The Fifth Sunday after Epiphany
Sunday, February 9, 2025
The Rev. David Wilcox
Given at St. Mary Magdalene, Belton
In today’s Gospel, Jesus is doing something he does so often: he is teaching. The crowds are very large and to avoid the crush of the people he asks some fishermen to pull out from the shore so he might continue to teach without the crowd pressing in on him. The fishermen are strangers but they respond to his request. When Jesus is finished he tells the fisherman to go out and lower their nets, to which they respond that they have been fishing all night and have caught nothing, but once again they follow the request of Jesus and lower their nets. Their catch is so big they have to seek help from others to bring in the full nets. Simon and his partners are astounded at what has been accomplished and look at Jesus in a new way, in amazement. Simon tells Jesus to depart for he is not worthy to be with this man. Instead of leaving them, Jesus calls Simon and James and John to leave everything behind and come follow him. And they do just that.
I have always found it amazing that in the Gospels Simon and the others just dropped everything they were doing, and abandoned everything to follow this character named Jesus. Not only did they leave their boats, nets and careers behind, they also left their homes, families and friends. What’s more, St. Mark’s Gospel tells us they did it immediately. They never questioned or gave excuses, they did not look back, or give a list of reasons not to follow this man. They did not know who he was, what he was asking of them, where they were going, what their life would be like, how they would eat, where they would sleep. But they immediately left everything and followed him.
It’s a nice picture, but I often wonder if that’s how it really happened. Had these fishermen really never heard of Jesus before that day? Had they not encountered him around Capernum as he preached the message of the Kingdom and performed miracles? Maybe a friend or family member of theirs had been healed by Jesus. Then there’s the question…did they really not go home to discuss this with their wives, or parents? In at least one of the Gospels, James and John even leave their father Zebedee in the boat to follow Jesus. None of it seems very realistic to me. But then again that’s the thing about the Christian message, none of it seems realistic, dying to live, a king without power, giving without hope of gain. The simple truth of the matter is, no matter how it happened, there must have been something about the man standing in front of them which called them, demanded them, to follow him. They probably could not put it into words, they were just compelled to go and follow Jesus, to respond Yes to his call to follow him.
I think at the end of the day this is what’s important about this story. There is something special about Jesus, and we are called to follow him, without letting anything get in the way. It doesn’t matter if we follow immediately or if it takes some time. We are called to follow the man from Nazareth, to leave behind everything and embark on the journey of a lifetime, to die to self and embrace new life.
That same invitation, that same call Jesus gave to Simon and the others is given to us. Jesus offers us the same invitation to come, follow him. Do we hear that call, that invitation? Do we look at Jesus as Simon did and be amazed at this man before us? Do we follow him? Or are we too afraid? Do we let the cares of the world keep us tied down? Do we think we are too unworthy?
I think that we can be good at offering excuses to Jesus why we cannot follow him, “at least not right now, maybe later.” We say within ourselves “I will, eventually. But first I have a few things to do. I need to complete this task, I need to maybe do one or two other things. Then, I will follow you.” Perhaps we say we will live a better Christian life very soon, but first I must tell this one person off, I must do this or that thing which is really not too nice, but let me do it and then I will live a better Christian life, I will be a better follower of Jesus. What obstacles do we put up to prevent ourselves from leaving behind our old self and living the new life in Christ?
What are the excuses we find not to follow Christ? What are the things in our life that prevent us from being a better Christian? What are the things in our life which we use as the hindrance from following Christ more closely? What keeps us from being like the Apostles and immediately committing ourselves to Christ? When we are honest with ourselves we know what keeps us from living our faith more fully, we know what it is, but we just do not want to change.
As the church year begins to shift and we start looking forward to our Lenten observances in just a few weeks, it is a good time to stop and reflect on what is keeping us from following Jesus, what is keeping us from committing ourselves wholly to Christ. Lent is a good occasion to ask for God’s help to lay those things down, and follow Jesus more closely. Like Peter, and Isaiah may we recognize our unworthiness but never let it get in the way of following the call of God or of singing God’s praises because the good news is that God loves us, and calls us with all our imperfections, all our sins, all our messiness. He calls us to set us free from our sins, he calls us and brings us liberty and abundant life. All he asks us to do is follow and place our trust in him. May we have the grace to do that more and more each and every day. Amen
