.”
I think this is the kind of moment that must have occurred between Jesus and these men. I think that these men must have felt seen and loved in a way that they had never felt seen and loved before. And this was a life-changing moment for them. Suddenly security, comfort, respectability, and pleasantness were no longer the most important goals in life for these men. Suddenly the most important and compelling thing for these men was to follow this man who put them in touch with the God who loved them beyond life itself. Suddenly it seemed to them that the most important thing in the world was to pass this connection, this love, this passion onto others and become fishers of people. What other choice did they have but to immediately put aside everything they had known in order to follow Jesus? In that moment they understood themselves as true and whole human beings and nothing else mattered except to follow Jesus and to share this love with others.
That is what it means to be a disciple or follower of Jesus. It is to open ourselves up to God’s love. It means allowing ourselves to be seen by God and in being seen coming to understand that security, comfort, respectability, pleasantness—none of these things really matter. And, as we come to embrace our belovedness as a child of God, it means going out into the world and seeing others with the same compassion and love and vulnerability with which God sees us. It means seeing those we meet each and every day with Jesus’ eyes. But this is easier said than done.
I think this is the kind of moment that must have occurred between Jesus and these men. I think that these men must have felt seen and loved in a way that they had never felt seen and loved before. And this was a life-changing moment for them. Suddenly security, comfort, respectability, and pleasantness were no longer the most important goals in life for these men. Suddenly the most important and compelling thing for these men was to follow this man who put them in touch with the God who loved them beyond life itself. Suddenly it seemed to them that the most important thing in the world was to pass this connection, this love, this passion onto others and become fishers of people. What other choice did they have but to immediately put aside everything they had known in order to follow Jesus? In that moment they understood themselves as true and whole human beings and nothing else mattered except to follow Jesus and to share this love with others.
That is what it means to be a disciple or follower of Jesus. It is to open ourselves up to God’s love. It means allowing ourselves to be seen by God and in being seen coming to understand that security, comfort, respectability, pleasantness—none of these things really matter. And, as we come to embrace our belovedness as a child of God, it means going out into the world and seeing others with the same compassion and love and vulnerability with which God sees us. It means seeing those we meet each and every day with Jesus’ eyes. But this is easier said than done.
Life does not leave us unscarred. We come into this world innocent and whole, and then life happens. We come into this world understanding that we are God’s beloved children and that nothing else matters, and then we live our lives. And if some of these wounds and scars are bad enough or there are enough of them, we can come to completely forget our belovedness. We can come to forget that we are children of God and loved by God simply because we exist. Most of us forget our belovedness to some extent. And so we come to believe, in our fear and brokenness, that life is about protecting ourselves and our loved ones. In our pain and because of our wounds, we come to believe that life is about keeping the pain at bay and being as comfortable as we can be. Of course the pain pops through from time to time, but since we have come to believe that comfortableness and absence of pain is the best we can expect from life, we push it away and continue living our closed in lives.
But then comes the day when we have the good fortune to encounter someone who sees us, really sees us. There comes the day when someone comes into our lives who sees not our wounds or our protections, but us, the beloved children of God that we are at our core. I’ve had the good fortune to have had several of these encounters in my life—times in my life when someone has seen me as God sees me.
The first time I remember this happening was during my senior year of college. I was planning to go to law school. It seemed like a good fit for me. I am a pretty logical thinker. It would provide a secure life for me. I was a history major, and if you didn’t want to teach, what else was I supposed to do with a history degree? However, there was a part of me that knew that this wasn’t where my passion really was. But this was the path I had chosen, and I was going to follow that path come hell or high water. Then one day the rector of my parish invited me for lunch. He didn’t say why. I was the head of the Episcopal program at my college, so I just assumed he wanted to talk about an upcoming event that we were planning. So we met in the school dining hall. We ordered our food, sat down, and ate it while making small talk.
I was a little perplexed and was about to ask him if there was some specific reason he had invited me to lunch, when he looked me straight in the eyes and said, “What do you want to do with your life?” I was a little bit taken aback. I think I said something like, “Well you know, law school. Remember, I told you that I just took that LSATs and am working on filling out applications.” He said. “That’s great, but you didn’t really answer me. I am asking you to tell me what it is that is worth committing yourself and your life to. What is it about law school and practicing law that will bring meaning and purpose to your life?” And you know what? I couldn’t answer him.
Now, don’t misunderstand me. This is not a story about why being a lawyer is bad. If you are a lawyer and it brings meaning and purpose to your life, then it is the thing you should be doing. However, my rector must have sensed that I was choosing this career because I was seeking security and an avoidance of pain. He sensed that it was not my beloved self, the part of me that understood that I am a beloved child of God, that was choosing this path, but instead my wounded and protected self, my scarred self that was choosing law school. He saw me. He saw the real me. And then he asked me, “Have you ever considered becoming a priest?” I burst into tears. It can be a little frightening to be truly seen. We build up our protections for a reason. Our protective parts come because we have experienced real wounds and real pain in our lives. But being seen, truly seen, can also be liberating. Being seen, truly seen, can change your life. It certainly changed mine. And what was life changing was not really that I chose a different career that suited me and my personality better. What was life changing was that for a very brief moment I felt seen and loved as God sees and loves me. For a brief moment I understood that God wanted more for me in life than security and an absence of pain.
The first time I remember this happening was during my senior year of college. I was planning to go to law school. It seemed like a good fit for me. I am a pretty logical thinker. It would provide a secure life for me. I was a history major, and if you didn’t want to teach, what else was I supposed to do with a history degree? However, there was a part of me that knew that this wasn’t where my passion really was. But this was the path I had chosen, and I was going to follow that path come hell or high water. Then one day the rector of my parish invited me for lunch. He didn’t say why. I was the head of the Episcopal program at my college, so I just assumed he wanted to talk about an upcoming event that we were planning. So we met in the school dining hall. We ordered our food, sat down, and ate it while making small talk.
I was a little perplexed and was about to ask him if there was some specific reason he had invited me to lunch, when he looked me straight in the eyes and said, “What do you want to do with your life?” I was a little bit taken aback. I think I said something like, “Well you know, law school. Remember, I told you that I just took that LSATs and am working on filling out applications.” He said. “That’s great, but you didn’t really answer me. I am asking you to tell me what it is that is worth committing yourself and your life to. What is it about law school and practicing law that will bring meaning and purpose to your life?” And you know what? I couldn’t answer him.
Now, don’t misunderstand me. This is not a story about why being a lawyer is bad. If you are a lawyer and it brings meaning and purpose to your life, then it is the thing you should be doing. However, my rector must have sensed that I was choosing this career because I was seeking security and an avoidance of pain. He sensed that it was not my beloved self, the part of me that understood that I am a beloved child of God, that was choosing this path, but instead my wounded and protected self, my scarred self that was choosing law school. He saw me. He saw the real me. And then he asked me, “Have you ever considered becoming a priest?” I burst into tears. It can be a little frightening to be truly seen. We build up our protections for a reason. Our protective parts come because we have experienced real wounds and real pain in our lives. But being seen, truly seen, can also be liberating. Being seen, truly seen, can change your life. It certainly changed mine. And what was life changing was not really that I chose a different career that suited me and my personality better. What was life changing was that for a very brief moment I felt seen and loved as God sees and loves me. For a brief moment I understood that God wanted more for me in life than security and an absence of pain.
What would it be like if we were to see each other with the eyes of Jesus? What would it be like to see and be seen as the beloved children of God that we are? I suspect at first it would be a little uncomfortable, disorienting and possibly even painful, depending on your particular woundedness. It might even be too much for some. I suspect that not everyone who was seen by Jesus was able to cast aside their protective parts and to immediately follow him. But for those who are able to be vulnerable and to receive and give this kind of love to one another, life is never the same. You are left with no choice but to immediately drop what you are doing and to go out and become a fisher of people.
You are a beloved child of God. No matter what you have been told. No matter what you have done. No matter how life has wounded you and what pain you find yourself living in, God loves you and wants a life for you worthy of your beloved status. God wants a life for you that is bigger than what a secure, comfortable and respectable life could ever offer you.
And Jesus says to you, “Follow me, and I will make you a fisher of people.”
Amen.
You are a beloved child of God. No matter what you have been told. No matter what you have done. No matter how life has wounded you and what pain you find yourself living in, God loves you and wants a life for you worthy of your beloved status. God wants a life for you that is bigger than what a secure, comfortable and respectable life could ever offer you.
And Jesus says to you, “Follow me, and I will make you a fisher of people.”
Amen.