Sunday January 21st, 2024 Worship

I’ve told a few stories of my fishing adventures growing up, including the time I accidentally hooked my grandpa in the hand because I wasn’t paying attention to where I was casting my line, which is of course how I got my lucky lure. Besides that, I don’t think that I was always the best fishing companion, in all honestly. My dad and grandpa needed to have a lot of patience. If the fish weren’t biting, I would get bored easily. I was too afraid of the fish to take them off the line. I would maybe put a worm on the hook, but preferred to use the fake ones. Don’t even try to get me to use leeches; sorry, grandpa! As much as I cherish those times out fishing with my dad and grandpa, I imagine that if I heard Jesus calling alongside the side of the lake, I would have gotten out too…although it might have depended on how well the fish were biting that day. As a bored kid, this makes sense to me, but I have some questions about the calling of the disciples in today’s Gospel reading.
As an avid reader, there are times when I really wish Mark would just give us a few more details in his Gospel! Today’s reading is one of those days because I find myself wondering what Jesus possibly could have said to these four fishermen to make them walk away from their jobs and follow him. That’s not to say that his cause wasn’t worthwhile to follow, but all we have so far in his story is his baptism, which his claiming by God was a rather private event, and then his temptation in the wilderness by Satan. So, he shows up today proclaiming that the reign of God is near and that he’ll make them “fishers of humankind” (Mark 1: 17), but I don’t know if that would get me to throw down my nets and follow him. I’m just saying that if someone came up to us on the street today and said these things, chances are that we would not follow them without knowing at least a little bit more about them. So, is there something else that Jesus tells them that Mark doesn’t feel the need to include in his story?
I mean, it does cut down the dramatic nature of it is there is a long monologue from Jesus about who he is, but still! These men are casting aside relatively stable work to follow this man who called to them along the shore. Fishing, while unreliable in its nature because they didn’t know what the catch was going to be each day, was at least a relatively stable way to make money for one’s family, as well as food if the fish couldn’t be sold off. Not to mention the fact that James and John left their father behind in the boat too. I often find myself wondering how Zebedee felt about all that happens with his sons, who didn’t even seem to finish mending the nets before they walked away.
I think in many ways, it begins to highlight the difficult choices that Jesus’ disciples have to make, including walking away from their livelihoods and their families. I imagine that this would have been a much more difficult decision to make than Mark depicts here though. Yet, at the same time, I think about what it means especially for James and John to leave their father’s business and begin their own independent adventures. I could see the appeal, especially when you look at images of boats from that time, which were probably pretty tightly filled with people and fish. After all, it wasn’t like our more leisurely fishing where we cast a line and reel in a single fish at a time. They were throwing large nets overboard, hoping that they would come up full. And, sometimes kids just want to have that independence from their families, even if culturally the expectation was that they stay together all the time.
And, I know I’ve already given a sermon on the similarities between fishing and being one of Jesus’ disciples, but I keep coming back to the question too of why did Jesus call so many fishermen to be his disciples? Today we hear the calling of these four, his first four disciples at that, but that’s a third of his disciples who are fishermen. There had to have been something appealing to Jesus about calling so many. And, why were they the first people that Jesus decided to call?
While we don’t know any of the reasoning behind why Jesus decided to call who he did and when, I think it says a lot about these four men that they were willing to take the chance of following Jesus. Who heard what he is saying and wanted to know more. There are many reasons why they might have left behind their lives as fishermen. Many people, even today, have worked or are working jobs that aren’t their calling because it helps to feed their families and pay the bills. Yet, these four took the chance of following their call, not yet knowing what dangers would lie ahead of them but trusting in that call that they received from Jesus enough to take that risk. I know that not everyone can do that and not everyone wants to. It was a risk, but also a privilege that these men were able to make that decision for their lives.
I want to remind us all again that we all have different callings in our lives and that what one person does isn’t necessarily what our calling is too. I think about how these four were called to be Christ’s disciples today, but that Zebedee and the hired men in the boat with him weren’t called to walk directly alongside Christ. They had other ways of being a part of the community, and I think that as important as it is to listen to where we are being called, it’s just as important to listen to where we are not being called too. This isn’t a bad thing or a sign that we aren’t worthy, but it reminds us that we are all different members of the body of Christ. Despite the fact that a third of Jesus’ disciples were fishermen, I don’t think it would have worked as well if he had only called twelve fishermen as his disciples. That this variety in our gifts, skills, and callings is something that we can celebrate in as every single person has a way of being a part of Christ’s community. It’s like how the gathered crowds weren’t Jesus’ called disciples, but his job would have been a lot more difficult if no one came around to hear him preach and teach.
So, there are a lot of questions from our story today that I am left pondering. And, I don’t have answers to any of them. And, I think Mark is reminding us that it’s okay to not have all the answers or know all of the details to the story because ultimately, no matter what Jesus said to them, these four drastically changed their life to follow the one who called them saying “Follow me; I will make you fishers of humankind” (Mark 1: 17). They didn’t even know what they were getting into yet. I mean, what does it even mean to be a fisher of humankind?? But, they took that risk and they trusted in this one. May we hear the ways that we are being called too, no matter how uncomfortable or scary those callings might seem, as we hear: “Follow me…” followed by our own specific call.