“Immediately” - Sermon by Senior Minister Deborah K. Stevens Jan. 27, 2008, at North Broadway United Methodist Church, Columbus, Ohio

Scripture: Isaiah 9:1-4, Matthew 4:12-23

Twice in the Matthew text we hear of people who left their current situation to follow Jesus. Left “immediately.” For whom, I wonder, would any of us do anything immediately?

I suspect that any of us would come running immediately if we heard a distress call from a loved one. The sound of one of my children crying out could certainly make me drop everything and run immediately to them. We hear from time to time of persons who without thought for their own safety rush immediately to the aid of others in a crisis. A sense that something is an emergency can cause us to take action immediately, and I suppose there are times when a sense of urgency might come from eager anticipation so that we would act immediately.

Crowds gathered for a big event don’t hesitate when the doors are unlocked; they surge forward immediately. People given an extraordinary opportunity might act immediately to gain an advantage over others. You know, ‘Call immediately. This offer expires in 10 minutes.’ A ringing phone or a doorbell might summon us to an immediate response. The buzz of our Blackberry may have trained us to believe that every message requires an immediate response. Most of the time, either a real or perceived sense of urgency underlies an immediate response or action.

So when I read Matthew’s account of the call of the first four disciples, I can’t help but wonder what Matthew is trying to tell his readers about the nature of discipleship that compels him to describe the response of Peter and Andrew and James and John as “immediate.” “Immediately they left their nets and followed.” “Immediately they left their boat and their father and followed.”

If there is a particular urgency inherent in the lives of these four fishermen, we certainly get no hint of that in the text. But perhaps there is an urgency in the lives of Matthew’s audience. Perhaps those to whom this gospel is addressed are people who are living on the boundary between commitment to the values proclaimed by Jesus and commitment to the values of the culture in which they live. The gospel writer perceives, perhaps, that there is an urgent need for the listeners to commit fully to the values of the kingdom of heaven which Jesus both proclaims and embodies.

There is one other situation, perhaps, that can evoke an immediate response from us. That is if something so catches our attention, so cries out to us that we must have it so that we will drop everything to pursue it. This is not all that uncommon an experience for us, I suspect. We are bombarded with advertising that seeks to evoke from us an immediate response. 

The year I graduated from pharmacy school, a British sports car company introduced a car called the Triumph TR-7. This car had a wedge shape. It was very sleek and low in the front and it sloped up and then it was kind of boxy in the back. A series of television commercials ran for this car which highlighted its wedge shape. In all kinds of settings you would see the car being driven and then it would be driven into a garage that was wedge-shaped to fit the profile of the car. I remember that one of these commercials featured a wedge-shaped igloo into which the car was driven by an Eskimo.

Now it’s hard to buy a car immediately, but I bought one in British racing green almost immediately. With my diploma and my first real job under my belt, I financed that car with no down payment at an alarming interest rate. My sports car and I had a fabulous relationship. It was fun to drive. It was mechanically a disaster and was always under recall or in the shop. It had no traction on snow whatsoever and it was a week before I could go anywhere in that car after the blizzard of 1978. You never see those cars on the road anymore. They didn’t exactly become classics because their only attraction was the exterior design. The engine and transmission, as it turned out, had been cobbled together from parts left over from other British Leyland models and when those parts inevitably failed because they weren’t made for each other, new ones were impossible to find and expensive if you could find them.

I’m telling you, that little car was a head-turner, but it could not be counted on. No question it turned my head immediately when I saw it, but it didn’t really change my life. I sold it when our first child was born, needing to be more practical, to a friend who promised to keep it for me. But he parked it on a hill in Cincinnati and the dump truck parked behind it had a failure of its emergency brake, so it’s gone.

Perhaps the urgency that Matthew perceives is the danger that we’re in when we are captured by that which will not change our lives and upon which we cannot count. Do you suppose these disciples were like us in that their heads could be turned by the latest new fishing net design and the sleek new boat that their neighbor was building but they found in Jesus something so much more compelling, something so much more attractive that they willingly, eagerly, immediately turned away from nets and boat and even family to follow him?

Has there ever been a time in the life of the church when the power and presence of Jesus was so compelling that disciples would immediately turn away from other things to follow Jesus? Something about Jesus, the gospel tells us, has the ability to turn heads and turn lives in a new direction. Matthew wants us to know, I think, that following Jesus is worthy of an immediate response.

Do you know that in Jesus’ day, rabbis (teachers) in the Jewish tradition did not choose their disciples? Disciples pursued the teachers under whom they wanted to learn, much as students today pursue the college of their choice. A teacher could accept a student or deny a student, just as colleges accept or deny students. All Jewish children who were being raised in the faith of their family learned their basic lessons orally. They then might seek to become the student of one of the rabbis. If deemed worthy of the rabbi’s attention and promising as students of the Torah, they were accepted. If not, they became – well, maybe fishermen.

We don’t know if Andrew and Peter and James and John had pursued higher learning from a rabbi and been rejected. All we know is that when they met Jesus they were fishing. We don’t have any of the back story on these four fishermen. The gospel teller, Matthew, has been focusing up until this time on Jesus and John the Baptist. We are not told the story from the perspective of the disciples. We are told the story from the perspective of an observer.

We don’t hear the disciples say, “Well we were out fishing and we saw Jesus coming and this is what we thought.” There is no evidence that they already knew Jesus’ reputation – this occurs very early in his ministry in the gospel narrative. There is nothing to indicate to us that these four fishermen approached Jesus and said, “Oh please rabbi, master, would you take us as your students?” Oh no – Jesus chooses them. Jesus invites them – more than invites them, compels them: “Follow me.”

It’s as though Jesus is saying, “It doesn’t matter what else hasn’t worked out for you. It doesn’t matter who else rejected you. It doesn’t matter how invested in the fishing business you have become. I am not a rabbi who’s going to sit in the temple and wait for you to come to me. I have come to you, and I am telling you, follow me and I will transform your fishing abilities so that you change the lives of people.”

In John’s gospel, Jesus will tell the disciples, “You did not choose me. I chose you.” We all know what it feels like to be not chosen. We all know what it feels like to be rejected. Andrew and Simon and James and John show us what it feels like to be chosen. They are compelled to follow, and they do. But in order to follow, they must leave their nets. They must leave their boat.

Perhaps the first two, Andrew and Simon, are contract fishermen and own only their own nets, for we are told simply that they left their nets behind. The stakes seem to be somewhat higher for James and John. We are told they leave their boat and their father, so they are perhaps leaving the family business to which they are the heirs.

Matthew also wants us to know, I think, that discipleship – following Jesus – will always require choices. Some things must be left behind in order to follow Jesus. In the next chapters of Matthew’s gospel it will be made clear in Jesus’ own words what some of the things are that need to be left behind. The Sermon on the Mount is a brilliant literary feature of Matthew’s gospel in which the authority of Jesus’ teaching is established and the values of the kingdom of heaven, which comes near in Jesus, are explained.

I can tell you with all honesty that Jesus chose me a long time before the light shined in the darkness through those words and the gospel began to turn my head. My response was in no way immediate. But it finally was through studying the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s gospel in Disciple Bible Study that I first began to grasp that some things would need to be left behind in order for me to really follow Jesus. I am still learning literally decades later how hard it is to make those sacrifices.

But there is an opportunity for “immediate” in every moment of our lives. Every moment of choice asks of us, immediately, “What will you do?” As the Sermon on the Mount makes clear, our immediate choices can move us closer to the kingdom of heaven, even in the midst of our present circumstances, although that is an illusion because we’re told the kingdom of heaven is near already. Our eyes can be opened to its presence.

Can we not in a moment of anger turn away from judgment and choose grace? Can we not when we are wronged immediately reject vengeance and embrace the ‘70 times 7' forgiveness that Jesus proclaims? Can we not when there is division immediately act to pursue reconciliation? Can we not when enemies abound choose immediately to love and pray for them as Jesus commands? Can we not immediately decide to embrace more fully charity and stewardship of time, money and talent? Can we not immediately claim what it means to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world as disciples of Jesus Christ?

Well, truth be told, most of us have to grow into those ‘immediate’ choices, don’t we? That’s what the means of grace are for. Whenever we encounter the word of God, whenever we encounter the words of Jesus, whenever we encounter the examples of the saints, whenever we encounter God in prayer, in the study of scripture, in worship, in Christian community, we encounter the invitation, which is not in the gospel so much an invitation as an imperative: Follow me.

And when our nets are getting old and worn and our boats are leaky and our flashy cars are always in the shop and our lives are tired and we fear that we will never be chosen, there it is, all the time, always present – the imperative that we are free to ignore or freed to obey: Follow me.

Cute little cars still turn my head, but I don’t make long-term commitments anymore; now I lease them, and it’s a more reliable model. Things will always turn our heads, but can we not immediately let Jesus turn our head? You know, where your head goes, your feet will follow. When my kids were little and we were trying to walk through a crowd, I would always tell them, “Head and feet have to be in the same direction.” If they’re looking here, they’re not going to walk there, and neither are we.

God is in the business of transforming the world. God has chosen to carry on that work through the church, and the church is nothing more and nothing less than the community of disciples that began with Simon and Andrew and James and John leaving what they had to follow Jesus.

We may think we chose to be here today, but none of us are here but by the grace of God. God has already chosen us. Jesus is always saying, “Follow me.” Have you left behind what you must to follow? What invitation to discipleship calls out to you for an immediate response?

It’s sometimes the simplest thing: the little paragraph in The Weekly or the Tower Talk that says ‘people needed to serve here.’ It’s sometimes the simplest thing to teach a child to be faithful in prayer, to turn off the television and pick up your devotional book, to pick up the phone and call a friend that you know needs encouragement, to be a little more generous in your giving. What more could you do in your giving if you could leave behind a couple cups of Starbucks every week?

It’s sometimes the hardest thing to leave behind our own preferences, our own comfort, our own chosen path. But Jesus never gives up. He’s always coming near. He’s always in our midst saying, “Follow me.” Now to those fishermen he said, “I’ll make you fishers of people.” I think we might say it this way in our world: Jesus is always here, always saying to us, “Follow me. I’ll rock your world.”

How will your story be told? If this were your story, how would you fill in the blank: “Immediately I left my (blank) and followed”? That’s my invitation to you this week – discover your story. What did you leave, or what must you leave, to follow Jesus...immediately?