Paul and the Fishermen

 

Today is Burn’s Night, when people traditionally eat haggis, neeps and tatties – that’s swede and mashed potato to you and me – perhaps with a whisky sauce! It’s also, and rather more relevant to our purposes, the Feast of the Conversion of St Paul, whose story you heard in our first reading. And, coincidentally, the Gospel reading set for today, which is also the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, is about Jesus calling his disciples on the Sea of Galilee.

Last Sunday, we heard John’s version of the calling of the first disciples, which was very different to this week’s story; not a fish or a net in sight! But nevertheless, it was about calling. And this week’s gospel is about calling – and St Paul was also called to follow Jesus. So I want to talk about that call.

I’m not talking about a vocation here – this isn’t about a call to become a preacher or a worship leader, or another role in the church which might or might not require training. I will just say that if you do think God might be calling you to some such role, go and talk to Revd Rita about it; it’s always worth exploring. But what I want to talk about today is our call to follow Jesus.

St Paul, as you probably know, was born a Roman citizen. However, he was also Jewish, born to a very observant Jewish family. He was known as Saul – Paul is the Roman version of his name – and at first, as we know, he was very against the new movement that was arising within Judaism, people following what was known as “The Way”, insisting that the Messiah had come, had been crucified, and had been raised from death. Saul, as he then preferred to be known, was very against this; this was not how good Jews behaved. And when they stoned Stephen to death, he was standing there looking after the cloaks of those doing the stoning, and reckoning they were doing the right thing. However, Stephen, with his final breaths, was given grace to pray “Lord, do not hold this sin against them!”

And God answered that prayer most wonderfully. We have just heard the story of how Jesus met Saul on the road to Damascus, where he was headed to try to disrupt a cell of believers, because the believers had scattered after Stephen’s death, as it was no longer safe for them in Jerusalem. And Jesus meets with Saul, and says, basically, “You might as well give in, mate; you can’t escape from me and you’ll only hurt yourself if you try!” And Saul, blinded by his vision, and wondering what on earth has just happened, allows himself to be led into the city, and three days later, Ananias comes and lays hands on him, and the scales fall from his eyes, and he can see. Wasn’t Ananias brave? He does object, when God tells him to go and lay hands on Saul, that Saul is known for persecuting the followers of the Way, as the believers were known then, but he believes God when he’s told that it’s okay, Saul is, or will be, one of them now.

Saul is promptly baptised – possibly by Ananias – and then disappears for a year or so; possibly into the desert to study and learn all he can about this Jesus who has claimed him for his own.

And then, of course, he becomes one of the greatest ambassadors for Christ that the world has ever known, and we still have the letters he wrote to the young churches in the area, which are basically God’s word to us today.

And then, a few years earlier, Jesus had called his disciples; we do know that most of them were called from among the local fishermen, although there was also Levi, the collaborator, and Simon, the resistance fighter – I wonder how many snide remarks were passed. I hope the others didn’t have to spend too much time calming things down.

The thing is, when Jesus called, the fishermen left their nets and followed him. Jesus, at that time, was not yet an itinerant preacher – that came later. He had begun to preach that the Kingdom of God was at hand, but he was based in Capernaum where he had taken rooms.

All the gospels agree that this is a very early stage in Jesus’ ministry.
They place it almost immediately after he returns from being tempted in the desert, where he’s wrestled with the temptations to misuse his divine powers, and has become a lot clearer about who he is,
and what he’s been called to do.
I’m not sure how much he actually knows, at this stage, of what lies ahead, but he does know that he is to preach that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand and, like all the preachers and teachers of his day,
he is gathering disciples to help him with this task,
perhaps helping with their physical needs –
Judas, you may remember, kept the communal purse –
and learning from him all that they needed to know in order to spread his message.
Although, as we know, it wasn’t until after the Holy Spirit came, at Pentecost, that they were truly able to understand and to spread the good news of the Kingdom.

But that came later, and it was that Holy Spirit who enabled Stephen to make the speech to the Sanhedrin – the local Supreme Court – that enflamed them so much that they ordered his death. And then it was the same Holy Spirit who enabled Saul to respond to the vision on the road to Damascus, and to be baptised after Ananias had been used to heal his blindness.

But the point is, all these calls – the people involved changed. The disciples left their fishing-nets and followed Jesus, becoming “fishers of people” – helping people find peace, forgiveness and a real relationship with God. What we call “being saved.” Saul, calling himself Paul as he needed his Roman citizenship to do what he did, travelled widely, bringing the good news of Jesus to all he met – the ultimate “fisher of people” if you like.

We are not, of course, all called to be evangelists! Paul makes that quite clear in his letter to the Corinthians and elsewhere. But Jesus does call each and every one of us to follow him.

For most of us, following Jesus won’t involve leaving what we are doing, our homes, our families, our jobs, and so on. We are asked to stay exactly where we are – but, once we say “Yes” to Jesus, things change.

Sometimes it is our behaviour which changes –
perhaps we used to get drunk,
but now we find ourselves switching to soft drinks after a couple of glasses.
Perhaps we used to gamble,
but suddenly realise we haven't so much as bought a Lottery ticket for weeks, never mind visiting a bookie, and those apps on our phone remain unopened!
Perhaps we used to be less than scrupulous about what belongs to us, and what belongs to our employer,
but now we find ourselves asking permission to use the office wi-fi or printer.

Very often these sorts of changes happen without our even noticing them.
Others take more struggle –
sometimes it is many years before we can finally let go of an addiction, or a bad habit.
But as I've said before, the more open we are to God,
the more we can allow God to change us.
Sometimes, of course, we cling on to the familiar bad habits,
as we don't know how to replace them with healthier ways of acting and thinking, and find it too scary to trust God to show us the way.
But perhaps it isn’t just our personal behaviour that changes.
Maybe we find ourselves getting involved in our community in a way we hadn’t been before.
It will be different for all of us, but we will probably find ourselves, in some way, walking alongside the poor and marginalised in our society.
   
But, you might be thinking, what’s she talking about? I answered Jesus’ call some twenty, thirty, forty or even fifty years ago now! Yes, so did I! Nearly 54 years ago, if I’m accurate! That is scary!

But the thing is, although the call is for a lifetime, it’s a call that is renewed, time and time again. After all, we are very inclined to wander away from God, to go our own way. We reduce Christianity to rules and regulations, rather than a relationship – it’s much easier, that way! A relationship with the living God is scary stuff!

It's easy to fall out of the habit of allowing God to touch you and change you.
I know I have, many times.
The joy of it is, though, that we can always come back.
We aren't left alone to fend for ourselves –
we would always fail if we were.
We just need to acknowledge to ourselves –
and to God, of course, but God knew, anyway –
that we've wandered away again.

That's a bit simplistic, of course –
there are times when we are quite sure we haven't wandered away, and yet God seems far off.
But I'm not going into that one right now;
nobody really knows why that happens, except God!
But for most of us, most of the time,
if we fall out of the habit of allowing God to touch us and heal us and change us,
we simply have to acknowledge that this is what has happened,
and we are back with him again.

Simon, Andrew, James and John left their nets to follow Jesus. Paul stopped persecuting Christians, and became one of them; he left a settled life for one of constant travel and frequent persecution.
We aren’t all called to leave where we are and what we are doing –
in fact, few of us are.
But we are all called to follow Jesus!
It is a call that is renewed yearly, weekly, even daily!
Not all of us are called to be evangelists, but we are all witnesses to Jesus.

That, by the way, is a function of being Jesus’ person;
he told us that when the Spirit came we would be his witnesses –
not that we would have to be, or that we ought to be, but that it would happen as part of receiving the Spirit.
If we are truly following Jesus, if we are truly his person, then we are witnesses to him, even if we never mention our faith out loud.
His Spirit shines through us.

Of course, none of us is perfect.
The Bible is full of examples of when Simon Peter got it wrong –
most notably when he panicked when Jesus was arrested and tried, and pretended he’d never met him.
But he was forgiven, and restored, and he went on to become one of the greatest leaders the Church has ever had.
Sure, he wasn’t perfect, even then –
he and Paul squabbled about how far people who weren’t Jewish should be allowed into the Church, and under what conditions –
but “the big fisherman” was definitely a great leader.
He became the person God had created him to be, and fulfilled the role God called him to fill, even though he was far from perfect.
Paul, too, knew that he wasn’t perfect, but he, too, became the person God had created him to be, and fulfilled the role God called him to fill.
These two men have probably had more influence over the church than any other two in history, excepting only Jesus himself!

We are not all called to be leaders, but we can still become all that we were created to be, because we can all be forgiven and restored and enabled.

They left their nets to follow Jesus.
It’s not what we leave, if we leave anything, that’s important –
it’s that we follow Jesus.
Amen.