“The Miracle of Discipleship”

Matthew 4:12-23
January 27, 2008

St. Paul United Methodist Church of Little Rock

Rev. John Fleming

Several years ago, fifteen years to be specific, popular author and speaker Stephen Covey gave us a book that some say has as much relevance today as it did back then. His book’s title, you will remember, is “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.” These seven habits make perfect sense. One of them is to put first things first. How can you go wrong with that? Since he wrote the book he has added an eighth principle, one that took an entire book to list. Besides writing books, Steven Covey also offers sage and wise advice one of the things he said was this, “The key to managing life is distinguishing between the urgent and the important.” There is a difference, I guess, between the two. Covey says that urgent calls clamor for our attention and important matters shape our lives. He wrote these words before the time of cell phone and when a blackberry was something you picked from a bush. Covey warned that a phone call most likely will feel urgent, but it may not be very important. I would like to say that a call from God is both urgent and important.

You can sense the urgency in our scripture lesson for this morning. Matthew tells that after the arrest of John the baptizer, Jesus began to preach the same sermon that had been ringing in the ears of anyone who listened to John. The sermon preached, “Repent for the Kingdom of heaven has come near.” There is always a sense of urgency when it comes to God’s kingdom. Jesus preached that from the beginning of his ministry until his death on the cross. And because he did want the message to die on the cross with him, he called disciples.

Matthew tells the story of the calling of four of them in our lesson for this morning. He says that Jesus was walking along the coastline of the Sea of Galilee when he saw two brothers, casting their net into the sea and then pulling it back in again. Jesus issues the invitation, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” Matthew uses the word immediately for the first time in this passage. He’ll use it again when he calls the other two disciples. For now, Matthew says that Simon and Andrew dropped their nets then and there and immediately followed Jesus.

With those two in tow, Jesus walked a little further up the coastline and found two more brothers. This time it is James and John, the sons of Zebedee. The two are in the boat with their father. They are partners with him in the family’s fishing business.

Don’t you imagine that old Zebedee was proud? He never thought his boys would want to do what he did when they grew up. Their teenage years must have been filled with talk of wanting to get out of Galilee to see the world. His chest must have poked out a bit when they told him of their desire to be in the fishing business with their father. A tear may have streamed down his face when they told him. He had a sign printed so everyone would know. The sign hung over the family’s pier. It read, “Zebedee and Sons Fishing Company.”

That all changed in that moment when Jesus passed by. He saw James and John. He called out to them and he called them. Matthew writes, “Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.” Immediately! There is that word a second time!

I will have to be honest and tell you that this story creates all kinds of problems. It makes all kinds of things run through your mind. You can’t help but to wonder, “Could I do that?” You hear the lesson, you take stock of your life, and you question if you have what it takes to do what those first four disciples did.

You have to wonder, “If a clear call came tomorrow, could you get up out of your chair and walk out the door and leave everything behind? Could you leave without talking it over with your family? Could you do it without sleeping on it and thinking it through? Could you?” More or less, that is what these first four disciples did.

Now Matthew wants to make sure we know three things about these four. First, he wants to make sure we know they were part of larger families. Look at the lesson. When it comes to Simon and Andrew, Matthew tells us twice the two were brothers. When it comes time to mention James and John, Matthew tells us that they were brothers and that they had a father. Second, Matthew wants to make sure we realize they had jobs. Both sets of brothers, you will remember, were fishermen. In the words we read, you can see them doing their jobs. They were casting out nets, mending nets, standing with their father in the boat. And third, Matthew wants you to know that their answer to Jesus call was immediate. Their answer came in an instant. They didn’t count the cost. They didn’t weigh the options. Jesus called and they responded and off the five of them went to a new life. That’s all there is to this story, really.

And when a pastor preaches it, the question that just seems to hang up in the air is this one, “Could you do it?” Some can. Some have. Rev. Fred Craddock tells of a sermon that got him in trouble with a young student’s parents. He preached this text. She visited the church. She was in medical school. She heard the sermon on today’s text and decided to quit medical school and to go and be a missionary in the poorest part of Texas. The preacher admits that he did not manipulate her. Instead they talked about her decision and how life changing it would be. Her parents, understandably, were furious with the new direction of their daughter’s life. She simply heard the call and stuck with it. There was a call and there was a response.

I heard of someone else. Bishop Joe Pennel tells of a seminar he led for pastors. After the session was over, the pastor went up to Joe and said, “I think I’m hearing God call me out of the ordained ministry and into the ministry of the laity. Is that possible?” I guess it is. Many pastors feel the pressure of serving and preaching and consider it. And I guess sometimes God makes that call. There is a call and there is a response.

So one problem here with this story is the question, “Could you do it?” There is another problem, too. When you hear the story, you quickly assume that following Jesus means leaving everything behind. The text lends itself for us to assume that you leave the family behind, you the job behind, the hopes and the dreams behind and enter the ministry. As if ministry is something we enter.

If you will pay attention to what we do when we baptized babies, then you know that that is when people enter the ministry. Ministry begins way back then when your parents and the church promise to surround you. They stand by you until you are old enough to choose Jesus for yourself.

I used to preach this text as a call to consider the ordained ministry. Some of us are called to that. Most are not. Some hear the call to leave the church, head off to the unknown, sell the business, quit the practice, enroll in seminary, some of us after running from it lo these many years. But for many of us and most of us what this story is really about is following Jesus a little more closely and paying attention to our life with Him.

With the time we’ve got left this morning, I’d like to talk with you about discipleship and what it really means for all of us. Let’s go back to the opening of our sermon. Stephen Covey said there is a difference between a call that is urgent and one that is important. The call from God to do something and follow him is both urgent and important.

So I just have to ask, where is the urgency in our lives when it comes time for our discipleship?

A preacher I know tells of a man who had fallen away from his church and his practice to be in worship services and Sunday School classes. In fact, he hadn’t been to church in some time. Maybe it was a spiritually dry season as well. He hadn’t picked up his Bible in months and if he had spent any significant time in prayer, he couldn’t remember it. A friend of his decided to give him a call about a tennis match they had scheduled. He called from his church, after a Bible study. The name of the church was Christ the Lord Lutheran Church. When the phone rang, the man looked down at his caller identification and saw the display. It read, “Christ the Lord.” It startled him. It would startle me, too. The call served as a wake up call for him.

What will it take to wake us up and put our following of Jesus as the most important thing and not just somewhere in the top ten?

I told you when I came to be your pastor six years ago that one of the things that was important to me was to help you along with your spiritual life and your discipleship. I want you to love coming to worship services. I want you to read your Bible the way you would a best seller. As it turns out the Bible is a best seller. I don’t want you to just read the words. I want you to live them. I want you pray and know God. I want you to seek His face and know His will for your life. There must be urgency to our discipleship.

Second, discipleship sometimes means staying at home and doing things like taking care of Zebedee when he’s too old to fish. It might mean fishing in different waters and using the money from the sale of those fish in new ways.

Let me close with a story. It’s a cute one about a preacher who was preaching a series of sermons in another church. Sometimes we call that a revival. In Little Rock we call it lecture series. He was in this church for three days and nights and all the while a little boy wanted to be with him. He sat by him before it was his time to preach and he sat in the pulpit chair when he preached. It didn’t bother the preacher. One night the boy asked, “Why are you a preacher?” He answered, “Because I believe it is what God told me to do.” The little boy paused a moment, then he said, “God told me just to be a kid.”

Go home with this on your heart. What is God telling you to do?