Net Menders
Matthew 4: 12-23

January 27, 2002

The first couple of verses today say an awful lot about the circumstances of Jesus, and few have ever listened. "Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea...."

We don't think of Jesus as being afraid, being a coward. There is no warning or explanation why John the Baptist was arrested, though we can fill in the blanks from the other Gospels. Jesus' family, however, had fled to Egypt to escape the genocide of Herod. There would be a time Jesus would face the powers and principalities head on, when he would choose to accept the violence of power. Not yet, though, he has important things to do first.

And these important things will not take place in Nazareth. Jesus moves to Capernaum, the Regina of the day, and lives like many of us do, sojourners in the Promised Land.

Jesus is walking on the shore of the Sea of Galilee - no purpose one is led to believe. He sees a couple of fishermen, and sees them for more than what they were doing. He did not go looking for intellectuals or rabbis - rabbis, clergy of any denomination, would have been the most difficult people to convince. Personal agendas, humility, stubbornness are always a problem for us professional religious.

It is never possible to analyze how such "discernments" are made. Discernment is still the term used in the United Church to determine one's fitness for the ministry. Many of you have practiced discernment in selecting your husband or wife - some are probably still questioning the nature of that process! It is not really rational thought which is the primary method - but the understanding of how souls intersect in timeless time.

"Follow me" and Simon and Andrew, James and John did, without discussion or apparent debate. They made no conditions and simply left their lives and followed.

In the Old Testament story (1 Kings 19: 19-21) of Elijah calling Elisha to be his disciple, there are close parallels. Elijah too is just walking by, notices Elisha plowing a field and throws his coat over him and keeps on walking. A subtle gesture to come and follow him. Elisha said OK, but let me go home first and kiss my parents goodbye and wrap up my affairs. Elijah relents and tacitly gives permission.

We have our conditions, our ducks in a row that need to be set up. There is always something a little more important than our lives of faith. Paul Tillich called God "the Ultimate Concern," but observed that we occupy ourselves with small lettered "ultimate concerns" which forever inhibit us from serving the One God.

"Fisher of people" is the new vocation of these four men mending their nets. The metaphor does not intend that one dominate others or eat them up. Unfortunately, much of the evangelism of which we are so reticent and suspicious has confused the metaphor and used it so that our all-too-human worldly desire for power and control is justified, sanctified, blessed.

A fisher of people "hooks" others. You catch others by their imagination, their thoughts, their discernment that the Gospel is worth being caught by.

Catching or caught, when you discerned that other person, a spouse-might-be, you didn't know how long you were to going to accompany him or her on the journey. You didn't know how much you were going to do with her, nor what was in store - the good, the bad, and the ugly. Your task is not to go out and dispassionately catch other people for the Gospel - you are caught and you can't get loose. You are hooked just the same way and you are attempting to recruit fellow addicts.

We are not a bunch of "gnostics," we Christians. Gnostics in earliest Christianity believed they were "in the know," that they possessed special secret knowledge for their own personal salvation. Gnostic Christianity was a secret club that only the initiated and the worthy were able to enter. We are not able to be that selfish. The nature of the Gospel compels us to share our knowledge, our realization, that the world of death does not win.

Jesus then took these net menders and went all through the region of Galilee healing all who were diseased, casting out demons, and teaching. None of those four net menders could have dreamed of what they were now experiencing, and even less of what would eventually happen to them on that Friday called Good and on the Third Day. There is no job description, no list of responsibilities and compensations. Just a call, a discernment. It's who goes with you on the journey that matters.

Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan