Mark 1:14-20
“A Job with No Pay”
By: Ken Sauer, Pastor of East Ridge United Methodist Church, Chattanooga, TN www.eastridgeumc.com
Jesus was walking beside the Sea when He saw two men in a boat waiting for unsuspecting fish to wander into their nets.
And it’s amazing what happened next.
Jesus offered them a job with no pay, and they accepted.
Had the sales pitch been, “Come and make more money than you could ever make fishing,” then it might make a bit more sense.
But these fishermen drop what they are doing and head off to who-knows-where, to live lives they can’t imagine!
I have read that if you go to Galilee today they will show you a boat that could have belonged to Andrew and Peter, or perhaps the Zebedee family.
It is one of the most impressive archaeological finds anywhere in the Holy Land.
A boat was found sticking out of the mud one summer when the level of the Sea of Galilee dropped dramatically during a drought.
It was carefully lifted out of the sea bottom, cleaned and preserved.
Now, in a special exhibit, millions of visitors can see the kind of boat Jesus’ first followers used for fishing.
It has been carbon-dated to exactly the same period as Jesus’ life.
The boat is a vivid reminder of the day-to-day existence of Jesus’ followers—and of what it cost them to give it all up and follow Jesus.
They were, in today’s language, small business people, working as families…
…not for huge profits but to make enough to live on and maybe have a little left over.
There were lots of fish and there were lots of people to sell them to.
But it was hard work, and sometimes dangerous.
They had steady jobs, but they weren’t rich.
After Jesus called Simon and Andrew, “he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John.”
He called them as well, and “immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.”
We have no idea how many generations the Zebedee family had been fishing in the Sea of Galilee, but it was probably a long time.
In that country and culture, as in a lot of other places to this day, a small family business can be handed on—not only through generations—but through centuries!
It’s safe and secure; people know what they are doing.
If times are hard, the usual answer is simply to work a bit harder.
But then along came Jesus from Nazareth Who beckoned James and John, and their neighbors Peter and Andrew to drop it all and follow Him.
And they did!!!
Why did they give it all up to follow a wandering preacher?
The disciples’ instant acceptance of Jesus’ invitation is about as dramatic as they come!
We might think that a reasonable response to Jesus’ command of “Follow me” would be “Where are you going?”
But the way it works out is that they don’t yet know the destination…it’s something they must learn along the way!
And this gives us a hint at the nature of faith that is at the heart of discipleship.
It’s very similar to the call, response, and faith of Abraham.
All the disciples of Jesus left something behind.
These first four left their fishing boats, their livelihood and their homes.
And it wasn’t the kind of situation where they could say: “Well, okay, we’ll try this out for a while, and see how it works out.”
They followed.
There was a finality about it.
One day when I was in seminary, on the campus of Emory University, I was witnessing to a college student.
I asked him if he believed that Jesus Christ is Who He says He is.
His answer was “Yes.”
Then I asked him if he would be willing to pray, repent of his sins, and ask Jesus to become the Lord of his life.
His answer was, “No. Not yet. I believe, but I’m not ready to give my life to Christ. There are too many things I’m not ready to give up.”
How many of us ‘believe’, but are not willing to follow?
“Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. ‘The time has come,’ he said. ‘The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news.”
The power of the Gospel changes people’s lives.
Once we meet Jesus on the road of our own individual life, and decide to follow Him, we will be changed!
We will be different people.
But many of us tend to resist change.
So many folks just want to see the Gospel through rose colored glasses—wanting to see only the joy, comfort, and light—and not wanting to see the difficult or disruptive.
“Behold, I make all things new,” says Jesus.
Two very important words in this morning’s Gospel Lesson are repent and believe.
Too many people think repent means feeling bad about yourself.
What it means is to “change direction”; “turn around and go the other way”; or “stop what you are doing and do the opposite instead.”
It calls us to embrace the newness and change which Jesus brings.
And to believe…well…it doesn’t just mean listing our denomination as United Methodist on some application blank.
It means trust and reliance and placing one’s whole life in God’s hands, regardless of what happens in life.
It’s called faith.
And it brings about the kind of change that the Gospel produces.
That’s what makes us different.
And there’s no turning back, because it’s a difference that won’t go away.
This is what happened to the disciples as soon as they began to follow Jesus…nothing was ever the same.
It was the beginning of a new and exciting journey…
…the best journey imaginable…
…where God is not just a Sunday friend but a daily companion.
And this is what happens to all of us when we heed the call of Jesus in our lives to: “Come follow me.”
And when we embrace this newness of life that Jesus offers…
…well, we see how good things can be…
…we experience God’s love up close and personal…
…and we want to ‘Pass it On.”
“Come, follow me,’ Jesus said, ‘and I will make you fishers of men.”
There is a difference between being fishers and catchers.
Jesus calls us to be fishers.
Think about your life journey.
How many people dropped a hook in front of you…before you finally grabbed a hold of the new life you found in Christ?
An awful lot, I’d imagine.
Maybe you were brought up in church.
Maybe you were surrounded by the preaching of the Word, the invitation to accept Christ, and people who were wonderful grace-filled examples of how magnificently different it is to be a follower of Christ.
But you still didn’t bite.
At the same time, there were hundreds upon hundreds of seeds being planted.
And then one day, well, Praise the Lord!…
…it all clicked…
…the decision was straight ahead of you and you became a Christian!
And you believed…really believed…and things really started to change!
Who was the One Who caught you?
There had been a lot of fishers after you…
…but Who caught you?
Was it not the love and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself?
Augustine once wrote: “I could not seek you, if you had not already found me.”
And that’s what Jesus did on the Sea of Galilee and that is what Jesus does for you and for me!
As Paul writes in Ephesians Chapter 2: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.”
Even the ability to believe and make the decision to accept God’s plan of salvation is a gift of God.
Fishing is not the same as catching.
Jesus calls us to be fishers, not catchers, and that is good.
It means that we’re not alone in the project of proclaiming the Gospel to the world.
God is with us, since it is God the Holy Spirit alone Who enables our ‘fish’ to be caught, Who enables people to respond to our message.
And since it is the Holy Spirit Who does the catching, we don’t need to take the rejection of the Gospel personally.
Maybe it wasn’t the right time for that person; maybe the Holy Spirit has some other things to work out with them first; it may be a lot of things…
…maybe they will never accept Jesus Christ as Lord of their lives…
…We do have free-will.
We are called to fish.
And whether a catch is made or not, we are called to cast the net again, to proclaim the Good News to another person by words and deeds, and let the Holy Spirit fill the net.
We have a cold and flu package give-away this coming Saturday.
That’s fishing!
We have a Community Block Party in
April--another example of fishing.
So let’s all put ourselves in those boats so long ago, with the knowledge we have of a Savior Who wants everyone to accept the gift of salvation.
And let’s remember that this gift can neither be bought nor earned by any human being; that it is, however, God’s free gift to those who call upon Jesus’ name, who trust Jesus for salvation and not themselves.
Let’s hear Jesus call us to be fishers of people…
…and let us respond by fishing and fishing and fishing…
…letting God take care of the rest.
Let us pray: Jesus, You called the four fishermen to leave their nets and follow You. Help us today to be open to Your leading as we too seek ways to follow You and share the Good News of Your love with all the people you enable us to meet. In Jesus’ name and for His sake we pray. Amen.
