Catch and Release

St. Paul's United Methodist Church
Matthew 4: 12-13, 18-23, Rev. Marianne Niesen, January 27, 2008  

       

Sometimes, when you read or hear a text from the Bible, you can get so caught up in the story itself that you can miss essential elements that make all the difference.  This text is one of those.  Of course, the story of how Jesus called his first disciples is important - but before we get to that I want to talk about geography (yes, geography!) for a moment.  We learn a lot about Jesus and about God’s call from the geography in this passage.

Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested he withdrew to Galilee.  Geography. Jesus had just been baptized by John in the Jordan and was then in the Judean desert.  He was in the more southern part of the country - near Jerusalem.  He no sooner heard of John’s arrest than he withdrew to Galilee.  In other words, he went home.  He got horrible news and he knew what would happen in the end to John - things would not turn out well - they never did when one had a run-in with the Romans.  So Jesus did what we all want to do at times like this . . .he went home.  To Mom and Dad and family and things familiar.  He wanted to sleep in his own bed and have some home-cooked meals.  He went home to Nazareth. If you have ever had a question about the humanity of Jesus, this should put it to rest.  A very human Messiah-to-be went home.

Let me tell you about Nazareth.  As you know, that was Jesus’ home. It was where he grew up.  In Jesus’ day, it was truly a town of no significance. In fact, it was so small, it could hardly have been considered a town.  It was more a settlement of several families - some estimates say there were only a few hundred people. It was a place where everyone knew everyone.  Nazareth was located in the ‘hill country’ of Galilee and it was not ‘on the road’ to anywhere.  People would seldom just ‘pass through’ Nazareth - you had to want to go there.  In fact, that is true even today.   It’s still a place you have to go out of your way to get to. One of my favorite experiences in Nazareth happened the first time I visited there. It was January 6th - the Orthodox Christmas - and we wanted to see the Church of Mary’s Well.  It is a relatively small church built over the only well in town - a well that has been in existence since before the time of Jesus.  It is the well to which Mary would have come to draw water for her family - a place she would have brought her son in his growing-up years. The Church of Mary’s Well is an orthodox church and when we arrived, it was closed.  Services had been held and all had gone home for the holiday.  An Arab Christian member of the congregation saw us standing outside the church and offered to get a key to open it up just for us.  That’s the kind of stuff that happens in small towns.  No visit I’ve made to the church since has been as special as that one . . .the church was filled with the smells of a just celebrated Christmas . . candles, incense . . a few papers strewn on the floor, chairs out of place, wreaths and greens everywhere. We were the only ones there so we actually got to kneel at the well and taste the water and imagine a young Mary, child Jesus in tow, carrying a water jug, arriving at that well. That imagining took some work because there’s a church over what would have been an open air gathering space.  Still, it was possible.  We profusely thanked our Arab Christian friend who took time from his own Christmas to be hospitable to us, and went our way.  There were no souvenir stands or market stalls open that day. It was just a small town, where the townsfolk had withdrawn for the holiday. 

Hold that image of Nazareth . . . a small town, very homogeneous, very sheltered . . . a good place to raise children.  It was to that place that Jesus ‘withdrew.’  It was that place he called home.  And it was the people there who formed him and raised him. That is a good reminder to us all that God most often works in and uses very ordinary people and very ordinary, even out-of-the-way, places to do extraordinary things. God used an ordinary woman who drew water at a well and an ordinary man who made things from wood and stone and an ordinary town on the road to nowhere to raise up the Messiah.  The ordinary can truly become extraordinary with God!

But there’s more!  Jesus only stayed home, in Nazareth, for one verse.  Briefly.  He withdrew . . . and then he forged on.  We are told he left Nazareth and made his home at Capernaum by the sea.  Again, it would be easy to miss the significance here.  Geography helps. “The sea” is the Sea of Galilee.  That body of water was and is the life-blood of the nation.  It is the only fresh water lake in the country.  It’s a vacation spot - like Flathead Lake is to Montana - and it’s been a vacation spot since before the time of Jesus. So, it attracted people - many kinds of people. Capernaum was located on that important body of water. It was also located on the main road in the known world of the time.  It was on the “Via Maris” or the “Way by the Sea.  That road led along the Mediterranean Sea from Egypt to the north (toward Greece and Rome) and a fork in the road branched off, leading to the “East” (or Persia). Capernaum was at or near the crossroads of that north-south, east-west route.  It was a hub city.  It was a center of culture, travel and trade.  It was the place taxes would have been collected.  It was a place to sell wares, to buy what could not be bought in isolated villages like Nazareth.  And because it was populous, it was a place where tensions ran high - between Jews and Gentiles, Romans and Jews, rich and poor, priests and laity, tax collectors and tax payers.  Jesus left the security of his home and his family and made a new home in a place very unlike the town in which he was raised. Conflict and unrest were guaranteed in Capernaum.  There, he would come face to face with . . . the people his mother had warned him about. This was where Jesus chose to go to begin his mission and where he would carry out the main part of his ministry. Geography again . . . from the turmoil in the south to rest at home and right back out to the messiness of life . . . it was a balancing act Jesus would continue his whole life.

Capernaum exists today only in ruins. Excavations have uncovered remnants of what is believed to have been ‘Peter’s house’ - the place Jesus eventually lived in Capernaum.  There are also ruins of a synagogue built on the site where the synagogue of Capernaum probably stood in Jesus’ day.  And as one sits there on the stone benches of the synagogue, looking out toward the Sea Galilee on one side and toward the hills beyond which Nazareth is nestled on the other, that balancing act becomes clear.  It is something we all must do.  We leave the safety and security of one place to travel where we might not really want to go. Or we leave turmoil, searching for respite in a peaceful place.  That’s the process of growing up and it is something we have to keep doing in life and faith - and it is hard at any age. There must have times Jesus loved the hustle and bustle of Capernaum and other times he longed to ‘withdraw’ to the familiar, to the safety and security of Nazareth. In fact, long before Jesus prayed his prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, I imagine he prayed a similar prayer right there in the synagogue of Capernaum . . . why me?  Why now?  What now?  There are times in all of our lives when we have to make choices that are terribly difficult.  And when those choices or those times seem overwhelming, it is good to withdraw, to pause and breathe and remember that we are never alone.

And then the text continues . . . as he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers . . . 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.   Later he finds two other brothers, mending nets and calls them as well and they follow.

More geography.  Very near to Capernaum, there is a small inlet in the lake named Tabgha. They call it the ‘fisherman’s suburb’ of Capernaum.  There are a series of springs there and, especially in the winter, the warm water draws schools of fish called ‘muscht’ that can best be caught at night with nets. They are a good eating fish with few bones.  It was almost certainly in that area that Jesus found Peter and the others doing what fishermen did . . . fishing or mending nets.  Today one kind of muscht caught there is named “St. Peter’s fish.”  But, when Jesus called Peter he wasn’t a saint yet or a leader with a fish named after him.  He was just an ordinary guy doing his job.  That’s how God most often works, of course . . . with us ordinary folk.  Again, the setting of this event is so instructive.  No occupation is too ordinary, no place is too ordinary, no person is too ordinary for the call of God. In other words, it doesn’t matter who we are or where we are, God has something for us to do in this world of ours . . . something that will make a difference. Our problem most often is not that we aren’t trained, but that we aren’t listening or don’t like what we hear!

And that brings me to one part of this story that has always bothered me.  I have often wondered about what happened to the families of Peter and Andrew and James and John because it sounds as if these guys just tossed in their nets and took off following a homeless guy who didn’t even have a well-thought-out plan yet. Remember, those fishermen weren’t fishing for pleasure - that was their career, their livelihood - and the livelihood of their families. What in heaven’s name is noble about them turning their backs on their families and the commitments they’d made?  Poor Zebedee - how did he explain what happened to the folks at home? 

Last week, I was reading a mystery novel.  It has absolutely no redeeming value except that it was a good story and I enjoyed it.  And, as sometimes happens, that novel gave me a new take on this seaside incident.  The protagonist, a retired homicide investigator, reflected with relief that an obnoxious woman he had met, who he thought was going to pester him relentlessly for information he couldn’t share, suddenly lost interest.  He mused that though he was relieved he found himself feeling a bit like a trout must feel when it gets caught and thrown back - relieved but wondering why?  What’s wrong with me anyway?

I’ve come to believe that’s what happened to Peter and the others that day.  They weren’t captured and spirited away - caught and kept, eaten up by a traveling preacher.  They were caught and released. Released to do what they had always done - and more besides! The geography of Galilee helps.  It is relatively small and the sea is prominent.  Most of Jesus’ ministry was around the sea.  I think Peter and Andrew and James and John, left their nets that afternoon and spent time with Jesus and then went back to their nets, transformed, renewed, remade - or at least in that process.  Their lives were caught in a new rhythm of fishing for fish and fishing for people.  They were caught and released to make a difference in their world - first right there at home in Capernaum and later, of course, beyond home.  After all, Jesus lived with Peter and his family - even curing Peter’s mother-in-law at one point. Life changed for them all. Jesus and his message worked on them and in them.  But it happened first right there, in and around the sea which was never far away. Little by little, they were challenged to feed not just their families but the hungry who lived on the streets and the seashore.  They crossed the boundaries that separated clean from unclean as they followed Jesus curing lepers and touching women and talking to Romans.  Jesus caught them alright . . .caught them for a ministry of transformation that began right at home, which is always the hardest - and usually the best - place to start.

You might ask, of course - if I’m right, why doesn’t the scripture tell us this? Here’s my theory . . . it doesn’t tell us because fishermen fishing was not remarkable.  That was expected.  Good Jewish men being good husbands and providers was expected.  But good Jewish fishermen who began to cross those lines of separation, who began to cure diseases and feed the hungry - that was remarkable.  So I think those fishermen faithfully fished even as they began to follow a remarkable rabbi who challenged them to transform their world into God’s kingdom on earth as it was in heaven. Caught and released for ministry right there.  Which is how it is for us all.

The call of God in our lives is not something that takes us out of the world . . . it is something that sends us into the world.  Those fishermen began to live with Jesus, to listen to him.  They began to love the people he loved and to care about the things for which he cared. They were caught and released and so are we. Jesus’ program then and now is one of catch and release.  Being Christian is not primarily what we do here, in this church as we sing hymns and say prayers.  Those are good things but the real test of our faith is what we do out there.  The final verse tells us that Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in the synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people. That’s our job - to figure out how to do that in our geography . . . in our ordinary town of Helena, at the crossroads of our lives.  We are to follow Jesus in our day just as those fishermen did in theirs. And like those fishermen, we still have our ordinary lives to live and responsibilities and commitments - our challenge is to live differently in the midst of it all.   It is to live a spirit of generosity in a culture that values amassing wealth. It is to live with hospitality at a time when fear is the prevalent motivator.  It is to forgive when revenge is a much more understandable response.

Now it makes sense to me - and hopefully to you.  We are a transformed people called to transform the world.  Caught and released - right now, right here.