Saturday, April 11, 2015

Epiphany 3 - January 25, 2015 - St. John, Calgary


Jonah 3:1-5, 10; Ps 62.5-12; 1 Cor 7.29-31; Mark 1.14-20

Do you ever feel God calling you to new adventures like Jesus called James and John? A call to leave behind the life you know, to die to your predictable and safe life so far, to begin a new life of adventure and danger and witness to Christ with nothing but the clothes on your back?

I’ve always stood in awe and a little bit of envy of these great martyr stories. These wonderful witnesses to the Gospel of Christ, the way they gave themselves wholeheartedly to the cause and held nothing back, the grandeur of their sacrifice - I look at that and something inside of me wishes I could do that. Something inside me wishes I was brave enough - that I had the guts - to do that. And I think to myself, “if only...” If only I wasn’t married, I could be a missionary in China. If only I didn’t have children who still need me, I could be a missionary in Darfur, or Saudi Arabia, or some country where Christians are persecuted. Don’t get me wrong - of course I love my husband and my children - they are God’s gifts to me - but truth be told, I live a much less adventurous life because of them. 

But then again, maybe those are just excuses - maybe God calls us to give up everything, including relationships with our family, to follow Christ. That’s what James and John did, after all. Those are the Christians we look up to. Those are the followers of Christ that we think we ought to imitate. If you take out your green book, and look at the front, there’s a calendar with special days on it. Those are the names of the saints that the church celebrates - individuals who left behind everything, sacrificed everything, and followed Jesus’ call to die to themselves and receive new life. All of these people did amazing and awe-inspiring things. There’s something about being the kind of Christian in such a visible way, so that people look at me and say, “wow, she is so committed to her faith,” that draws me in.  

“As he went a little farther, Jesus saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him.” That’s the Gospel of Mark, which we just heard. The Gospel of Matthew has almost exactly the same story: “As Jesus went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.” 

It’s quite a story, isn’t it? Two brothers are sitting in their boat, going about their regular daily business of fishing, fixing broken nets, hoping to catch some fish to sell, and along comes Jesus. Something about this man compels them to drop everything they have, to leave behind everything and everyone they know, and to follow him. It’s quite dramatic and we love to tell this story in church. We love to talk about James and John and about the power of Christ’s call and about how we ought to imitate these first disciples and sacrifice the comfort and safety of our lives so far and give everything up to follow Christ, to the cross, to death, and to new life.

Today, though, I want to talk about Zebedee. It’s a bit odd - I’ve studied this story as a pastor for twelve years now - it comes around almost every year in January - and this is the first time I’ve really noticed Zebedee. The father of James and John doesn’t play much of a role in this story - he kind of just sits in the background. He doesn’t show up again in any of the Gospels, even though he’s one of only a handful of parents of the disciples whom we hear about. He’s mentioned in this story, and then he’s gone again. This year, though, for some reason, I noticed him. I picture him as an older man - his sons are adults, after all - he would be past his prime, as they say - possibly even grandparent age. I think of him as someone who is still physically fit - he’s in the boat, after all - and I wonder: why did he stay in the boat? Why didn’t he get out of the boat and follow Jesus? It bothers me a bit, to tell you the truth. Him sitting there in the background, remaining in the boat after his sons leave. Why didn’t he go? We often compare ourselves to characters in the Bible, and when I hear this story, I definitely feel more like Zebedee than like James or John. I’ve never up-and-left in dramatic response to Jesus’ call. I tend to be more conservative. I’m not really the fishing-for-people type, which - to be honest - I’ve always felt a bit guilty about. And so I think that’s why I keep asking, Why didn’t he go? Why did he stay in the boat? What excuse could there be for not following Christ and going out to fish for people? If that’s what Jesus calls his followers to do, why didn’t he do it?

So one thing I wonder is if maybe he heard the call but simply refused to go. The pastors who do write about Zebedee, and there aren’t many, build whole sermons around this idea. In these sermons, Zebedee is lifted up as an example of what not to do when you hear Jesus calling. Zebedee is described as afraid, or lazy, or too attached to his material life. He’s criticized for not trusting God enough to get out of the boat. If he really trusted God, these critics argue, he would have been brave, and strong, and left behind everything to follow Jesus like his sons. And, me, thinking of myself a bit like the aged Zebedee, I wonder if maybe I’m also refusing some call of God’s. If my reluctance to leave behind my family and my comfortable life in order to go off on some dramatic mission are signs of my lack of faith.

But here’s the problem with that interpretation of the story. As Lutherans, we believe that God’s call is so powerful, that it can’t be refused. We believe that when Jesus truly calls you, the Holy Spirit moves within you, and you have no choice but to respond. Not because you have to, but because you want to. One of my seminary professors described it as the call of a lover - who ever says no to that? Thinking of my children, I would say that Jesus calling us with the promise of new life is like me calling my children with the promise of a “Cookie....” Who ever says no to that? God’s Word is a living Word, it moves within us through the power of the Holy Spirit. The Book of Concord, our Lutheran confessional authority, is very clear that God’s Word is imbued with a power that we cannot refuse. God’s Word is so powerful that when God calls, we follow. We just do. [Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration, Election.] And the Gospels are also quite clear - no one has the power to refuse Jesus’ call. Especially in Mark, Jesus speaks with authority, which means Jesus’ words have power, they make things happen - even the demons obey his words. So it’s simply not possible that Zebedee refused Jesus’ call. When Jesus calls, you inevitably follow.

So what then? If it’s not that Zebedee refused Jesus’ call, what is it? Well, maybe Zebedee wasn’t called. Maybe when Jesus said, “Follow me,” maybe when Jesus was issuing the call to be his disciple, he really was talking only to James and John. Maybe following Jesus is a young person’s work. After all, when we read further in the Gospel of Mark, we get to the story in Chapter Six, where Jesus sends the twelve disciples out to travel all over the region, casting out unclean spirits, and that they should bring “no bread, no bag, no money,” no extra clothes, and only the shoes on their feet. They are to sleep where they stop, and to rely entirely on the generosity of others - a risky proposition. That’s not something you call a grandparent-aged person to do. Jesus’ disciples were all young and strong, they weren’t old enough to have families or children. Jesus’ call to fish for people was a call to go out - not to stay home. So maybe Jesus wasn’t calling Zebedee to follow him. Maybe Zebedee was just too old for the work of Jesus. Not that I think Jesus has anything against old people. Jesus says, later on, don’t put new wine in old wineskins, for the old wineskins will burst, and you will lose both the wine and the wineskin. Jesus clearly doesn’t want to see the old wineskins burst - he is concerned as much about the old as he is about the new. So maybe his concern for Zebedee’s age is the reason that he wasn’t calling Zebedee to follow him. Maybe Zebedee stayed in the boat because his age excluded him from Jesus’ call.

Except... except that the Gospel gives us stories of other elderly people serving Jesus. Immediately after today’s reading, in the reading we’ll hear next week, we have the story of Jesus healing Simon Peter’s mother, who was too sick to get out of bed. He heals her, and she immediately gets out of bed and serves them supper. Scholars today interpret this passage to mean that women were called to serve in the church, and that what we would call “elderly women” have a role in serving God’s people. Their age does not exclude them from service in Christ’s name. So it’s not possible that Jesus’ call to follow him doesn’t leave out people who are too old. Seniors are called to follow Jesus. Zebedee was called to follow Jesus.

So what is it then? Why did Zebedee stay in the boat? If it’s not that he refused Jesus’ call, since we can’t do that, and it’s not that he wasn’t called, because everyone is called, why did Zebedee stay in the boat?

Well, let’s stop for a minute and look at exactly what Jesus calls us to do when he says, “Follow me.” Because I think there are two halves to what he says. The first is “Follow me” and the second is “I will make you fish for people.” And I want to suggest that the second half, “I will make you fish for people,” is a specific example to specific people of the more general call, “Follow me,” which is for everyone. You see, there’s one story where someone asks Jesus what is the greatest commandment, meaning what is the best way to obey God, what is the best way to worship God, what is the best way to be a follower of Christ and do what God wants. And Jesus says that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God, and the second is to love your neighbour as yourself. That’s what it means to follow Christ - to do these two things. Now, to be sure, as Christians, we know that we do this by dying to ourselves and receiving new life in Christ as we love God and love our neighbour, but this is a very broad call. There are actually lots of ways to live out this call. There are as many ways to love the Lord your God and to love your neighbour as yourself as there are followers of Christ. We don’t all have to jump out of our boats and traipse around the countryside casting out demons to follow Jesus call.

So what I want to suggest is that Zebedee staying in the boat was actually his response to Jesus’ call. That when Jesus called out, “Follow me,” he was talking to everybody in the boat. But Zebedee, who may very well have wanted to get out of the boat with his sons and embark on this dramatic journey, was called to remain in the boat. He was called to stay behind and to carry on with fishing. It was very possibly a sacrifice for him, staying behind. He would have had to die to any desire to be one of Jesus’ “special” followers, he would have had to die to any ideas of ambition or adventure that he might have had. He would have had to die to the idea of having the reputation of being one of those dramatically committed Christians, like his sons. 

Instead, Jesus called Zebedee to the more mundane task of staying behind and continuing to do what he was already doing, to live the life he was already living, to fish for fish. Because here’s what I notice. There are two very significant stories in this Gospel about fish. On two separate occasions, Jesus is gathered with a bunch of his followers and everyone is hungry, and he takes some bread and some fish and multiplies them for everyone as a miracle. But where does this fish come from? Somebody has to fish for them. And who do we know who is a fisherman? Zebedee. Jesus had to call somebody to remain behind, carrying out the everyday tasks that allowed the disciples to go about their work. Jesus had to call somebody to fish for actual fish, and to “hold down the fort,” as it were, and that somebody appears to have been Zebedee. 

At the very end of the Gospel, when you ignore the “longer ending,” which pretty much everyone agrees was added centuries after the Gospel was written, an angel tells the disciples who are standing around an empty tomb that Jesus has gone back to Galilee and that they are to follow him there. The resurrected Christ and the disciples who are now truly following him are called to go back to where they started. To where Zebedee has been waiting, and fishing, and following Jesus’ call in his own, undramatic, way. The ones whom Jesus has called, each in their own way, comes back together again.

Jesus calls us all to follow him. But he doesn’t tell us all to follow him in exactly the same way. Jesus calls some to get out of their boats and to leave behind everything. But Jesus calls some to stay. To fish for fish. To hold down the fort. To remain. And this is no less a calling than the call to fish for people. This is no less of a response to Jesus’ call to follow him. Your response to Jesus’ call to follow him may be dramatic, or quiet. It may be a call to leave behind everything, or to stay behind. It may be a call to change everything around, or to leave things the way they are. As long as your focus is on loving the Lord your God, and loving your neighbour as yourself, from wherever you are in your life, you are answering Jesus’ call to “follow me.” Thanks be to God. Amen.

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