Sunday 23rd Epiphany 3
Home may seem a funny place to start when we are talking about discipleship but home makes sense to many of us. Whether it is something which we have and look to fondly or whether it is something which we aspire to, home means to us a place of belonging and acceptance, a place where we are a part of things, a place, usually, where we associate with others, where we relate to our immediate family.
When Jesus calls the disciples it at first looks like he might just be calling them from work but then Matthew notes that James and John leave their father – this is much more than simply not fishing, this is a redefinition of who they are – a journey into the unknown.
In fact, although the disciples follow Jesus in his ministry and later develop their own teaching and preaching ministries there is a lot to suggest, in the Gospels, that they carry on fishing. They are often in boats and certainly, after the resurrection in John, they are out at night, once more, fishing.
This might be helpful to us when we are thinking about what a call to follow Jesus might mean. It can seem a bit worrying and heartless if we start to think about leaving everything and everyone we know, walking out into a world which we make empty of everything which we have come to be. Not everyone is called to give up on every day ordinary life in their pilgrimage.
What we are definitely called to do is to re-define what home is to us. This can be a challenge as we often find, even if we have been trying to live a christian life for many years, that our lives get very cluttered. If we were to paint a picture of our lives we would probably find that we had to put in a lot of different places and people, all sorts of activities and responsibilities. Into that picture we might try to fit God – perhaps squashed in here and there, perhaps as a background, perhaps we might use a colour and tinge everything with it.
Whether of not the disciples actually ever fished for a living again is a bit of a moot point, the point is that they laid down their nets and followed Jesus. They turned their lives around and walked into Gods landscape – their place of home was not longer defined by job and family primarily but by residence with Christ. This is the sort of repentence which Jesus is calling people to – this realigning of life with God, this turning around and walking with new purpose.
Sometimes we can feel threatened by the thought of putting God first, of living in God's world on God's terms. Sometimes there are things which we enjoy which we know we should not and we are just reluctant to let go of them. But more often we simply like the way things are – we do not want to find ourselves in a position of uncertainty – we would rather stick with what we have got – or dare I suggest what we are used to, the way things have been for a while.
The life of discipleship does not seem to me to be about change for changes sake. I have often noted the chaos that would ensue if noone turned up to work one morning due to some aparent mass conversion. The life of discipleship starts with letting go of all our attachments to allow the possiblity of God but that does not mean we will have to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Peter, Andrew, James and John let go of the familiar and stepped into the unfamiliar. God is our true home and there is always a newness to that journey. We do not need to feel guilty if our journey of faith leaves us in the same house in the same town with close family and friends, we need to feel grateful but colouring every aspect of the good things of life is our commitment to Christ and Christ's commitment to us.
I was listening to a song yesterday – a modern worship song – one of the lines goes a little like this – the greatest reward is saved for those who follow now. This could sound like an extra big slice of pie in the sky but I don't think it means that at all. Following now is what we are made for, following Jesus is the best way to be human. Although we are venturing into a world which we acknowledge as God's, although we are saying we are willing to for-go the things we hold dear – whether or not we are actually asked to, although we are admitting that we are walking in God's picture and not painting God into ours – although all of this might be true and although all of it can, at times, be imposing and even frightening, the simple truth is that that is who we are made to be. The best use of a life is to follow Christ.
As the Disciples went through their lives they faced all sorts of hardships. Many would later find themselves in prison and being tortured, many were later put to death for their faith. Something they found in Jesus convinced them to lay down their nets and find a new home in Him but not just that, something convinced them to stay and to abide in that home, despite the human consequences.
Where is our true home? Are we trying to fit God in alongside the other things or are we starting with God and moving out from there? Home is, for us, God's company and it is good and solid company. In Epiphany it is worth remembering that our journey towards God's appearing in Bethlehem becomes our journey with Jesus – we do not turn around and go home empty handed. We bring who we are, lay down our nets and venture out into God's knowing.
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