Sermon 640+January 23, 2011

Third Sunday after the Epiphany
771st Week as Priest
597th Week at St Dunstan’s

A Close Reading of Scripture.

Grace to you and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

I am completely captured by the story of the calling of the disciples. Like a fish in a net. And like Simon and Andrew, James and John, I’m ready to jump in the water and follow him wherever he’s going.

In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus walks by the Sea of Galilee and sees Simon (who is called Peter from the first moment) and Andrew his brother. They are fishing. “Follow me,” says Jesus, “and I will make you fishers of men” and women. Then he sees James and John, the sons of thunder, or in Aramaic, “Boanerges,” the sons of Zebedee. Immediately, Jesus calls them, and they leave their father with the boat and the servants and follow him.

In Mark’s gospel the story is practically the same, and it appears almost at the very beginning. Jesus is passing along by the Sea of Galilee, and he sees two brothers, Simon and Andrew, who are fishing. He calls them. James and John are mending the nets with their father. Jesus calls them too, and immediately they leave the boat, their father, perhaps their families, certainly all safety and security—and they follow him.

In Luke, Jesus is standing beside Lake Gennesaret. The people are pressing upon him to hear the word of God. Jesus sees two fishing boats close by, but the men have left them and are mending their nets. Jesus climbs into Simon’s boat and asks him to put out a little from the shore. Then he sits down and teaches the people from the boat. When he has finished, Jesus tells Simon to “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” Simon complains—beginning another pattern that lasts throughout the gospel stories. He says they’re tired. They’ve been fishing all night and have caught nothing. But if you insist, which he, Jesus, gently does. And they let down the nets and enclose, miraculously, a great catch of fish, enough to break the nets. James and John come quickly to help. They are his partners, says Luke’s gospel. Andrew, it seems, is not named. The sons of Zebedee come to Simon’s aid—now, for the first time, called Simon Peter—and both boats are quickly filled with fish, enough to sink them. Simon falls at the feet of Jesus, in the middle of the boat, and says, “Depart from me, O Lord, for I am a sinful man.” Well, he is. And he will prove it several times over in the years to come. But Jesus has use to make of him. “Don’t be afraid,” he says. “From now on, you will be catching people.” And then, Luke says, when they all returned to the shore with the overflowing catch of fish, they left everything and followed him.

I love this story. Or I should say, these versions of the story. There are not many stories about Jesus that appear the exact same in the three “synoptic” gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. But here is one that tells basically the same story, the call of Simon and Andrew, and of James and John, two sets of brothers, all fishermen, all of whom become the four first disciples.

This is what is called “close reading.” It’s when you go to the text, the story itself, and you read with great care and attention to detail. You take note of every word, everything said by each person, and you compare those with other stories in scripture. Here, we are fortunate to find Mark’s story repeated in both Matthew and Luke, and it is much the same, but we have already seen some fine differences.

They tell us things that we would not otherwise have known. For instance, Luke’s gospel story is much more of a story. Gennesaret is simply another name for the Sea of Galilee; it is not a different place on the map. But there is more detail here. Jesus has a purpose in being there. He has just taught and healed people in Capernaum, and he has tried to find peace and quiet in what he thought would be a lonely place. But the crowds have followed him here, and he tries to explain, “I must preach the good news of the Kingdom of God to the other cities also.” But they follow him.

This sounds like the real story, doesn’t it? This sounds like a fuller explanation of why Jesus is at the seashore and what he is doing there. But it is undeniably the same story, isn’t it? Matthew, Mark, and Luke have all remembered this important event of the calling of the first disciples—but one has remembered, or chosen to tell, more of the story than the other two.

So far, we’ve been reading from the Revised Standard Version and the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible. The RSV was used in the Episcopal Church until sometime in the 1980s, when it was replaced by the NRSV. But it’s also helpful in a close reading of scripture, to look at other translations to discover more of the message, more of the detail, more of the truth. For instance, the New English Bible has James and John “overhauling their nets” in Mark’s gospel. This tells us that these men are fishermen by vocation. Fishing for them is no weekend hobby. It is their life, their life’s work, and they do the work competently and for the long haul. They are not intending to leave the boats or the nets or their father for any reason whatsoever. And yet, they do.

In the Good News Bible, Luke’s version of this story makes it clear that Simon is the owner of the first boat, an experienced fisherman, and yet he obediently orders his men to let down the nets. In the Living Bible, in Mark’s story, Simon and Andrew are described as “commercial fishermen.” Jesus tells them to follow him, and he will make them “fishers for the souls of men.” It may not sound so, but this kind of fishing is of eternal importance. The other kind pales in comparison.

There’s a new and very contemporary translation of the New Testament called The Message that is worth reading in its entirety, if for no other reason than that you’ve never heard the Bible like this before … here is Mark’s story of the calling of the four disciples:

Passing along the beach of Lake Galilee, Jesus saw Simon and his brother Andrew net-fishing. Fishing was their regular work. He said to them, “Come with me. I’ll make a new kind of fisherman out of you. I’ll show you how to catch men and women instead of perch and bass.” They didn’t ask questions. They dropped their nets and followed. A dozen yards or so down the beach, he saw the brothers James and John, Zebedee’s sons. They were in the boat, mending their fishnets. Right off, he made the same offer. Immediately, they left their father Zebedee, the boat, and the hired hands, and followed.”

What is this all about? Well, it’s about the way in which we read scripture, the attention we give to the readings each week in this service. Too often we hear them, but we don’t really hear them. Almost in one ear and out the other. Or we might hear part of the story. And that’s not bad. After all, we do read a lot of the Bible in Sunday services in the Episcopal Church. You can always count on an Old Testament Lesson, a Psalm, a passage from one of Paul’s Letters or the Acts of the Apostles, and then certainly a Gospel story.

But my point is this: The stories are very important. In fact, they are like no other stories you and I have ever read. You can read the Gospel of Mark and find in it something about who God is and who we human beings are, that you won’t find in the gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John. And you can read a different translation of the same passage, and discover something brand new, and surprisingly true, something that you never thought about before. Remember, it’s called “close reading,” and I highly recommend this way of reading Holy Scripture.

In the gospel story, Jesus has just announced that the time has come, the Kingdom of God is here, and all must change the direction of their lives and believe the Good News. Now Jesus must find people who share his vision.

But here is how remarkable the Bible actually is: Jesus makes the same announcement to us, today, in our own lives. He still wants fishers of people, men and women and boys and girls who are patient and determined and not easily discouraged, people who can decide in an instant to commit themselves—for a lifetime—to the cause.

It is the story of calling Simon and Andrew, James and John, but it is also the story of calling you, and me, and generations yet to be born.

Every time you pick up a Bible, every time you read a passage, you will be challenged in a way that is different and striking and unlike the last time you read the Bible or even that same passage of scripture. I will often describe the Bible as “The Most Important of Books,” but one of my professors at Sewanee used to say that the Bible is the most dangerous of all books. It’s true: Reading it—and hearing it, really hearing and understanding what it is saying—will change you and will change your life. That, I can guarantee. Amen.

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