I want to do something a little bit different this morning, and really spend some time in the Bible. Now, I love the Bible, and sometimes in my study I come across something so exciting that I just need to share it with you. So I’ve done this before, but not in a while. This passage today from Matthew says something powerful that we might miss if we didn’t take a little bit of special time with it. And I think that its power is made most evident when we take a look at how the same story is told by the other gospel writers.

Now, let me tell you up front that the stories aren’t told exactly the same way. And I also want to tell you up front that this is not a hang up for me. I don’t know why the stories aren’t told exactly the same way. Maybe the different gospel writers had heard different stories, maybe some knew some things that others didn’t, maybe it’s as if they’re taking pictures of the same things, but from different angles. But they’re all telling the same story, just from a different perspective. And to help us see the difference in the telling of the story, you should have received a sheet with the different passages I’m going to refer to.

The climax of the story is Jesus’ calling of Simon Peter and Andrew, two brothers, and James and John, two brothers who are the sons of a fellow named Zebedee. And remember, we heard some about Andrew in last Sunday’s reading. And for the time being, let’s just keep it to those essentials. That’s what the story tells. At the beginning of the story Jesus is on his own. By the end of the story, four persons have agreed to follow him, and he has the first four of his twelve disciples.

Now each of the four gospels tells the story, so let’s briefly take a look at each of them. And we’ll work backwards, starting with John, which is the passage we read in worship last week.

Here’s what happens in this passage. John the Baptist points to Jesus and identifies him. He’s the "Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world." But look a little further. The story says that John has disciples, two of them. In the presence of two of his disciples, he again points to Jesus as the Lamb of God, and these two disciples of John start pursuing Jesus, and they start talking with him. Now note who one of the two disciples is. It’s Andrew. And then as we heard last week, Andrew goes and tells his brother, Simon, who is also known as Peter.

Now here’s one of the things that this story does: It gives at least Andrew a history. Here’s what I mean by that. From what John the Gospel Writer says, Andrew was a follower of this guy John the Baptist, implying that Andrew is a person of some spiritual depth. He’s not just a simple fisherman. In fact, doesn’t even mention that he’s a fisherman. He’s already a spiritual seeker. He’s already made a decision to follow this prophet John. He is spiritually sensitive. He’s ripe. Already there is evidence that God is working in his soul, and he is seeking to follow God’s path. There’s something there already. He’s just a little off course, and when John the Baptist points him in the right direction, he follows that direction, and makes the right decision, and follows Jesus. That’s how this story is told in John.

Now, take a look at how the story is told in Luke. In John and Mark, the calling happens in the first chapter. In Matthew, in the fourth chapter. In Luke, it happens in the fifth chapter, later than in any other gospel. If you read the Luke passage carefully, you’ll see that he includes some details here. For example, Luke records the conversation that took place between Jesus and Simon Peter. In fact, a whole little drama takes place. There’s a lot more here than what we read from Matthew, isn’t there. Even a whole lot more than what is in John. And besides, Simon Peter and Andrew and James and John have good reason to follow this guy. They see the crowds, they hear him teach, and he tells them where to fish and lo and behold, after a dry night, they catch more than their nets will hold! It’s a miracle! This Jesus is something else! So that Luke, kind of like John, gives a little history. How can they not follow after all they have seen and heard!

Now let’s take a look at Matthew and Mark. They’re almost identical, aren’t they. So that you can see how close they are to one another, I used the column function on my computer to put them side by side. But talk about sparse. Andrew doesn’t say anything, as in John. No great story told here, as in Luke. It’s as sparse and simple as dry toast. They’re fishermen, presumably at work by the Sea of Galilee. They’re two sets of brothers. That’s the extent of it. No history, no background, no context. To these disembodied souls Jesus says "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of people." And they get up and go. What Luke takes eleven verses to tell, Matthew and Mark take five.

They’re almost identical. But take a look at how one simple word is used. It’s the word "immediately." Now the word immediately is one of Mark’s favorite words. He uses it a ton, over a dozen times in the first six chapters of his sixteen chapter gospel. Matthew doesn’t use it a half dozen times in his twenty-eight chapter gospel. It’s not as important to him. But notice how the word is used here. Mark uses it twice, once as to how they follow immediately, and once how Jesus calls immediately. But Matthew, as if to underscore the point he’s trying to make, uses the word the same way two times.....both times to refer how immediately they follow.

Without hesitation, they get up and go. They don’t know to what. They may not even know why. Jesus has not done any miracles yet. It’s not like Luke where they have evidence of who he is. He has not uttered a word of teaching, and no one has pointed at him and identified him as the one. Sure he has made the pronouncement that the kingdom of heaven is at hand, but he doesn’t appear to have made it in their presence. No parables, no sermon on the mount, no healings, no nothing. All he does is call them, and immediately, they get up and go. Immediately, they follow.

We don’t know what they left behind. We know Peter has a mother-in-law, so he was probably married, so may have left his wife behind. We know James and John are the sons of Zebedee, and may have left their father behind. We don’t know whether they go back to say good-bye, whether they pack their bags or gather their belongings. I’m sure we could make some stories up about what they do, but they pretty much seem to just go, without hesitation. No questions asked.

Think about that for a moment. A notorious schedule-planner, I shudder to think how I would have responded had I been at the seashore. Like many of us, I am a master of excuses. "I have a meeting tonight, or an appointment, or a Bible study to lead, or I have stuff to pick up at the dry cleaners." Like many of us, I don’t look forward to the disruption of my routine. Safety and predictability aren’t such bad ideas as far as I’m concerned. "Just let me take care of this little bit of important business, and I’ll be right with you, Jesus." No immediately for me!

Well, let me tell you something. There is this myth sometimes preached about the Christian faith, about what the relationship with Jesus means. I’ve probably preached it and taught it myself along the way. It’s a myth that says if you just follow Jesus, everything will be put in order. That if you just follow Jesus, we will be made safe and comfortable and balanced and life will be peaches and cream. Sometimes we say that Jesus will solve all our problems. Sometimes we say that Jesus will protect us from the world. Sometimes we say that becoming a disciple is the end of the road, that this is it. We turn it into something sedentary, something still, something predictable. We take the roar out of the lion, and turn it into a housecat. Safe and sweet and cozy, right there in my lap. It becomes something we do, sort of like going to work, or being part of the Kiwanis Club. It makes no demands, causes no discomfort, more like a bowl of vanilla ice cream than a jalapeno pepper.

And it’s not always a horrible thing when we do something like this. Every once in a while, we need comfort and safety and balance. Sometimes we aren’t able to solve our problems on our own, and sometimes we need protection.

But if all we do is this, we take the adventure, and even the danger, out of the whole thing.

It may not be that we’re called the same way Simon Peter, Andrew, James, and John are called. It doesn’t always happen that way. But I just want to remind you of one thing.....what we’re called to is discipleship, and it is often a life that is thrillingly risky. Sometimes there’s little evidence to prove the call. I guess if there were we’d call it something other than faith.

Jesus calls these four jokers into something they can’t predict. He calls them beyond themselves. He asks of them more than they can possibly conjure on their own. He asks them to say yes, with no buts attached. Along the way they will prove their faultiness. But at least they have the virtue to get up and go, and their lives are never the same, because that’s what saying yes to Jesus does. And it gets harder for them before it gets easier, and on one level their lives are never easy. I am convinced that their lives became more difficult and more complicated by following Jesus than they would have been had they stayed by their boats, because the Christian life, more than being an easy chair, is a seat that requires a seat belt.

You’ve heard a lot about Next Steps. Y’all have received an invitation to come and be part of an in-home group sometime in February, probably even received a follow up call. It started back in September when a group got together to ponder what God has in store for Christ Church. And what we all agreed is a singular priority was growing in discipleship. That the most important thing for us as a people of God was to grow in our relationship with Christ. To move toward spiritual maturity, to become better disciples, to get up and go. And that doesn’t mean leaving everything behind, as it did for Simon and Andrew and James and John. But it surely means something. At the very least it means adventure, and opportunity, and promise. At the very least it means that with Jesus in front of us, and beside us, and behind us, and all around us, tomorrow looks different from today. At the very least it means saying "Yes, I’m ready. Take me where you will, Jesus."

And that’s a lot. Makes me scared sometimes, and despite my best efforts, I don’t always say yes. But when I do, it makes my life more of everything, and makes me more than I am on my own.

There are easier things to focus on as a community. It’s easier to have a project, easier to be a good, polite, and nice church. Easier to be a flag-bearer for a denomination. Those are all things that can be kept under control. It’s scarier to say that what we’ll let Jesus loose, and that what we’re about is helping each one of us present, those not present today, and those not present yet, be disciples who get up and go simply because the Lord invites us to follow. But it’s that getting up and going that makes life incomprehensibly rich, and makes it, quite simply, more.

How it is that God calls each one of us is something I don’t know. Usually, that’s pretty much between us and God. But Jesus does call, and Jesus does invite, and Jesus does say "Come on." Jesus makes himself known to these four fisherman, and despite their faults they have the wherewithal to recognize him, and despite their faults say yes to following him. But it isn’t what they are not that matters to Jesus, but what they are. That’s what he saw in them, and that’s what he always sees in us.

So it’s not particularly good practice of a preacher to finish with a question, but I think it’s exactly what we’re left with by this reading. We’re beside the sea, and this stranger, unlike any stranger before or since, a stranger who sees the world in us, says "Come on. Won’t you come along?"

Well, won’t we?
 
 

John 1:29-41

The next dat John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! This is the one I meant when I said, ‘A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’ I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel."

Then John gave this testimony: "I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. I would not have known him, except that the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God."

The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, "Look, the Lamb of God!"

When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, "What do you want?"

They said, "Rabbi" (which means Teacher), "where are you staying?"

"Come," he replied, "and you will see."

So they went and saw where he was staying, and spent that day with him. It was about four in the afternoon.

Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus. The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, "We have found the Messiah" (that is, the Christ). And he brought him to Jesus.

Luke 5:1-11

While the people pressed upon him to hear the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret. And he saw two boats by the lake; but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, he asked him to put out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the people from the boat.

And when he had ceased speaking, he said to Simon, "Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch."

And Simon answered, "Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets."

And when they had done this, they enclosed a great shoal of fish; and as their nets were breaking, they beckoned to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord." For he was astonished, and all that were with him, at the catch of fish which they had taken; and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon.

And Jesus said to Simon, "Do not be afraid; henceforth you will be catching people."

And when they brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him.

Mark 1:16-20

And passing by the Sea of Galilee he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen.

And Jesus said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you become fish for people."

And immediately they left their nets and followed him.

And going on a little farther, he saw James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, who were in their boat mending the nets. And immediately he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and followed him.
 
 
 
 
 
 

Matthew 4:18-22

As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, eh saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the said--for they were fishermen.

And he said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you fish for people."

Immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in their boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them.

Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.