People-Fishers

Matthew 4:12-23

Look how easy it was for Simon, I think.

Easy for him and Andrew, James and John.

Jesus comes right to them while they work on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. Jesus personally invites them, in clear, direct and simple words: Follow me.

Even tells them what they’ll be doing: I’ll teach you to be people-fishers.

And it must be easy, right? Since Peter and Andrew, James and John all immediately drop what they are doing to go after Jesus. It must be clear that this is it, the thing they’d been waiting for all their lives.

I know they have doubts later. I know it doesn’t turn out to be entirely fun. Some of it’s scary, lots of it is confusing. I’ve read all those stories too.

But today it sounds so clear, so easy, so unmistakeable.

Why doesn’t Jesus sound like that to me?

Have you ever wondered that?
Wondered why God seems to speak directly to some people, while you feel cloudy and uncertain? Wondered if God really has a plan for you? Wondered if what you’re doing or deciding is the right thing, but don’t know how to be sure?

If you’ve wondered that, you’re not alone.

I know that many – probably most – of Jesus’ followers here and now, and over the centuries of our faith, have the foggy, less certain experience of God’s call to us as individuals. That relatively few followers of Jesus have one clear, bright, specific moment when Jesus speaks and it’s not just easy, but energizing, compelling, and exciting to respond.

I know this, but I still have call envy.

It’s not just this story, either. I have colleagues and friends who always seem to hear Jesus’ voice so much more clearly than I do.

Friends who just know that God wants them to plant a church, or lead a scout troop, or to respond to one particular person who walks into their life, and who have stories of wonderful results or insights from that thing God called them to.

I spent years being envious of people who knew for certain that God had called them to priesthood, while I was confused about my uncertain longings and hopes, unsure about the usefulness of my talents and skills, and pretty sure the church didn’t want me.

I can tell you today that hindsight lets you be a lot more certain about what God’s up to in your life than present sight. And that a genuine, fruitful, powerful call to ministry or parenthood or healing or service often feels very much at times like confused longing, foggy hope, and a mix of potentially useful skills and niggling doubt.

And that you may still envy someone else’s certainty even after your own particular gifts and work are affirmed and celebrated and fruitful.

And – since I never envied doctors certain about their call – I can also tell you that if you envy someone else’s particular certainty that they are called to be an engineer or parent or teacher or scout leader or singer or whatever, that may be a sign that you’re called to that too. Or something like it.

So if you are envious that Jesus is so clear with Peter and Andrew and James and John, it might be a sign that Jesus is actively calling you to follow him – you just wish you knew how.

As a matter of fact, one thing I am sure of right now, even if you’re not, is that Jesus is, in fact, calling you.

Calling each of us. If you’re here today (if you’re reading this), whether you came reluctantly or enthusiastically, whether you’re listening for it or not, Jesus is calling you.

God calls some of us to specific things, sometimes: to do a particular job at a particular time, or to take on a role in life like teacher or healer or spouse. And some times that’s more clear than at others.

But now, always, Jesus is calling all of us exactly the way he calls Simon and Andrew, James and John.

“Follow me!”

It’s a call to be close to God.

That may, in fact, have been easier for John and James and Andrew and Simon, who could get up out of their boats and physically walk along right behind Jesus. Could touch him. And Jesus could tell them in normal human conversation what he wanted them to do. That he wanted them to be people-fishers, or later, to hand out bread and fish to hungry people, to come up a mountain with him and meet God, or to go out to a particular place where people need to hear good news.

It may have been easier for those first fishers to be close to Jesus, but it’s very, very possible for each of us, too.

Many of us here are already following Jesus actively – some of us with clarity, some of us with great uncertainty.

When there’s no physical Jesus to follow, we have to follow the story. Have to immerse ourselves in scripture, particularly in the gospels, but also all the stories of the followers of Jesus, the followers of God. Many of you are involved in a regular Bible Study here or elsewhere, or specifically working on following Jesus in a Discipleship for Episcopalians or “Friends with Jesus” group.

If you’re not, you can be. Talk to me.

Several of you, I know, have a practice of paying attention to the good, the healing, that God is doing right now in the world. Some do gratitude journaling, others just take note of where ever you see God at work in your daily life.

When we immerse ourselves in the story, and watch for God at work, we’re doing exactly what Andrew and Peter, John and James did in the story we read today – going around after Jesus and listening and watching as he proclaims good news, and heals the sick.

It’s also important to remember if we are “following” that means that God does the work of leading.

Father Mychal Judge, a Fire Department of New York chaplain who died in the attacks of September 11, 2001, used to pray every day:
“Lord, take me where you want me to go;

Let me meet who you want me to meet;

Tell me what you want me to say;

And keep me out of your way. Amen.”

That kind of prayer is one way to make sure we’re letting God do the work of leading; to help ourselves follow in trust.

My friend Rob [known in the Diocese of New Jersey as “the church growth guy” or “the discipleship guy”] says that to be a disciple of Jesus, to follow Jesus, is simply to live and love like Jesus and help others do the same.

Because the good news isn’t just that Jesus is calling us close, even when it’s not as clear as we like. The good news is also that Jesus calls us, just like James and Andrew and Simon and John, to be people-fishers. To help others catch Jesus.

Which doesn’t necessarily mean going out on the high seas – the streets, the shopping malls, the internet – to reel people in. It’s much more likely to mean helping the people we love and who love us, the people we’re already close to, notice what God is doing in their lives, to notice their calling to be close to God, when they find it hard to hear it themselves.

People-fishing with Jesus means it’s actually easier to be with the people in your life who need something that you don’t know how to give – because you let God do the giving. That’s just a matter of getting used to looking for what God is up to in the people around us. To look for what God is offering to the people around us every day, and let them know what you see.

You and I are called, like Peter and Andrew and James and John, not just to be close to Jesus, but to be people-fishers with Jesus. Not the hard way, the way Jesus never does it: baiting hooks to reel in strangers. But the way we wish we could when we hear or see it happen to someone else. When we hear Jesus say: Just follow me. Hang out with me.

Pay careful attention to what I’m doing – notice the good news and the healing and the love.

And you will be people fishers too.

At the River

Matthew 3:13-17

Imagine for a moment that you are at the river.

You’ve come, like most of the folks before and around you, because you want something. Maybe something you can’t quite describe; something you can’t get for yourself.

You want…renewal. You need relief or release from the anxieties and guilts and doubts, great or small, that shadow your life. You want to lay some burdens down.

Or maybe you want the flip side of that – you’ve come looking for transformation, for a change for the better, for a stronger, deeper, truer connection to God.

I suspect that what drew most of the people to John at the Jordan that day was not unlike what draws you or me to make New Year’s resolutions, adopt a “dry January”, start a new meal plan, household budget, exercise plan or new work habits, now or at other times of the year.

Many of us are very familiar with that desire for a fresh start, an opportunity to become better than we are now. Many of us also know that desire for a stronger, better, deeper, truer relationship with God – though we often don’t know what resolutions to adopt to get there on our own.

We, too, might have turned to John for help.

Might have come for John’s baptism to wash away the burdens of regret, guilt, anxiety, shame that make it hard to trust ourselves to God. Come looking for transformation: for baptism in the river that represents God bringing us into the promised land; where we’re freed from all the bonds and burdens that limit us, free to fully entrust our selves, and our future, and all those we love to God.

[That’s the vision of heaven we just sang about, by the way – on the bank of the river that “runs by the throne of God”. That call to come to theriver is a call to live in the promised land; free of our burdens and joyfully close with God.]

And into this longing, on the banks of the Jordan long ago, walks Jesus of Nazareth.

He might have come with friends or even followers who’d known him in Galilee. But in my imagination, he simply slips in with the crowd; joins those lined up for, or clustered around John, awaiting baptism; just stands quietly among us.

Until John recognizes him and clearly, passionately, refuses to baptize him.

And Jesus insists.

There’s a faint sense that this is an argument, an interaction anyway, that takes some time. John insisting every way he can think of that he can’t possibly baptize Jesus. He needs Jesus to baptize him. (John has this longing, too, it seems.)

In my imagination, he’s standing right at the edge of the river, not quite pushing Jesus back, but you can tell his body wants to.  Everyone’s attention is riveted on them for this moment.

And Jesus just keeps saying yes. Yes, you can baptize me. Yes, you will.

Yes. Yes.

“Let it be, now,” we hear him say. “It’s right for us to do this, to fulfill all righteousness.”

Nobody’s really sure what he means by this, but finally that’s enough for John. He takes Jesus down into the river, immerses him, and brings him up.

And you and I and everyone around us have the sense of the sky ripped open, of heaven come suddenly and powerfully close to earth, and hear in our ears and hearts: “This is my Son, Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

We came looking for renewal,

for relief and release and the shedding of burdens,

for hope and growth and coming closer to God.

And we witnessed – we felt – God appear. Felt heaven come right to earth for a moment.

There, on the bank of the river of the promised land, God comes closer – very close – to us.

“Righteousness” – the quality of walking, living, closely with God – happens to us, not because of what we do, or what we repent of, but because God chooses.

Because Jesus insists.

It has been bugging me for days that I can’t really figure out what’s meant when Jesus says “it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.”

I can understand (and analyze, and theologize about) each word, but I still don’t really understand what he’s talking about, why it answers John’s objections.

It irritates Matthew even more, I think. It’s vividly clear to scholars that Matthew agrees with John – Jesus shouldn’t be getting baptized by him. There is no earthly reason why the Son of God, entirely without sin, should be baptized in a ritual that is about repentance and confession of sin, the baptism John has been offering to prepare people for the coming of Jesus.

I don’t get it, and I suspect that Matthew can’t really explain it to himself, either. I suspect that’s why I can’t understand – and many scholars struggle to explain – this statement that it’s “to fulfill all righteousness.”

But I can’t deny that righteousness happens, there and then.

Righteousness is, in gospel language, simply the qualities that make us close to God, that make us a little like God. Righteousness is the qualities that make our life like heaven: free of the burdens of sin or shame or guilt or anxiety, small and great, that make it hard to trust our whole selves to God.

And right there, on the Jordan river, as Jesus comes up from the water, God is unmistakably, vividly, audibly close to us. We hear heaven come right into earth, hear the revelation that here is God’s Son.  That, essentially, here is God, the manifested love of God, wet and just like us, and that God is delighted by it all.

Righteousness just happens to us, on the bank of that river.

Maybe that’s what Jesus meant. Maybe that’s what convinced John.

Maybe that wasn’t what he meant at all.

But still, righteousness happens to us.

The heaven we long for comes to meet us on the bank of the river. God’s closeness erupts into us; God appears among us, much like us, making us a little more like God.

That’s what happens when you and I are baptized, too.

Maybe we come to the font the way John’s people came to the Jordan – sometimes with a clear need to repent, turn from evil, be forgiven. Often with a vaguer but true longing for some release from our burdens, for renewal, for hope and transformation. Very often looking for a closer relationship with God.

Many of us were brought to the water before we felt those longings for ourselves, because of what someone who loved you longed for for you.

And there at the water, in the midst of our longing, “righteousness” happens to us, not because of what we do, or what we repent of, but because God chooses.

Today we renew that longing, we remember that gift. We read this story and promise to keep coming back to the river, to continue seeking renewal, seeking to live close to God. We promise to continue seeking heaven in earth, in our lives, and we sprinkle drops of river around us because the longing to be close to God, to be righteous, doesn’t stop with our first trip to the water. It grows.

So we come back to the river, in story and in ritual, bringing our longing to be relieved of burdens, our longing for hope and transformation, for our more whole, more hopeful, more holy selves.
And again, and again, righteousness happens. Jesus shows up. Heaven comes close. God’s love is proclaimed and God’s delight made known.