Matthew 4: 18-22
Good morning fellow St. Andreans—or as some of our choir used to say,
“fellow St. Androids”-- family, neighbors, and friends. A special welcome and word of thanks, as for
so many years our friends of the Syria Highlanders have blessed us in the celebration. We are reminded by your presence to include
in our prayers the important work of the Shriners’ Hospitals for Children,
which you all continue to serve as your fundraising mission. It’s a great pleasure for us to have the opportunity
to share in that with you.
This year St. Andrew’s Day was also set by our Vestry as Stewardship
Sunday --and the idea was that St. Andrew’s
Day would be a good occasion to share a prayer of dedication of our offerings
of time, talent, and treasure. And in
that context I want to pause over a phrase in our gospel for St. Andrew’s Day that is at the thematic
and theological heart of what Matthew wants us to understand about Christian life,
Christian stewardship. From Matthew 4:
20. Jesus calls to Andrew and Peter, as
we hear every year on this day: “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of
men,” the beginning of a new chapter of the holy story, the first evangelistic
invitation to join in the life and work of the Church of God, the Body of
Christ. And then, Matthew tells us, “immediately they left their nets and
followed him.” And to shine a light
on those four key words: “they left their nets.”
The point here may seem fairly
obvious. But I’ll try to draw it out
anyway. Andrew and Peter were
fishermen. Their nets were their
livelihood, the tools of their trade.
Those nets were what made it possible for them to be fishermen, and so
to take care of themselves and their families.
The sign of their role in the community, the source of their paycheck
and their pension. And so, what this gesture
represents, this putting down of their
nets: from this point on in this
strange new way of life, say Andrew and Peter, we’re not going to be relying on
our skills and resources, we’re not
going to be trusting in our knowledge
and experience and professional expertise.
We’re not going to be known mainly as “fishermen” any more. That’s behind us now. It doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll never fish
again. But it will be just what we do,
not who we are. We’re putting our future
into your hands, Jesus. Who we are going
to be, what we are going to be about, from now on. We’re
going to take what you have to give, and be o.k. with that-- even if what you
have to give turns out to be different from what we thought before that we
wanted. From this point we’re going to
be following, you, Jesus. Not fishermen,
but disciples.
This is exactly the difference in the gospels between those who are in
the crowds, who come to see and hear Jesus, and those who become
disciples. The disciples are the ones
who put down their nets. Who stopped being what they were, and became
something new. It’s one of those resonating metaphors. They left their nets--which had given them
their identity, security, self-sufficiency-- in order to say that from that
moment on, Christ would be sufficient for them. They would trust in him from
here on out. I doubt these First Century
Palestinian Jewish fishermen would have appreciated contemporary Western Christian
praise songs, but perhaps as they dropped their nets and set out on this new
journey as disciples of Jesus they might have been singing the words of the popular Stuart Townend song,
“In Christ alone.” In Christ alone my hope is found, he is my light, my strength, my song. The
emphasis would have been on that word, “alone.”
In Christ alone. Following Jesus wasn’t going to be a hobby, a
special interest, something to attend to in their spare time, after work, on
weekends, on the side. What Matthew is
communicating in this small narrative detail, that they put down their nets, is that now and from now on, everything
is different for them.
They don’t seem really to think this over strategically. They just set the nets down. It’s not that the disciples will never go
fishing again. They will. But in this moment as Jesus calls and as they
answer his call everything changes, as they learn deep down from the passage
from Deuteronomy 8 that Jesus had quoted to Satan in the wilderness just a few
days before: “Man shall not live by
bread alone.” Or in this case,
fish. Whatever security and meaning
those nets had for these Galilean fisherman, something new, someone new, was in
front of them now, and they were turning to him.
It probably doesn’t take any of us very much time in reflection to
figure out what our nets are--and how
this story of the calling of our patron Andrew and the beginning of his
Christian life can speak into our lives and have something meaningful to say to
us on St. Andrew’s Day and Stewardship Sunday.
We have a custom of using those familiar words, “time, talent,
treasure.” Maybe part of it just to
think about what it is that is actually happening in us we fill out our blue
and pink pledge cards this and put them into the offering plate or pop them in
the mail. (Blue cards indicating our
financial commitment, the pink cards our offerings of our attention and talents
and spiritual gifts for the upbuilding of the church and its ministries.) The gospel truth of the matter is that if in
our hearts and minds we’re singing In Christ alone my hope is found,” then
our Stewardship Campaign and any Stewardship Campaign will have been a rousing success,
no matter how much money is raised and how many ministries are supported with
new participation. He is my light, my strength, my song. I
suppose it’s alternatively true to say that so long as we keep holding on
tightly to our nets, so long as we find ourselves thinking instead, this is what
I can give of my time and talent and treasure and still know for sure that I
can take care of myself and meet all my
goals and complete all my plans—then
maybe not so much. Even if we were to exceed
the annual 2017 budget goal and need in terms of dollars for the parish
operating budget, even if the sign-up sheets for congregational ministries and
activities were to be filled from top to bottom, it would be leaving us all right
where we were before. Still standing in the boat, and not walking on
into the future with Jesus.
A concluding story about nets. At
the Stewardship Dinner our keynote speaker the Rev. Adam Trambley talked about
how a number of years ago he and his wife Jane settled on the Biblical idea of
commitment to God of a tithe, 10% of their income each month, in their financial
pledge to their Church. At the dinner
you could sort of feel a little ripple of tension as he began to talk about
this. The word “tithe” doesn’t seem very
Episcopalian, I guess. But anyway: he said they were pretty sure as
the two of them talked it over that they could make it comfortably on 95% of
their income every month, by pledging 5% of their income, but that they were
not so sure that they could on 90% with a 10% pledge. So after a good deal of prayer and
discernment and sort of holding their breath: 90% is where they decided to set the bar. As an aside at one point he used the image
of the circus trapeze artist swinging high in the air without a net. A slightly
mixed metaphor, but it does connect with us and with Andrew and Peter this
morning. And boy: right about there is about as brave
as I could imagine a young married couple to be--with kids raise and feed and
send to college, and a mortgage, and
student loans, and all the rest. 10% is
a lot, and they committed that first, and then decided to manage all the rest
of their family budget from the 90% remaining.
Adam shared with us some stories about how that decision and commitment
began to transform their lives, their marriage, in small ways and in some
dramatic ways, shaping their sense of themselves as husband and wife, as
parents, as Christians. He actually said he thought this decision
saved his marriage. He didn’t go into
any detail, but clearly a very powerful experience. And he said, and I would repeat, so that
everybody could breathe and keep listening, even Episcopalians, that what
wasn’t important was the legalistic calculation of some specific percentage or
amount of pledge by an arbitrary formula, 5%, 10%, or whatever. The point for them and for us was just to do
whatever it would take to move us out of our comfort zone. The question, what does it take, time,
talent, treasure, how much does it take, that we would give away, put down, let
go of, so that we find ourselves needing to rethink everything else in a new way? That’s where it gets exciting, Adam
said. Where all this “stewardship” talk finally
comes into focus. Wherever the tipping
point is between security in the idea that we’re in charge and can take care of
ourselves, and the risk in the idea that we can’t quite see how it’s going to
work, and that we are going to need to seek God’s guidance and God’s
protection. Putting down our nets. Working without a net. That with prayer we are going to put
ourselves in the hands of Jesus, and to trust in him with all our hearts.
Blessings, friends of St. Andrew’s, on this St. Andrew’s Day, and in
our homes and families, our circles of friends, our neighborhoods, the places
we work and study and play. Blessings on
this St. Andrew’s Day and as we move toward Advent next Sunday and a New Year.'
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