Desire

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Church Episcopal
January 21, 2024

3 Epiphany B 

          Two out of three years, on the 3^rd Sunday after Epiphany, we hear the story of the call of the first four disciples.  The story goes basically the same way in both Matthew and Mark.  Jesus sees two guys fishing and says to them “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.”  And the two guys immediately leave their nets and follow Jesus.  Then Jesus sees another two guys in their boats with their dad mending nets and Jesus calls them and they leave their father in the boats mending nets and follow Jesus.  And each year I get hung up on the whole fishing imagery for making followers of Jesus.  Whether one fishes for a living, or fishes for sport or for relaxation, or recreation, at the end of the day the fish are either thrown back into the water or, where I come from, fileted, dredged in cornmeal, fried, and eaten with a side of hushpuppies.  Neither of those are appealing images for anything to do with Jesus.

          This year, however, I must be channeling my self-righteous inner eldest child because the actions of Simon, Andrew, James, and John seem impulsive at best and at worst, irresponsible.  After a long, hard, hot day of fishing, perhaps following a stranger going who-knows-where to do who- knows-what looks pretty good.  But we know that Simon is married because Jesus will later heal his mother-in-law, and maybe he has children.  So he is going to leave his family to up and follow Jesus?  James and John leave their father in his boat with the hired men.  What kind of sons are they? 

          Lest you think I am being a bit harsh on the first four disciples, throughout Mark’s gospel the disciples will continually misunderstand Jesus.  Simon, who will become Peter, misunderstands Jesus so badly that Jesus will call him Satan and say “Get behind me Satan.  You are not setting your mind on divine things but on human things.”  The disciples will argue among themselves about who among them is the greatest, and James and John will ask to sit at the right and left hands of Jesus in glory.  Sibling rivalry at its finest!  Peter will deny Jesus three times.  These are just a few of the examples in Mark’s gospel where the disciples, especially the first four, are not the sharpest knives in the drawer.

          Jonah, on the other hand, goes to Ninevah as God directs and walks across the city proclaiming the message that God gave him.  “Forty days more, and Ninevah shall be overthrown.”  So great is Jonah’s success that the people of Ninevah believed God, proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.  We skip the verses where the animals put on sackcloth, too, which would have been a sight to behold.  But the point is that Jonah’s message was so successful that the people repented and God changed God’s mind and did not bring calamity upon the people. 

          However, the passage also reminds us that this is not the first time God spoke to Jonah.  The first time God called Jonah, Jonah fled the other way in an act that might also have been impulsive and irresponsible, wound up in the belly of a fish, cried out to God, and was spit up on land.  God was literally fishing for people!  Jonah learned the hard way to follow God, and even after his success in Ninevah, needed a real attitude adjustment regarding God’s mercy and grace.  Read what might be scripture’s most humorous story for details.

          Perhaps the point this morning is not about catching people against their will with nets or hooks and deciding whether to throw them back or filet them.  Perhaps the point is that God calls imperfect, impulsive, sometimes irresponsible people and that the only gift we need in order to follow Jesus is the willingness to do so.  Despite Jonah’s initial flight from God’s request to go to Ninevah, after his encounter with the belly of the fish, Jonah does go and the people do respond to Jonah’s message.  And despite Jonah’s very bad attitude about God’s abundant mercy and steadfast love at the end of the story, God does not give up on Jonah.  Despite Simon Peter, Andrew, James and John consistently misunderstanding Jesus, denying him, and leaving Jesus to die alone on the cross, God uses them to create and build the church.

          Jesus came into Galilee, and Jesus comes into our own lives, saying “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the Good News.”  Whatever our imperfections, failures, misunderstandings, or desire to turn and run the other way, Jesus calls us to be part of making the Kingdom of God a present reality just as he called the first four disciples to do so.  The only criteria for following Jesus is the desire to follow Jesus.  What we know that the disciples did not know is that the Good News Jesus asks us to believe and proclaim will change both us and the world.

                                                                             Amen.