3rd Sunday after Epiphany
Matthew 4:12-23
"People Fishing"
I would like to share with you part of a sermon preached by Charles Spurgeon, one of England’s most powerful preaches during the 1850’s where his church grew from 300 members to well over 5000. I have many what I call "heroes" in preaching whose sermons I enjoy reading, Spurgeon, the late Pastor Valbracht, from St John’s Lutheran in Des Moines, his successor, Pastor Jerry Schmalenberger, Pastor James Bjorge plus others. The part of Spurgeon’s sermon I would like to share is written in old English, so it is unfamiliar to our ears, but please try to listen carefully for what says is as true for our day, as it is in his.
He says: "God said to the wisdom of the world,’Worldly wisdom, I will try thee; I give thee one great problem to solve. Thou sayest that thou art might, that thine intellect is vast and comprehensive, that thine eye is keen and thou can find all secrets, now behold, wisdom, find me out, find the way to worship me acceptable. Here is the universe; stars make its canopy, fields and flowers adorn it and the floods roll o’er its surface, my name is written therein; the invisible thing of God my be clearly seen in the things which are made. Philosophy, I give thee this problem--find me out. Wisdom and philosophy, I will give thee 4000 years and I will not interfere as you try to find the acceptable way to worship me. I will give thee men enough, data enough, minds enough, orators enough and if thou cannot find the acceptable way to worship me, then will I teach thee that the wisdom of God is wiser than men, yea, that the foolishness of God is wiser that wisdom and philosophy. I will teach thee that a child-like faith shall crumble to dust all the colossal systems that the hands of men through wisdom, reason and philosophy have built.
Time past and wisdom, reason and philosophy cannot find the acceptable way to worship God, so God his warriors. Christ puts his trumpet to his mouth and up come the warriors clad in fishermen’s garb with the brogue of the Lake of Galilee, poor humble fishermen. here are the warriors, O wisdom O philosophy, O reason that will exalt a gospel in the world, the acceptable way to worship me, which you O wisdom, O philosophy, O reason will laugh at, but through them and their successors this gospel will be exalted above the hills and shall be glorious even unto heaven.’"
Do you see Spurgeon’s point? All that the worlds holds sacred, wisdom, philosophy, reason cannot find the acceptable way to worship and know God, but God called fishermen, common, uneducated, simple men who would bring the colossal system of the world tumbling down with a child-like faith.
There is something so powerful about this God and His call through Jesus for these men to follow, something so mysterious, that they would leave all to follow Him, something that only a child-like faith can accept and understand. "The power of Jesus’’ call was so great that these men gave up their livelihoods and as it says in John 1:42 Simon was even ready for Jesus to change his name from Simon to Peter as the text says: 42 He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him, and said, "So you are Simon the son of John? You shall be called Cephas" (which means Peter).(John 1:42, RSV).
These men saw a power in Jesus unlike any power or authority which had been seen before upon the face of the earth. Jesus came with a simple message as it says in Mark 1:15 "and saying, "THE TIME IS FULFILLED, AND THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS AT HAND; REPENT, AND BELIEVE IN THE GOSPEL." (Mark 1:15, RSV). In this statement Jesus was saying that something new was breaking into this world. God’s new reign, His new kingdom was coming in the form of Jesus, His Son and it would eventually be brought to all people by common, simple, foolish fishermen who did not have the wisdom of the ages, the education of the philosophers, or the reason of the great orators, but they had the child-like faith to accept Jesus at His word and follow Him.
In this season of Epiphany was we see Jesus revealed in all of his glory, today we see the power of his Word as it calls Peter, Andrew, James and John to follow Him. This power, this authority was passed on to them as they followed Him for those 3 short years. Jesus passed on to them the wisdom of God for all the world to see. The authority of Christ which was passed on through the disciples to many generations it did not diminish.
It is like the following:
If you have adjacent rooms connected by a doorway you may want to try an experiment. Have the lights on brightly in one room. Have the door closed to the adjacent room where there is total darkness. Now open the door. What happens? Does the darkness sneak into the lighted room? Not at all. The reverse is true as the light travels into the dark room and the lighted room loses none of its brightness. Life is also that way. At Epiphany, the Light came." Jesus came, and spread His light to these disciples and they in turn brought it into the darkness of the world and as the Quakers say in a slogan : "It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness." God did just that when he sent his Son, Jesus’ to be the light of the world.
God could have condemned the world but the chose rather to save the world. it is sometimes easier to get people to march in a crusade against something than to get them to stand up for something good. But these fisherman did not complain when Jesus called them out of the darkness of this world to be a light in the darkness, they simply followed, period.
I wonder if you or I would have been like these disciples, Peter, Andrew, James or John if we would have done something similar? Isn’t Jesus asking us to do that today? to surrender self, to be in the world but not of the world, to have child-like faith to follow Him and to be a light in the darkness of the world?
I often wonder what the disciples, maybe John, would of said to his father after he left and then came home for a brief visit. Maybe the conversation might have gone like this:
"Dad, I know I have an obligation to you and the family business. I know you don’t understand this sudden urge to follow Jesus around the countryside. To tell you the truth, I don’t fully understand it either Dad. All I know is, there is something special about Him, something that attracted me, something about him told me he was different from all those religious guys. You know, Dad, the priest at the temple doesn’t really go out of his way to be friendly to us because we are just fisherman. But, Jesus, Dad has been friendly, has been concerned about me. Why Dad, since I left you, Jesus has healed a man with an unclean spirit, while he was in the synagogue. He healed Peter’s mother-in-law, he healed a leper and he has been preaching to us and the crowds that God, God almighty loves us. Love me, imagine that. So see Dad, why I can’t stay, why I have to go, I am so excited. I just have to be with Jesus’."
I wonder if you could make that same kind of speech to a loved one or a neighbor, or a friend on why you are a Christian, a church gore, a believer in Jesus Christ? I wonder if any of us are excited today about Jesus Christ in the same way? or do we take all of this for granted? Something we do out of habit and if we get out of the habit or worship, following Jesus , it doesn’t mean a thing, something we can do without?
How is it with you and your faith life? Does following Jesus really mean something exciting, wonderful, powerful and mysterious to you? Do you sense that you have been given something very special to pass on to this and future generations, the light of Christ in this world of darkness?
Do you sense that you are part of a great tradition from the past which has an obligation to the present moment and also to the future? Do you sense that you are part of something great, something that is not individualistic, but something corporate, something which has been held together for generations by the power of Christ through his Holy Spirit, the church, the authority, the power of Gad Almighty present here in His body, in you as member of St Paul’s? Do you believe and sense that it is in our togetherness that we remain strong and alive for and in Christ?
Do you sense we are like a tree, "Ask a leaf it is is self-sufficient and it answers, ’No, I depend on the branches for my life.’ Ask the branch and it answers "No my life is in the trunk." Ask the trunk, and it replies,"No my life is in the roots." Ask the roots, and they each answer,"No my life is in the trunk and branches and leaves. Keep the branches stripped of leaves and I shall die."
In that same sense, you and I are part of the body of Christ, the tradition which God gave to those fishermen of old when God called his warriors as Christ put his trumpet to his mouth and up came the warriors clad in fishermen’s garb. Here are the warriors, O wisdom, O philosophy, O reason, here today before the colossal systems of this world, here before me stand the warriors, you my friends have been called by that same trumpet call to be the warriors in this world, in this time, in this place. have you the same child-like faith, the same willingness, the same courage, the same conviction as the fishermen of old?
As they found the acceptable way to worship God through Christ, the crucified and risen Lord, do we have the same reverence, the same awe, the same respect, the same faithfulness to our worship as they demonstrated in the churches they began, and in the stories in the book of acts? Do we see worship, the way to find God as like a rudder on our ship of life or the steering wheel on a car, or the computer on a space ship? Are we like the wise men of old who came to Christ with their valuables which they gave freely, their gold, their frankincense, their myrrh? They saw Him revealed in that star which shone over the house where Jesus and Mary lived as it says in Matthew 2: 9 "When they had heard the king they went their way; and lo, the star which they had seen in the East went before them, till it came to rest over the place where the child was."
Do we bring our valuables to Christ or do we try to bring Christ ours so we can merely use him to try and get what we want? Do we treat Christ as our celestial "office boy" who is there to do our bidding, or do we seek to leave home and everything to come with him and do His will? Where are you in your worship of God through Christ? Are like the warriors of old, willing to forsake all, willing to put self aside for him?
Only you can answer these questions for yourself? You care called, Christ has put His mouth to the trumpet, the sound is heard, are you willing to answer? Does following Jesus really mean something special, something exciting, something wonderful, something powerful, something mysterious to you? Do you see yourself as the bearer of the light which stand in the world of darkness? do you see yourself as carrying Christ’s light in this world, at the moment?
A story which speaks about the power, the mystery, the wonderment, the peacefulness of following Jesus with one’s whole life will close this sermon. As you listen, think about whether you can be "the Christ-like figure" in this story.
"A woman asked permission to speak a few words to the congregation which she had just joined. "I want you to know," she said, "just why I came forward. I stand here because of the influence of a little woman who sits before me. Her finders are rough with toil, the hard work of many years has stooped her low; she is just a poor, obscure washer woman, who has served in my home for many years. I have never know her to be impatient, to speak an unkind word, or to do a dishonorable deed. I know of countless little acts of unselfish love that adorn her life. Shamefacedly, let me say that I have openly sneered at her faith, and laughed at her fidelity to God. Yet, when my little girl died, it was this woman who caused me to look beyond the grace and shed my first tear of hope, The sweet magnetism of her life has led me to Christ. I covet the thing that made her life beautiful. Her child-like faith and the peace and security which comes from knowing with every fiber of your being that Christ’s presence is in your life." As she sat down, the congregation was completely silent, with each eye pouring forth a tear of joy and wonderment at the powerful witness of that simple woman who lived her life for and in Christ.
Written by Pastor Tim Zingale January 21, 20002
