Preached at St Thomas, Kensal Town, on the 3rd Sunday before Advent, 7th November 2021
Readings: Jonah 3.1-5.10, Hebrews 9.24-end, S Mark 1.14-20
Jesus said ‘Follow me and I will make you fish for people’. And immediately they left their nets and followed him.
My dear grandfather, who left us back in 2004, was a great angler. It meant that my family almost always had access to fresh trout and char, so I never complained about it, and as it was his main way to get away and get some alone-time, neither did he. I was, however, never too keen on joining him – he would set out at 5 in the morning to go to a distant woodland lake while the fish were still biting, walking many miles in a usually mosquito-laden countryside to go and sit at a lake, fighting mosquitos and potentially getting both wet and cold. (And anyone who has seen me JUST making it to Mass before Fr Sam rings the sacristy bell, will believe me when I say that I am no morning person….)
To the teenaged Petter, going on that sort of a fishing trip was a far too big an ask, as it would mean giving up a lie in AND grandmama’s sandwiches for breakfast at the same time. Sometimes I wonder if Simon, Andrew, James and John felt the same when Jesus came and asked them to join Him to go on a different kind of fishing trip – to be fishers of men?
The Gospel tells us that they “immediately” left their nets to follow Jesus.
So, the question we must start with this morning is this one:
Are we ready to follow Jesus, immediately follow Jesus?
Are we willing to let go of so much in our lives and communities that puts up barriers between us and God and let it all go so that we can be the disciples we are called to be?
Can we?
Before we jump to starting to answer the question for ourselves, I’d like to imagine what that first call to follow Jesus entailed.
Simon, Andrew, James and John were all fishermen on the Sea of Galilee. As Mark makes a point of, they were “casting their nets.” Mark’s Gospel is the shortest Gospel, it is also considered to be the earliest Gospel in terms of its writing. The writer of Mark’s Gospel is known for his precision and double-meanings in most of the words and sentences used.
The word “immediately” for example, is a favourite word of the writer of Mark’s Gospel, it is used repetitively in the Gospel and is thought to convey the nonstop, never-ending movement that Jesus had in his ministry, and the urgency of Jesus’ message and ministry and to convey that urgency of purpose and discipleship to the readers. The disciples did not think about the call issued to them.
They followed Jesus, immediately.
They responded to God’s call, immediately.
They lived into the beckoning of the Spirit, immediately.
Also in Verse 16, Mark says what the disciples left behind, their nets. They were casting their nets out into the sea…that is not just a descriptor, that is information that directly explains what the disciples were giving up – their nets.
Now, when I read that passage, I oftentimes gloss over the nets. But fishing nets are not just anything in the time of Jesus. Nets were carefully constructed tools of a few different types. They required extensive cleaning in-between uses, and they were intricate in their design and construction, all made from hand. Fishermen had to not just know how to catch a fish, but how to make nets.
Small rocks had holes drilled through them like large beads were attached to the nets for weighting at the bottom. Similarly, cork was used at the top of nets to help with floatation. There were nets that were cast between boats to trawl for fish, and circular nets expertly thrown from land to catch fish. Specific nets were used during the day and others at night. The fishing industry on the Sea of Galilee was a robust economic engine in the time of Jesus. And so, fishermen, like the family that Jesus came from, were not the most destitute families of their communities. They were not rich or well off, or stable economically either. They were of the “trade class,” families that relied on skilled labour, and who hired workers as is also described in Verse 20 of this passage.
Mark leaves in another key detail, that James and John left their father behind with their nets, a significant act of devotion to Jesus, because families depended on generational continuity for the learning of skills, for consistent labour and for the procreation of the next generation.
With the two brothers, the two men of the family of Zebedee leaving, they not only left their father behind to work alone, and now do the work of three people – but took away those other generational ways of building and maintaining economic stability. Not only that, in a society where family relationships and obligations were strong and the glue that held communities together, they had walked away from expectations, love, and deep, deep relationship.
Letting go of nets and family, things that quite literally knit you together in all sorts of ways, economic, familial, professionally…these are no small acts of devotion.
They walked away from a lot. Not to mention they didn’t know what they were getting themselves into, they were headed into an entirely new line of “work,” they were walking into an unknown future, with no promise of steady pay, and no way to bring their families along.
These details, that seem little when we first read this passage, are not little at all, Mark put them in here to talk about what following Jesus really means, how steep the climb to authentic discipleship actually is, and how real the costs are. Mark is telling us in all sorts of ways that Jesus is not inviting the first disciples into a task, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people” but a new identity, “Follow me, and I will make you to become fishers for people.”
Mark is reminding us of something that must be at the core of who we are: that discipleship as a process of identity in Jesus Christ is not a task to be fulfilled, a box to be checked off, a strategic plan to be constructed, a budget to be balanced, or a building to be made perfect. Instead, as the King James’ translation of the Bible puts it – ‘the Kingdom of God is at hand, repent ye and believe in the Gospel’. We are not called only to go and be fishers of men, we are called to ask for God’s forgiveness, and believe in the Good News of Jesus Christ. We are to take up our crosses, and follow Him .
Jesus said ‘Follow me and I will make you fish for people’. And immediately they left their nets and followed him.
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