Ordinary 3

The Third Sunday in Ordinary Time 2020 – Cycle A Isaiah 8:23-9:3: Psalm 27; 1 Corinthians 1:10-13, 17; Matthew 4:12-23

A stranger walks up to you and says, “Follow me”. Would you?  How would you respond?

I expect many of us would just walk away and at a heightened pace and maybe notify the police about a creepy guy in the park, on the beach, in the mall.

That’s the kind of look that the German Expressionist artist, Otto Dix, gives to Peter in his drawing “The Call of Peter”.  Sitting and holding on to his fishing net with one hand while the other hand is empty, Peter looks up at this stranger with, “Really?  What do you want?”

Why should he follow this stranger? What does he mean becoming fishers of men and women? Why give up a lucrative business? What about my family?

Artists, like Dix, with their imaginations have always given insight and cause for thought into the biblical passages beyond the text itself.

Did you ever consider how many people turned away from Jesus before he came across Peter and Andrew?  And it is obvious in the Dix drawing that Peter and Andrew are not dropping their nets, their livelihoods, anytime soon.

What about you and me?

Who is this Jesus who is calling you and me to follow him?  That may seem like it is an obvious answer in the midst of a group of Christians but…?  Have you heard his voice inviting you to follow him?  …heard Jesus’ voice in the psalms we sing, the biblical passages we listen to, in the example of other Christians, the thoughts of Christian writers, in the images of Christian art, in the questions of a child?

And if you have heard his voice, have you considered following Jesus and the cost that that will entail?  There are a lot of questions in the face of Dix’s Peter, for sure.

Consider that being called by Jesus is a two way movement.  For as we are being called from something, it is so that we can be called to something.  Past and future converge in a divinely caressed present.

It would seem that Peter and Andrew and James and John are being called to leave their families and fishing businesses.  But that is not true.  The Gospels record that the disciples continue to go fishing. Jesus keeps getting into a boat to cross the Sea of Galilee.  He uses one from which to teach the crowds on shore.  I presume it belongs to one the boys.  The mother of James and John, Zebedee’s wife, inquires of Jesus for her sons that they get the best seats in the Kingdom of heaven.  Peter’s mother-in-law is cured by Jesus.  Is Peter’s wife and children in the background?

Jesus never calls us from who we are?

But might it be that Jesus is calling us away from certain ways of living?

…from our factionalism. The divisions we hear about occurring in the Corinthian Church are present in the church today.  …from our inclination to take sides or to dismiss people’s views.  …from the fear of the darkness and gloom that Isaiah speaks of, that seems to be enveloping our times.  …from our pettiness, narrow-mindedness and mean spirited competition.  …from…with what do you finish that phrase?

In fact, it may be easier to leave fishing nets behind than to leave the web of our prejudices and judgements.

If we have not as yet answered Jesus’ invitation, is it because we are afraid of what we might have to leave behind?  And so we keep Jesus at bay without a firm commitment from us?

And what about what we are being called toward?

Are we not called like Jesus, in the circumstances of our everyday lives, to be a source of healing for people; to smash the heavy yokes that burden people and to help carry their loads?  Are we not called to respect the struggles and commitments of others?

Such actions are the source of justice that births peace and unity so sorely needed today.  As disciples of Jesus, we may not have all the answers.  We may not even know the questions!

We may simply find ourselves sitting, like Peter, with a fishing net in one hand – our present – and an openness in the other hand – our future with Jesus.  With which will you and I live out the rest of our lives?

Image : Otto Dix, 1891 – 1969.  Die Berufung Petri (The Calling of Peter to Discipleship) Lithograph, 1960.