SunFeb72010
LUKE 5:1-11
So I’ve just got to say it: why would anyone think it was appealing to tell a story in which the punch line is “they left everything and followed Jesus” (Lk. 5:11)? Couldn’t this have been said in a more palatable way: “they put everything in perspective and followed Jesus”; or “they realized that, while it was OK to have lots of things, they needed to put Jesus first”; or “as they were thumbing through the LL Bean catalog and planning their summer getaway to Maine, they made sure to include some time for Jesus.” Wouldn’t there be a lot more willing followers of Jesus today if the story about his first disciples had been told in a more nuanced and less unnerving way? Did those early Christians want followers or just a demanding story? What was Luke thinking!
It certainly is an arresting conclusion: “they left everything and followed Jesus.” But there are millions of people listening to this passage this morning, and my bet is that not one of them is going to leave everything to follow Jesus. I like my house. I love my family. I’m glad to have this ministry. Why would I want to leave it all to follow Jesus? Or maybe a better question is: why can’t I stay here and follow Jesus, why can’t I keep what I have and follow Jesus? Certainly we can have both Jesus and our things. That’s not what it says, though: “they left everything and followed Jesus.”
As with so many stories about Jesus, of course, there’s certainly a bit of hyperbole here. Even those first disciples didn’t leave everything, after all. Just look at Simon Peter: he didn’t leave all his friends; he went on his way with his business partners, James and John. So no, not even Peter left everything.
What he did do, though, was turn his back on a significant part of the life he led. And that’s where I think we’re drawn this morning. Following Jesus means not following other things. It means taking risks. It means trying something new. Falling in line behind Jesus means getting out of some other lines.
There’s a level, first of all, at which this story indicts our love of things. We own so much that it can get in the way of what’s most valuable, most true. Part of the problem is that when we’re too attached to what we own, we sometimes forget about those who don’t have as much. Who of us isn’t stirred by the glaring discrepancy between what we have and what people in Haiti have? Most of the time, though, Haitians are out of sight, out of mind. When we hold too tightly to our things, it means that others are deprived of their due.
Sister Joyce Rupp, a physically comfortable American nun, wrote a letter called “Apology to My Brothers and Sisters in Developing Countries,” and this is some of what it says: “While I was deciding which oat bran cereal to eat this morning, you were searching the ground for leftover grains from the passing wheat truck. . . . While I was choosing between diet and regular soda, your parched lips were yearning for a sip of clean water. While I complained about the poor service in the gourmet restaurant, you were gratefully eating a bowl of rice. . . . While I watched the evening news on my wide-screen television set, you were being terrorized and taunted by a dictatorial government. . . . While I scanned the ads for a bargain on an extra piece of clothing, you woke up and put on the same shirt and pants that you have worn for many months.” And it concludes this way: “My brothers and sisters, forgive me for my arrogance and indifference. Forgive me for my greed of always wanting newer, bigger, and better things. Forgive me for not doing my part to change the unjust systems that keep you suffering and impoverished. I offer you my promise to become more aware of your situation and to change my lifestyle as I work for the transformation of our world.” Not always, but often, holding onto our things deprives others of the basics. “Leaving everything” points us in a more just direction, a more equitable and sharing direction.
Holding onto our things isn’t just a problem for others, though. It’s a problem for us, too. When we’re wed to what we own, we ourselves become prisoners of those very things we treasure. Justin Markert, in our office, quoted a line from the movie “Fight Club” the other day: “The things you own end up owning you.” When we’re preoccupied with accumulating and protecting our assets, we lose our very freedom. I knew a man once who bought a new car, and as soon as he got it home, took his key and made a mark in the paint—because he didn’t want to be obsessed with maintaining the car’s perfection. Making that mark meant he didn’t worry all the time about what was going to happen to mar that car. It helped him to let go so that the car didn’t own him.
I had lunch with Ohio’s UCC Conference Minister Bob Molsberry after he preached here last Sunday. He and I both had Henri Nouwen as a teacher in seminary. Bob went to Nouwen’s apartment with a group of students one day, and was startled to see that this world-renowned theologian had almost nothing in his apartment. It was bare and spartan, with an unadorned mattress on the floor and an old ratty couch against the wall. That was it. In a way, that’s so far from the way most of us want to live, of course—it presents a nearly impossible ideal. What that simplicity enabled in Nouwen, though, was a willingness to focus, not on what’s peripheral, but instead on what’s central. So Nouwen’s prayer life was rich and full. And when he talked to you, he was fully present. And he had an acute understanding of the poverty of so much of the world, and the call to share. That spare existence of his gave him freedom to focus on what mattered most. When the first disciples “left everything,” it was their acknowledgement that they didn’t want the things they owned to own them.
And of course it’s not just things that own us, either. How many of us are imprisoned by destructive habits, computer games, rage, lethargy, domination, submission, carelessness, excessive doting, self-centeredness, self-neglect, workaholism, laziness? The list of ways in which we undermine our own wholeness or that of our communities is nearly endless. When those first disciples “left everything,” it meant they were willing to engage in something new, that they weren’t going to be stuck in some sort of rut, that hurtful habits were not going to win the day.
So, difficult as it is, if we’re honest with ourselves, leaving everything is maybe a more compelling call than we might first have imagined. But it’s most compelling when we remember that it’s not just a leaving that’s asked of us. What’s being asked first and foremost is not a leaving but a coming. If someone says to us just, “Leave home,” it may not be too tempting (unless you can’t stand home, of course). That just leaves us homeless. But if that person says, “Leave your present home—a home you may like, but one which has its limits—and come to this new home with different but spectacular vistas and amenities,” then it becomes a tad more alluring. Not “leave that,” but “come to this.”
The disciples who leave everything don’t wander off into some terrible void. They go from their familiar routines to Jesus, who welcomes them in. It’s not like Jesus is saying, “Don’t ever eat again.” He’s saying, “I’m the bread of heaven.” It’s not like Jesus is saying, “Don’t ever drink again.” He’s saying, “I’m the living water.” It’s not like Jesus is saying, “Leave your home and live in the wilderness.” He’s saying, “Come and be with me,” all you who labor and are heavy laden. Because it’s there that the greatest banquet is served and the richest life is lived. When we leave everything, we do so in order to go home.
Just before the disciples leave everything, Jesus says the oddest thing: instead of fishing in the sea, “from now on you will be catching people” (5:10), a head-scratching line if ever there was one. Two things about that. One is that, contrary to what we might think, it’s not an instruction that Jesus gives. He never tells the disciples to leave everything—they do that on their own. And he doesn’t tell the disciples to go fish for people. He says simply that that’s what they will now be doing. It may seem odd to spend time on what’s called the “mood” of a verb—whether it’s imperative or indicative or subjunctive. But there’s quite a difference between an order—“you’d better do this”—and a declaration—“you will be doing this.” Jesus is simply telling these new acquaintances what they will now find themselves doing—of their own accord. They will be catching people, because that’s what you do when you’ve seen the light. They will be doing what they can’t not do.
But catching people? In what way can that possibly be the stuff of a Jesus-life? I have the impression of a taxidermy shop, with all the poor unsuspecting people who’ve been caught stuffed and lining the walls. Catching people sounds way too barbaric and controlling, as though we’re cannibals out for the kill.
So here’s a key detail: the word “catch” that Luke uses here means something more like “to take alive in the sense of rescuing from death” (Preaching Through the Christian Year, Year C, p. 98). When we “catch” people, we’re not corralling them for our own purposes. We’re not imprisoning or controlling them. We’re rescuing them from death. Not literally, perhaps, but certainly figuratively. We’re saving them from the perils of a life adrift on an open sea—from their loneliness and illness, their grief and anguish, their hatred and fear. A generation ago, D. T. Niles, a great Sri Lankan church leader, described evangelism as “one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread.”
When we “catch” people, the goal isn’t necessarily to make the church bigger (though that’s a side benefit). No, when we catch people, we simply show them the bread we ourselves have found: the peace and wholeness and compassion of a loving God. And when we do this with love, we’ve been part of rescuing and bringing new life. We’ve done the “catching” that saves. We lay a hand on the shoulder of the grieving widow: catch. We take a meal to the struggling neighbor: catch. We make an offering to a people leveled by an earthquake: catch. We forgive the one who has let us down: catch.
So leave everything? Yes. And catch people? Yes. Because we ourselves have been caught, and we have the privilege to share the marvels of our new home, and by the grace of God it’s all good.