Before we look at the scripture, I want to give you a bit of an infomercial…but one that definitely will apply to this sermon on “calling.” I was in Kansas City two weeks ago for a national Presbyterian meeting of Committees on Preparation for Ministry. These are the groups that work with people who are exploring whether or not they might be called to ordained ministry in the Presbyterian Church. Our Seattle Presbytery has one of the largest CPMs, with over 100 candidates. I spend a lot of time with this committee. And nine of these folks come from Bethany!

I want to just tell you their names, so that you are aware of the people we are walking with in this process, and so we can be praying for them:

• Chris Murphy and Eric Dyrhsen (both in CA),
• Susan Forshey and Gary Talbert (here at Bethany right now),
• Chad Marshall, Liz Marshall and Jeremy Sanderson (at Princeton),
• John Chase (Duke) and
• Justin Glessner (Regent, Vancouver).

In the regions near the Sea of Galilee are three businesses we need to think about. One, in Nazareth, has a sign out front that says:

Joseph & Son: We Make Good Tables.

Another, in Capernaum, says,

Peter and the Sons of Zebedee: Fresh Galilean Fish.

The third, in another town, has been defaced by profane graffiti, but at one time it said:

Levi: Pay Taxes Here. Now.

This is a great story. Jesus plays Peter like…well, like a fish on a line. Just gradually bringing him where he wants him to be. Jesus has a big crowd around him, and is feeling a little claustrophobic. So he just hops into Peter’s boat. Why is he getting into my boat?

“Peter, would you just push me out a little from shore?”

Sigh. O, Lord, it had been a long shift. Oh, fine. Throws the nets into the boat and hops in. They push a little off shore. Jesus sits, like all good teachers of the day, and teaches. When he finishes, he looks at Peter and says,

“Let’s get out of the shallow end of the pool. Put out into the deep water.”

What? Jesus has been sitting down and talking. I’ve been slinging slimy nets for 8 hours. I’m tired. Oh, fine.

“Let down your nets for a catch.”

What? Now he’s gone too far. Too far. Jesus is a pretty good teacher, but he is not a fisherman. He ought to stick to his own area of expertise. I’ve fished for my entire life, and I’m fisherman enough to admit…there are just no fish out here today. Call it good. Tomorrow is another day.

“Master, we’ve worked all night long and caught nothing.”

Of all the nerve…who is he to give orders? oh, fine.

“If you say so, Lord … down they go.”

And that was the end of his life as Peter knew it. You heard it. So many fish the nets started to break, the other boat came to help, even then there were too many fish, the boats started to sink, it was chaos, noise, voices. And in the midst of it all, there is one quiet person: Peter. He’s just been outfished by a novice. But it’s more than that. Peter doesn’t say,

“Jesus, I have never seen a luckier person than you. You are so stinking lucky I can’t believe it!”

No. Peter kneels down in front of Jesus and says,

“Go away from me, Lord…I am a sinful man.”

There is something about being in the presence of the Holy…that bowls us over with amazement, that shakes us with fear, that makes us acutely aware of how un-holy we are. When you are in the presence of God…arrogance and selfishness and hidden deception suddenly seem like red-hot metal, they glow, they hurt, they can’t stay.

I suspect you have felt this before. Sometimes when we are in worship, maybe as we sing or have a time of waiting on the Lord, and the Spirit seems so near, maybe as someone shares a tongue/interpretation or word from God that seems so intimate, so powerful…I find myself crying. I find myself asking,

“Lord, who am I, to feel you so near? Who are we, such imperfect people, that you come among us?”

What was it for Peter? Who knows. Maybe the realization that Jesus had the power to make all this happen suddenly registered. Human beings don’t have power like that. There must have been something about Jesus. Some look on his face, something about his eyes, something that radiated out from him. Sometimes we can seem jealous of those early followers, thinking,

“Well, if I had the chance to be face to face with Jesus, I would have believed too!”

I doubt it. And I suspect that if those early followers looked at us today, they might say,

“Look at you, you have the whole story. We didn’t! You have had the knowledge that Jesus died on the cross for sin, that death was powerless before him. For your whole life, you’ve had the evidence of the power, the resurrection that would make anybody fall to their knees…and yet you don’t.”

Peter falls to his knees, mournful of his sin. God is at work changing him from the inside out. And apparently his business partners as well.

Meanwhile, a few verses over, the tax gatherer Levi sits in his booth. On the outside, life is good. A shrewd local businessman, he negotiated a deal with the Roman authorities. He gets the territory, pays a certain amount of money annually. And in turn receives the rights to tax the local people almost at will. Most likely he was involved in the following:

• The poll tax.
• The road tax.
• The bridge tax.
• The merchandise tax.
• And the property tax.

But on the inside, he is an outcast from his own people for taking more than his fair share, he is an outcast a second time for dealing with the Roman Gentiles.

For better or for worse, Jesus has decided that the way to spread the kingdom of God in the world is to one by one call a small number of disciples, nondescript people like Peter and James and John and Levi. It’s no wonder he ended up with sort of a motley crew. What would Jesus have run in the way of a want ad for followers?

“Wanted: people who will leave absolutely everything behind, with no future apparent ahead of them. No salary, traveling 100% of the time, sleeping in the open air, food from begging, asked to do things you have no experience in. If attacked, must turn the other cheek. May have to give away clothing. If you think you are called, come find me.”

So here they are, Peter, James, John and this IRS guy Levi. And out comes the two word command:

“Follow Me.”

Their world stops. It is frozen. God has landed. They suddenly are confronted by the fact that they must now choose between being believers and followers. It’s not a conversation about philosophy or ethics, it’s not a debate over spirituality. You’ll notice that Jesus doesn’t ask people to tell him what they value, what their priorities are or how they ended up where they have. He simply says,

“Follow me.”

Jan Hettinga once compiled a list of statements that typified a Christian who believes in Jesus but doesn’t follow him. It included things like this:

• often passive and apathetic. I have good intentions, but lack follow through.
• insist on arranging my life around my personal preferences, pleasures and comforts.
• prefer to be a spectator -- watching and listening, but not really participating.
• experience the frustration of trying to have the best of two worlds, trying to serve two masters, Jesus and something else.
• keep my options open and remain uncommitted in order to avoid getting tied down.

The word comes: “Follow me.” And in all cases, Luke reports, “they left everything and followed Jesus.”

They left everything. It would seem that no matter how hard we might want to rephrase this, the simplest reading is: They left everything. Boats, fish, nets, father, families, hometown. Everything. Tax booth, grafittied sign, bank account, tax contract, house. They left everything. Reputations (good or bad), regrets, history, fears, insecurities, longings. Everything.

Can you imagine what people would have said?

“This is absurd! Irresponsible! No one has done this.”

Perhaps a few would have admired their courage, maybe a few shook their hand as they locked the door on the business. But not most. Most of the people surrounding them surely thought they had taken this religion thing way too far.

In 1923, G.K. Chesterton wrote a short biography of St. Francis of Assisi. Francis had grown up as a fairly well-to-do son of a merchant father who sold cloth and textiles. Francis was a bit of a prima donna in town, a young man who dressed fashionably and was pretty arrogant about how he would leave a legacy on the world. A number of things happened to him that began to call him towards caring for the poor and lepers. Eventually, Francis had taken to praying in a ruined old church building, and one day heard a voice say,

“Francis, do you not see that my house is in ruins? Go and restore it for me.”

Francis started by fundraising. He sold the horse his father had given him, along with several bolts of his father’s cloth. Which his father did not appreciate…at all. In fact, he took him to court with the bishop, who ordered Francis to repay his father.

Listen to what Chesterton writes:

He stood up before them all and said, “Up to this time I have called Pietro…father, but now I am the servant of God. Not only the money but everything that can be called his I will restore to my father, even the very clothes he has given me.” And he rent off all his garments except one…a shirt.

He piled the garments in a heap on the floor and tossed the money on top of them. Then he turned to the bishop, and received his blessing, like one who turns his back on society; and, according to the account, went out as he was into the cold world. Apparently it was literally a cold world at the moment, and snow was on the ground…He went out half-naked…into the winter woods, walking the frozen ground between the frosty trees; a man without a father. He was penniless, he was parentless, he was to all appearance without a trade or a plan or a hope in the world; and as he went under the frosty trees, he burst suddenly into song.”

Peter, James, John, Levi, St. Francis…And they left everything.

I wonder this morning whether you have spent more time as a Christian who believes…or as one who follows Jesus? And I wonder if you are trying to follow Jesus, how it strikes you to think of “leaving everything?” I suspect that you, like me, begin immediately to think rationally.

• A healthy life is a balanced life.
• God does not call everyone to give up their possessions or jobs.
• God does not call everyone to go on a journey, to move to Africa, to become a missionary.

Absolutely right. Yet I couldn’t help this week but notice that whatever things popped up for me with “Yes, but…God doesn’t call everyone to do that…” attached to the front of them were probably the very things I hold back. Not even necessarily things God was asking me to do. But things I had placed off limits in the conversation.

How deep does your faith run? Deep enough to intellectually assent to the Christian faith, to believe? Or have you put out into the deeper water to actually follow?

Peter, James, John, Levi not only “left everything,” but also

“…and followed him.”

Jesus does not just call away from, but he calls to. And just what was he calling them to? They don’t know. They truly do not know. All they knew…was that they felt more alive than ever before. All they knew was they were supposed to follow Jesus. That’s what they were called to.

It’s what we are called to as well. That word “call” gets us in trouble quite a bit. I deal with it all the time. When I left business at 35 to go to seminary, we kept asking people:

What does a call to ministry feel like?

How do I know for sure?

The whole time I was in the ordination process, everybody from the elders of this church, to mentors, to close friends, to the Committee on Preparation for Ministry, to professors at school asked this infuriating question:

Is God calling you to this ministry? Why do you think that?

But it’s not just pastors. One of the most frequent conversations I get in with many of you is around this question:

Am I doing what I am supposed to be doing? I’m feeling God’s call to this…does that seem right?

The twenty-something group that meets at Steve and Laura’s on Sunday afternoons is wrestling with this question. Our elders wrestle with it on behalf of our church community. What is God leading us to?

We don’t have time this morning to delve into this whole topic of discerning God’s will. But let me just make two quick observations:

First: the question of “What is God’s will for me?” can sometimes paralyze us when it doesn’t need to. There are some things in scripture that are incredibly clear, and regardless of our specific circumstance, we are “called to them.” For instance, we are called to a special kind of love. Jesus said,

“A new commandment I give you, that you love one another. (now the new part) Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”

Not just love, but Jesus’ kind of love.

Or another clear calling from I Thessalonians. What is God’s will?

“Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”

There you have it. God’s will. Or again, Jesus said,

“Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

Make disciples…followers.

Second, sometimes doing what God desires is…well, it’s tough. Just plain hard, even in the little things.

I mentioned my trip to Missouri. I was traveling with four other folks from Seattle. On our way back, we came through the Phoenix airport and had a short layover. And as we stood out near our gate, one of our team started to come down with a very sudden and painful migraine headache. And suddenly it was very clear that the right thing to do would be to pray for her. And even though everyone on our team regularly led worship and prayed in our churches, there was still this strong sense of

“Ooh. Pray? Out loud? Here? With hundreds of people milling about? Wouldn’t that be weird? What would people think?”

But we finally did. Gathered off to the side, surrounded our sick friend, and prayed. It was the right thing. It was the most alive I felt on the entire trip.

Jesus didn’t give much in the way of future planning. Simply said to them in turn,

“Follow me.”

And they had to decide: Will I be a follower?

Remember those three Galilean businesses with the signs hanging out front? Here’s what I imagined they looked like at the end of our story: the Carpenter’s shop said,

“Gone fishin’.”

The tax booth said,

“Out of business.”

And the fish company? There was a little sign on the door that said,

“With Jesus.”

And it was just the right place to be.