Extra Ordinary

Propers: The Third Sunday after Epiphany, A.D. 2018 B

Homily:

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

Andrew and Simon—whom we will later come to know as Simon Peter—are dreamers.

They are fishermen, like their father, and their father’s father, and so on, likely all the way back to the resettlement of the Galilee. They live up in the north of the Holy Land, an area that has something of a reputation for country bumpkins. But these are no rubes. Andrew and Simon make strong use of their minds as well as their hands.

They remember, through story, a time when their nation was not ruled by the distant Senate and People of Rome. They have been raised on tales of Abraham and the Promised Land, of Moses and the Exodus, of David and Jerusalem. They know well the prophets of the Exile and the Return. And like most all faithful Jewish men, they look forward to the Messiah, the Anointed One promised by God, who would arise to claim the Throne of David and cast off the yoke of foreign oppression. The time, they knew, was nigh. The Messiah was at hand.

And so it was no small thing that these fishermen traveled from high in the north of Israel down along the Jordan River into the wilderness of Judea, where a remarkable prophet had arisen. He was known as John the Baptist, and while he himself was not the Messiah, he claimed to be His herald, His forerunner, the one crying out in the desert, “Make straight the paths of the Lord!” The Kingdom of God was at hand, John declared. Repent, and prepare to greet the Messiah!

Andrew and Simon did not simply visit John, mind you, like concert goers attending a show. Rather, they were disciples of John, following his teachings, taking his proclamation to heart. And this was remarkable for fishermen. Few were chosen to become rabbinical students, usually those who have shown great aptitude in academics. That John chose blue-collar workers for his ministry is a testament that the coming Kingdom would break many an expectation.

It was with John that Andrew and Simon first saw Jesus—to whom John boldly pointed and proclaimed, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” One could almost feel their excitement, their wonder, their awe. This was the great adventure for which Andrew and Simon had long dreamt, the calling for which they had left their home and their family and their livelihood. At last the Messianic Age was at hand! At last the promise would come in full!

And then right at the height of all their expectations, all their dreams—John is arrested. He is taken, imprisoned, and ultimately executed by an unjust ruler who values the amusements of his court over truth, or the dignity of human life.

And Simon and Andrew, it seems, go home, deflated, defeated. What else is there for them to do? All their hopes, all their dreams, all their longings for freedom and righteousness and the Kingdom of God, they see all of it dashed before their eyes. So they return to the lake and the boats and the nets that they know, with anguished heavy hearts, groaning deep within, “But we had hoped!”

Yet just as all seems darkest and all hope lost, they hear a voice: a familiar voice, calling them from the shore. And it’s Him! It’s the very one to whom John had so fervently pointed: Jesus of Nazareth, the Lamb of God! “The time is fulfilled,” He declares, “and the Kingdom of God has come near! Repent,”—that is, turn around, turn back—“and believe in the Good News!”

Simon and Andrew cannot drop their nets fast enough. Immediately—immediately, mind you—they clamber from their boats, cast off their nets, and follow Him along the shore. Likewise Jesus calls to James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who leave their father with the hired men in order to answer the Kingdom’s call.

Now we mustn’t think, mind you, that their poor fathers were left clueless and abandoned upon the waters. Quite the contrary! Their fathers were men of faith who had raised their sons to expect and prepare for the Messiah. Andrew and Simon, James and John, would never have known to follow the Kingdom’s call had their parents not heeded the prophets and raised their sons to have faith in the promise of God. Christ would have no Apostles had their fathers no faith.

And surely the road before them would be fraught with difficulties and dangers. Rome would be no pushover, to say nothing of the devil. But just when these men were at their lowest, just when the weight of the world seemed to press down their hearts deep into the grave, Jesus appeared—unexpectedly, locally—and their hopes, their joys, were raised up and redoubled.

Honestly, I think we can all sympathize with Andrew and Simon. We all grow up with great expectations, the possibilities of life laid out before us, and we dream of adventure and meaning and purpose, our opportunity to change the world. Yet as we age, our dreams must encounter the monotony of life. Every choice we make is an avenue closed. Every new strength, new skill, new freedom must give way to responsibilities—earn a living, pay your taxes, raise your family.

And we do this for the people and the communities we love. We sacrifice, for our neighbors, for our children, for the needs of our aging parents. And it is good that we do so; it is right. But sometimes the weight of it all seems more than we can bear. We are weighed down by the world, by its demands, by the toils and trials of everyday life.

And we ask ourselves, “What if? What if I had made a different choice, taken a different path?” But in truth, those who took those other paths are asking themselves the same thing. Life is a struggle no matter who you are or what you do.

Yet when we least expect Him—when we find ourselves knee deep in wet nets and fish guts—Jesus breaks into our lives. And He doesn’t do it out there somewhere, deep in the distant wilderness. But He comes to us right here, where we’re at, in our little towns, working our little jobs, to raise our little families. He comes to us when all seems lost, when hope seems dashed, calling us out, calling us home, calling us back to Him. “Turn back,” He says, “Turn to Me. The Kingdom has come, and has come to you here, so turn and believe the Good News.”

When all seems darkest, Jesus breaks in. He comes to us in a Word of forgiveness, a splash of water, a morsel of bread. He comes to us in promise and in love and in resurrection from the dead. He comes to us in the strangest and plainest of ways. And He does not call us to leave our families, leave our jobs, leave our homes behind. But He calls us to proclaim that the Kingdom has come to us—here and now—come to us in those very things of everyday life, family and friends, hearth and home, weal and woe.

And that call may lead us down unexpected paths and roads most leave untrod. But it is the call to recognize God hidden in our neighbor wheresoever we may be. While all of us are busy yearning for God out there beyond the horizon, He drops Himself right into our laps—if only we would bother to look down.

This is how the Kingdom comes, my friends. Not in war, not in revolution, not in fire or flood or the frenzy of the mob. No, the Kingdom comes in the most extraordinary way imaginable: It comes through ordinary men and ordinary women with our ordinary children in our ordinary lives.

May God make us worthy of such a great calling.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.