“Come and see,” was the invitation Jesus gave to two of John the Baptist’s disciples in last week’s reading from John’s gospel. When they heard John the Baptist proclaim Jesus as the Lamb of God, they begin to follow him – just as they had been disciples of John the Baptist, they then turn and follow after Jesus, asking him where he was dwelling. John’s gospel says that one of those two disciples was Andrew, who then went and brought his brother, Simon Peter, to Jesus. Jesus’ invitation begins the process that causes the disciples to follow after him.

How different, then, is today’s account from Matthew’s gospel, where Jesus calls, and the disciples follow him. In Matthew’s gospel, there’s very little in the way of invitation; no sign that Andrew, Peter, James or John were in any sense aware of what was about to happen to them or had already chosen to follow after John, Jesus or anyone else. Instead they were all going about their business when Jesus enters the scene, tells them to follow him, and changes everything:

As 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. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him. As 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. Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.[1]

Jesus calls the disciples – they respond and follow. That’s it – no questions, no promises, no guarantees – the text says they immediately respond, without any delay or reservation. They leave their nets, and in the case of James and John, their own father, and they follow the Lord. They leave the lives they knew to follow after Jesus.

Simon, Andrew, James and John were all fishermen in Galilee. Contrary to our common impression, there’s no reason to think that they were firmly stationed at the bottom of society. Fishing was a major industry around the Sea of Galilee, and our account suggests that the disciples owned boats, nets, and implements of their trade. [2] While they may not have been at the top of society, they certainly weren’t at its bottom, by all accounts, making for themselves a comfortable life. They didn’t seek Jesus out, and, in all likelihood, they wouldn’t have. Instead, Jesus found them, called them, and they followed after him. That, too, is strange – Jesus called them to follow him – they didn’t seek him out. It would have been customary in Jesus’ time for disciples to seek out a teacher - much like in our gospel from last week, where disciples who were following John turn of their own accord to follow after Jesus. The opposite – a teacher seeking out his own disciples – was not at all a normal or expected behavior.[3] Yet Jesus seeks them out to follow, chooses them to follow him, calls them to follow him. And, somehow, they do.

I would love to be able to say that it was a moment of great faith that compelled Simon Peter, Andrew, James, and John to leave their comfortable lives by the sea to follow after Jesus, but somehow, I don’t think that’s true. The Son of God called them and they had to answer; they didn’t choose Jesus; Jesus chose them, called them to follow him, and they didn’t pause, they didn’t think, and they didn’t argue – they simply left their nets.

When the Lord calls us beyond the safety of our nets, out beyond the safety of our familiar seashore, to a life of discipleship, a life of following after him, how do we respond? The gospel tells us what happens as soon as the disciples follow Jesus, he 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.[4]

As soon as they leave the seashore behind, the disciples hear the good news of the kingdom; they see lives changed and transformed. They experience something infinitely more interesting, more trying, more exhilarating than they ever would have seen sitting by their nets on the sea.

Yet I would imagine when Jesus calls us to follow now, we can all to often equivocate. I know I do: I may give Jesus my loyalty and my devotion and the efforts that seem easiest and most conventional; absolute submission and surrender, however, is so much more difficult. I know that following Jesus changes my life and the life of the world; yet I’m not so certain that I want it to change, even with the promise of something more. The author James Baldwin once wrote:

“Any real change implies the breakup of the world as one has always known it, the loss of all that gave one an identity, the end of safety. And at such a moment, unable to see and not daring to imagine what the future will now bring forth, one clings to what one knew, or dreamed that one possessed. Yet, it is only when a man is able, without bitterness or self-pity, to surrender a dream he has long cherished or a privilege he has long possessed that he is set free… for higher dreams, for greater privileges.”[5]

It is only in surrendering ourselves to following after Jesus do we begin to see God’s great dream for the world, do we begin to see the kingdom of heaven. “Follow me,” Jesus tells us, and “I will make you fish for people.” Hearing Jesus’ call we are to follow; out beyond the edges of safety and comfort, losing ourself in God’s great goodness, trading all we know and all we hold dear to venture out into the unknown, for in the Lord’s service is perfect freedom. Amen.

Epiphany 2, Year A, RCL: Isaiah 49:1-7, Psalm 40:1-12, 1 Corinthians 1:1-9, John 1:29-42

We are conditioned, at least in my mind, to pay attention to “first” things. We keep track of a baby’s first steps and first words with fevered intensity. Growing up, I remember each year’s “first day of school” as being a touchstone by which I knew a certain amount of time had passed. First kiss, first car, first love, first job… generally the first time something happens, we take note, and remember. “Firsts” make memorable milestones in our own lives and our relationships with others.

Our reading from John today contains Jesus’ first words in the fourth gospel. Yet, all too often, they get buried – buried under the incredible poetry of John’s prologue, perhaps overlooked next to John the Baptist’s two successive proclamations, given in Jesus’ presence, for those around to “Behold the Lamb of God!” We may often miss them, but there they are, right in the middle of today’s reading:

The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?”[1]

When he sees his new followers, Jesus asks them: “What are you looking for?” At first glance, this sounds like a rather ordinary, almost corrective question, like when a security guard asks an errant pedestrian “may I help you?” when they get a little bit off the prescribed path. Jesus’ question, though, is no mere pleasantry, because the people who hear it – both those who first left John to follow after the Lord on that day, and people like us, who read the fourth gospel two thousand years later, are well informed as to who Jesus is. It is, in fact, an invitation, issued from the mouth of a loving God to a beloved world.

For those who first left John to follow Jesus, it was abundantly clear who they were walking after; John’s words are clear: “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him[2]… I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.”[3] When we read Jesus’ question from John’s text today, we’ve already encountered that big, bold statement in the prologue: “and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us… and to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God…”

When God asks you what you’re looking for, how do you answer?
What are you looking for?

The people follow after Jesus in today’s lesson seem to know who Jesus is, and they reply to Jesus’ question with another one: “Teacher, where are you staying?” Their question, like Jesus’ previous one, at first glance seems relatively banal, a kind of pleasantry exchanged as a matter of a typical conversation with a person travelling from out of town. Yet the question can also be translated on a deeper level: “Teacher, where do you remain? Where do you abide? Where do you dwell?” Jesus’ response: “Come and see.”

When Jesus invites you to the place where God dwells, how do you answer?
What are you looking for?

“Come and see,” Jesus invites us. In today’s reading from John’s gospel, the people do; they follow after him, and do go and see the place where Jesus was literally staying that night. But the text tells us, “they remained with him that day.” But one of the ones who followed after him, Andrew, went and got his brother Simon first, and told him, “We have found the Messiah.” And Simon, Jesus then says, will be called Peter, Cephas, Rock.

This is a different kind of discipleship story then we’re used to. The three other gospels have brought another story of Jesus to front of our minds: the calling James and John by the Sea of Galilee – where the Lord says, “follow me and I will make you fishers of men.” Perhaps we think of the story of summoning of Matthew the tax collector to discipleship from his tax both with the single command, “follow me.” We certainly know that story of Jesus saying “if anyone would be my disciple, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.”

That call-response dynamic is certainly part of our life together with Jesus. Following after Jesus does mean hearing his call, and taking up his cross, and following. But today, John reminds us that it’s also a grand invitation to share in the life of God – an invitation to come and see that place where God dwells – where God abides.

Saint Augustine famously wrote in his Confessions, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”[4] Jesus’ question to his new followers, “what are you looking for?” speaks to their hearts, and it speaks to ours, because that one question defines so much of our lives. We’re all looking for something; and often, what we’re looking for is a better understanding of God; we’re looking for rest for our restless hearts. “No one has ever seen God,” John writes in the prologue, “It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.”

When Jesus gives those great words – “Come and see” - to those who would follow after him, he offers nothing less than an invitation to come and dwell in God’s fullness, for just as surely as God creates us, God gives us the grace – in Jesus Christ – to find our rest in him. God gives us grace upon grace in Jesus to truly know God, and live in God.

This is a grand invitation – come and see where God abides. Come and see where God dwells. Come find your rest. No wonder, then, that Andrew goes to tell his brother Simon about what who he has seen and the invitation he has received – “we have found the Messiah,” he says. Because the invitation to share in the life of God is one that cannot be hoarded, cannot be kept to ourselves. It’s an invitation that must be shared with others, because it is an invitation to life itself – the life of God who is the source of all life. It is truly good news. No wonder this was is the first message Jesus sends to those would be his disciples…

“Come and see,” Jesus says.

“Come and see,” Andrew repeats, “We have found the Messiah!”