Matthew 4:12-23
12Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. 13He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, 14so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: 15“Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles— 16the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.”17From that time Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
18As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea—for they were fishermen. 19And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” 20Immediately they left their nets and followed him. 21As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. 22Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.
23Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.
First, to understand this text we must unlearn what we think we know about the word repent. When you hear the word repent, what comes to mind? “Repent you sinner!” I am a bad person, who must first repent so that I can be saved!
But what if the word, repent, meant to turn, to change directions? What if it had nothing to do with sin or being a bad person? What if Jesus’s use of the word meant to change the current direction that your life has taken you to a new direction, one that is far more fulfilling? What if the use of the word repent meant that you turned from a life that left you aching for something more to one of which Iranaeus spoke about when he said, “The glory of god is a human truly alive.”
In English the word repent means to turn from sin, to feel regret or to change one’s mind. But in the original Greek there is no sense of sin. From the original Greek, the word means to change one’s mind, to go a new direction.
If we take this definition, “to go a new direction,” and apply it to this story in Matthew, the story starts to take on a very different meaning. The fishermen in the boats to whom Jesus calls out “Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand,” were actually hearing, “Come and join me in going a new direction in your life, for God is with you!” Now that is an invitation that many of us would love to hear or need to hear.
Secondly, to understand this text we need to know something about what it means to be a fisherman in Jesus’ day. For years, I struggled with this text as have countless other preachers and biblical teachers. We struggle with it because of its brevity. Many have come to the conclusion that there are parts of the story missing. Who would answer this call to follow Jesus without more information? Many have made up what that missing part of the story must have been. I have wondered too, until I read an article by Brian Stoffregen where he was quoting from the book Matthew and the Margins by Warren Carter. In this book Carter informs us what the world thought of fisherman in Jesus’ day. Carter writes that, “While fishermen have some economic resources, their social ranking is very low. In Cicero's ranking of occupations (De Off 1.150-51), owners of cultivated land appear first and fishermen last.” (Cicero was writing about a century before Jesus lived) “Athenaeus indicates that fishermen and fishmongers are on a par with money lenders and are socially despised as greedy thieves (Deipnosophistai, 6.224b-28c).: (Athenaeus lived about 2 centuries or so after Jesus). So for at least 3-4 centuries around the time of Jesus, fishermen were a despised lot, something on par with tax collectors. If this is true, then this story is not so much about the response to Jesus’ call as it was about who he was calling. He was calling fisherman to follow him. He might as well have been calling tax collectors. By calling fisherman, Jesus was saying to those whom society had said were not worthy that he saw something in them that made them special. Special enough for Jesus to want to say to them, “Follow me.”
By calling these fishermen, he is putting into action his teaching, “the first shall be last and the last shall be first.” This is a radical statement. If what Cicero and Athenaeus says is true about the role fishermen play in their society’s, it is worthy to note that from the very beginning of Jesus’s ministry that Jesus is upsetting the norm of going to the rich and powerful to ask them to lead his movement. Instead he turns to those who are most despised in their day. This call to the fisherman would have been a huge challenge to the elites in Jesus’ day. Jesus is boldly saying to the rich and powerful, that those whom you have declared as unworthy, that in them God sees something of value, God sees people with gifts. Instead of seeing what others saw, Jesus had eyes to see what had been hidden underneath. He saw not only that they were children of God, but that they had gifts that would serve the kingdom well.
It makes me wonder if I was one of those fishermen what I might be thinking. “Is he talking to me?” “What does he see in me that I do not see? This is just the first of countless stories to come where Jesus looked deeper into the person in front of him and invited that person to begin to see themselves with new eyes, with loving and grace filled eyes.
Recently Luke and I were talking about what it takes to serve a church as an ordained pastor. In that conversation, he shared a bit of information that he had learned about those who are serving as senior pastors of churches. He had learned that a recent study of those serving as senior pastors had observed that 80% of senior pastors did not feel qualified to serve in that role. That number may surprise you but it does not surprise me. It is true for leaders in many professions.
Ann Friedman in the article, “Not Qualified for Your Job? Wait, You Probably Are,” shared this observation, “Two-thirds of incoming students at the notoriously selective Harvard Business School raise their hands when they’re asked: “How many of you in here feel that you are the one mistake that the admissions committee made?”” She goes on to write, “that the name for that fraudulent feeling is ‘impostor syndrome.’ It’s a phenomenon in which people — usually high-achieving professionals — don’t consider themselves qualified for their position and convince themselves that they’ve cheated their way into it. It doesn’t matter how much work they’ve put in or how much experience they’ve acquired.”
From my experience, I have learned that this feeling of inadequacy is far more prevalent than most people realize. My experience indicates that what is true of the students at the Harvard Business School is a common thought for many of us. In many of us, there is a tape running in our heads that repeated plays the line that goes something like, “if those around me truly knew of inadequacies… I will let you finish the line since it play slightly different for each one of us.
For those among us today who have this tape playing in your heads take heed. Today’s text offers you good news. God, through Jesus is calling you to a life of fulfillment. All you need to do is to turn and live into that good news that you are gifted, that you are worthy.
One of my most favorite stories to tell is the story of Isaac, a poor Rabbi from the city of Cracow.
“Once upon a time there was a Polish rabbi from Cracow named Isaac. He had a dream. In the dream he was told to travel to Prague. Under the great bridge leading to the royal castle he would find a hidden treasure. The dream was repeated three times, and he decided to go. He found the bridge, but it was guarded by soldiers, so he did not dig. As he loitered in the vicinity, one of the soldiers asked him what he had lost. The rabbi told his dream and the soldier burst into laughter. “Really, poor man,” the soldier said, “have you worn out your shoes coming all this way simply because of a dream?”… “I, too, once had a dream,” said the soldier. “It spoke to me of Cracow, ordered me to go there and look for a treasure in the house of a rabbi named Isaac. The treasure was to be found in a dusty corner behind the stove.”… “But,” said the soldier, “being a reasonable man and not trusting in dreams, I decided not to go.” The rabbi thanked the soldier, returned to Cracow, dug behind his stove, found the treasure, and put an end to his poverty.”
In this story of the rabbi and in the story of the calling of the fishermen, we learn that there is a treasure in each one of us that God has eyes to see even when we cannot. Today listen for Jesus’ voice. To you who have been made to feel less than worthy, hear Jesus’ call to turn from that way and to become the person that God has intended you to be. You are worthy. The treasure which you seek is in you. Turn, see it and grasp it.
