jesus chooses his disciples: narrative lectionary

the holy gospel according to luke, the 5th chapter, glory to you, o lord.

Once while Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, ²he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. ³He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. ⁴When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” ⁵Simon answered, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.” ⁶When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. ⁷So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink. ⁸But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” ⁹For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken; ¹⁰and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” ¹¹When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.

the gospel of the lord, praise to you, o christ.

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in high school sunday school, we’ve been watching a video series by rob bell.  a couple weeks ago when i taught sunday school the theme was discipleship.  we learned a couple things about those who were disciples to a rabbi that really stuck out to me.

1-disciples were the best of the best of the best as all others were filtered off into their family business and being a disciple was the dream job, such that a rabbi would go to a potential disciple—who had memorized the torah (the first 5 books of the bible), the talmud (the rest of the books that make up what we call the hebrew bible or old testament genesis through malachi), and the midrash, or commentary from the rabbi (referred to as the rabbi’s yoke)—and say “come, follow me” and a disciple would do it in a heartbeat.

2-the goal of discipleship was to be like your rabbi—to the extent that you walked right behind them and walked in what they walked in and the saying was “may you be covered in the dust of your rabbi.”

so, when jesus as a rabbi comes to simon and james and john to call them as disciples, he is not calling the best of the best—they’re already well into the family business, after all—but it’s no wonder they say yes!

it’s the dream job of the day!  the catch with jesus is that try as anyone might, they cannot follow him as they would another rabbi.  jesus is god incarnate—grace made real—and so while we can try to be like him, we will never be him.  we will never fully succeed.  his love and grace is so overflowing that it breaks the nets we cast and nearly submerges our boats!

this is the part of the sermon where i invited people to make use of the crayons, pens, and paper in their pews to reflect individually and then with someone next to them on the following two sets of questions:

1- what is your dream job?  if you could do anything and get paid for it, what would it be?            

what would you say if somebody came by out of the blue and offered you that job?                       

2-when has someone chosen you for something?  how/for what do you wish god would choose you?

as we move through lent this year, i invite you to reflect on how you might deepen your discipleship.  what would it take and what would it look like for you to be covered in the dust of jesus?  what would it mean to you?