Epiphany 3

Isaiah 9.1-4; 1 Corinthians 1.10-18; Matthew 4.12-23

In this season of Epiphany we've been looking at how Jesus has been shown to us as being God come among us in human form. The events preceding and surrounding His birth and His baptism showed us this. We've also been thinking about how Jesus is shown to the wider world as being God and we saw this in the visit of the Magi to the infant Jesus. And in our readings we are beginnng to pick up from them now the idea that Jesus is the 'light of the world'. And we shall discover more about what that means as we continue in coming weeks and months to read about and think about the person and work of Jesus. As we come to consider all these things we are also led by the gospel writers and those who wrote the letters we find in the New Testament especially St. Paul, to think about what sort of response we make to the fact that God is amongst us in the person of Jesus Christ. And both last week in St. John's gospel and this week in St. Matthew's gospel we've read of the encounter with Jesus of the first disciples notably the brothers Andrew and Peter.

In the gospels, we read that when the disciples come into contact with Jesus and He calls them to follow Him, that their response is immediate. Twice in the same paragraph we have it today. When Jesus approaches first Peter and Andrew, St. Matthew writes that 'immediately they left their nets and followed him. And then right after that Jesus meets James and John and again St. Matthew writes 'immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him'.  There are three things that occur to me here and all hang together. And they are all to do with the call of God to us and the sort of response that the disciples have and that gives us food for thought about how we respond to God's prompting and call.

Firstly, both sets of brothers respond in a positive way to Jesus' call to follow Him. And both sets of brothers leave behind their livelihood. Peter and Andrew put down their nets. They lay down that which gives them their living and leave that behind. All that gives them security, a roof over their heads, food on their table, a source of health and wellbeing. They put down all that provides them with those things and leave it behind, for the sake of who knows what? They certainly didn't know what the future held for them. It was a great unknown. They hadn't a clue what was in front of them, yet they to followed without hesitation.

Then secondly, James and John, as well as leaving their livelihood behind in just the same way, by leaving their boat; St. Matthew tells us that they left their father as well to follow Jesus. So not only did the disciples leave their livelihood they left their families too. They broke the ties of love that bound them to their families and others whom they loved also. No doubt they still loved the members of their families but they seem to not feel obligated by that love towards them, not bound in any way, save to love them. Love they couldn't leave behind because it was Love they were following, or so they would find out later. And I think this is important too for us to note because it reinforces the demand that God makes upon each and everyone of us when He calls. Because He calls us to do the same; in a way. Maybe not exactly as the disciples but with much the same sort of heart and mind.

And then the third thing I think we should note follows on or is raised by these first two. Throughout my Christian upbringing I've always had it in my mind when I've read of the immediacy of the response of the disciples and this cutting themselves off from their past life, that they must have had previous encounters with Jesus. I've always thought that they must have seen and heard Him prior to what we read here. They must have had time to consider well what they were doing. That is until I read again last Sunday in one of our Church of England books of daily readings, (Celebrating the Seasons) what the great Protestant theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer said about this call of Jesus' disciples. He says in his book, 'The Cost of Discipleship (chapter 2) that to think that the disciples must have had time to think about their response to Jesus call is 'stupid'; yes, he does use that word; and he goes on to remind us that the gospel writers say nothing of anything happening beforehand, and I quote 'for the simple reason that the cause behind the immediate following of call by response is Jesus Christ himself. It is Jesus who calls, and because it is Jesus, the disciples follow at once. This encounter is testimony to the absolute, direct, and unaccountable authority of Jesus. There is no need of any preliminaries, and no other consequence but obedience to the call. Because Jesus is the Christ, he has the authority to call and to demand obedience by his word. Jesus summons men to follow him not as a teacher or a pattern of the good life, but as the Christ, the Son of God.'

So, the only reason the disciples leave everything behind and follow Jesus is because it is God who is calling. Simply because it is God. And that makes sense because when God calls we don't know what He has in store for us. If we did know, being human, we wouldn't do it. This is a call that the disciples answered in faith. It wasn't a set of criteria to be considered. There was no choice in that sense. There was a choice yes, but it was simply a choice to follow or not to follow.

And it's important to make this distinction because it's something that we need to remember, something right at the very heart of the Christian life. Being a Christian isn't about adhering to a set of principles or values. It isn't about following rules and regulations. It isn't about modelling our own lives on the good example of a good man who lived 2,000 years ago. It's about following a person, the Christ, the anointed One of God. It's about following God Himself. We are called to a Person, not to a way of life, even though the earliest Christians called it 'the Way'.

As we see Jesus, the incarnate Son of God, as we see that He has come as the Redeemer of the world, we see that He comes with the authority to call us to follow Him for no other reason than that He is the Son of God, the anointed One, the Redeemer. And as we lay down all that ties us, and all that secures us, and follow in faith, as those first disciples did, so we follow Him into all Truth, we follow Him into Life, life in all it's fullness. That is His promise.