I don’t know how many of you spend a lot of time in the vicinity of St. Mary’s Hospital, but I spend quite a lot of time there, visiting the folks in our congregation who are ill.  And for the past seven months, nearly every time I go over there, at some point I stop dead on the sidewalk as I’m walking to or from the hospital, and I watch – often with my mouth hanging open in awe – the work of the big crane operator.

            For those of you who haven’t been by there recently, this crane is huge – ten or eleven stories tall – it is very, very tall.  And all the way up at the top (I’m assuming) there sits a man or a woman who operates the crane, moving around the steel beams and concrete posts and other huge, heavy building-related things from place to place on the ground.

As I watch, I wonder things like:  how does he or she actually get up there in the mornings?  how does this person take a bathroom break?  isn’t it terrifying if the wind is blowing?  And I am awestruck, as I see the delicacy with which this person operates this huge piece of machinery – picking up some enormous, awkward, bulky object, moving it perhaps only a couple of feet from one place to another, and sitting it down exactly in place, exactly where it needs to be to do its work.  Some of you know what I mean when I say it is truly an awe-inspiring thing to watch such skilled workers doing their work.

            Now, fast-backward in time about 2,000 years, to where Jesus was having a similar experience in our Gospel story this morning.

Matthew’s version of this story tells us that Jesus has recently moved from Nazareth, the town in which he had grown up and lived all his life, to Capernaum.  And so one morning – perhaps exploring his new home – perhaps actually on a quest to begin to identify people who will travel with him, and support him in his ministry (his disciples) – Jesus goes for a walk along the lakeshore.  And like me and the hospital crane-operator, Jesus stops – maybe with his mouth hanging open – to watch the skill of some of the fishermen who are out in their boats.

            He sees two of these men – men with huge shoulders and upper arms, all those muscles developed from endless hours of heavy wrestling with nets and fish – skillfully lift one of the heavy nets folded into the bow of their fishing-boat, and gracefully – as if they were dancing – they lift and twirl and toss it into the sea, letting it settle exactly into place, exactly where it needs to be to do its work.  Maybe he watches them work for the rest of the afternoon.  He almost certainly waits until they’ve come in from their day of fishing, and are cleaning up their boat, and drying out their nets, and setting out the day’s good catch for sale, and then he walks up to them, and says “Come with me.  Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.”  And the storyteller says, “immediately they left their nets and began to follow him.”

            And then apparently they all keep walking down the beach, and see two more men, along with their father, sitting next to their boat that’s been pulled up on the shore, and mending their nets after a long day’s work.  And Jesus says to them, too, “follow me.”  And the storyteller says, “immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.” 

            And we hear this story – which many of us have heard many times before – and say to ourselves, “of course.”  Jesus called.  They went.  Of course.  What else could a person do if Jesus called them?

            But there’s no “of course” about any of this.

            We don’t know a whole lot about these four men, but we do know that at least one of them – Simon, also called Peter, was married, with a wife and mother-in-law who lived with them, and presumably a houseful of children.  We know that James and John were in business with their father Zebedee, and that the business was so successful they also employed hired men.  We know that whether they owned their own business (as Peter and Andrew may have) or shared the business responsibilities (as James and John did with their father), there were a whole bunch of people depending on each one of those men to keep showing up on that beach day after day, and putting their boats out, and bringing in the catch, and making a living for and with their families.

            And so, their standing up, and walking off, and leaving their work, their business, their families to “follow” (whatever that meant) this man … to go and “fish for people” (whatever that meant) … would have had very real – and very difficult – financial and social consequences for them and for their families.  How would they earn a living?  What would happen to their wives and children – to their fathers and mothers – who depended on them?  How would they keep food on the table, or a roof over the heads of their loved ones?

Not only that, sometimes we forget (because we know the story so well) that at this point, Simon and Andrew and James and John didn’t know anything about this guy Jesus.  He was just at the very beginning of his ministry … he hadn’t performed any miracles yet, hadn’t preached any sermons yet, had never been interviewed on Oprah, never made the evening news – he’s just an ordinary guy who they may have shared a cup of wine with at the local Chamber of Commerce newcomers’ meeting, and he walks up to them and says, “Follow me.”  Follow him where?  Follow him to do what?  Follow him why?  And yet, apparently without pausing, they do.

            And so, one huge question this story raises is, what is it about Jesus that draws these skilled, competent, successful people to Him, that makes them drop everything else that’s important in their lives, simply because he tells (or invites) them to come with him?  And perhaps a better question still is:  What is it that draws us to Jesus?  What makes us want – or want not – to follow Him today?

            Those fishermen – and all the others whom Jesus collected on his travels – knew – in that space between his question, and the moment they stood up and crawled out of their boats in response – that following Jesus was going to be costly – in very real ways.  We know – especially if we’ve ever gotten really serious about trying to do this – that following Jesus today is costly – in very real ways.

We know it takes time.  We know it takes effort.  We know it takes truly sacrificial giving, of all kinds.  Even so, this morning, as we read our responsive Call to Worship, we may have unthinkingly responded, “We want to follow Jesus.”  But if we really get serious about it – if we stop to really think about what we’re saying – I’m guessing that most of us have to ask ourselves, do we really?  Do we really want to follow Jesus?

Do we really want to try to live out the same kind of acceptance of all people – with the same kind of tolerance – with the same kind of care and compassion for all people – as Jesus showed?  Do we really want to do all that stuff he said we have to do – stuff like loving God with all our hearts, and minds, and souls, and strength, and loving our neighbor as ourselves – if we’re going to really follow him?

            In today’s passage, we’re told that the first sermon Jesus preaches is short and to the point:  “Repent, for the kingdom of God is coming near.”  “Change your minds.  Change your ways.  Live differently.  That’s how you will bring the reign of God into being on this earth.”              But are we really willing to repent?  Are we really willing to give up some of our long-held, and most beloved attitudes and prejudices about other people?  or about how worship should be done?  or about what church should do and be?

            For example, take a second right now, and look at the people who are sitting on either side of you and in front of you in the pew.  And then notice – who isn’t sitting there?  What people in this community could be here – if we only invited and welcomed them – but aren’t because we don’t?  And then be honest … do we really want “those people” – those undocumented immigrants … those people with mental health issues … those people whose skin color is different from ours … those people whose sexuality is different from ours … those Republicans or those Democrats … sitting next to us in the pews?

            Or think about this:  we’re going to go into our annual congregational meeting in another few minutes in which we’ll be discussing and debating the proposed church budget for next year.  And when we do, do we really want to listen to those people who think differently about things than we do?  Do we really want to vote to let “our money” that we have personally contributed be used in ways that we may not be 100% in support of?  Do we really want to struggle with peoples’ thoughts – and ideas – and visions – and hopes that are different from ours, depending on whether we’ve been in this church for 50 years, or have only been here for a few months?

            My guess is, if we are honest, our answer to each of those questions is probably what one of my clergy colleagues refers to as a “yeah, but.”  “Yeah, I do want a more diverse group of people to feel welcome here; but I don’t want it to include “those people” (whoever your particular “those people” are).  “Yeah, I want to learn more about my faith roots, and read the Bible more, but I can’t miss what’s happening with Britney and Dr. Phil.”  “Yeah, I want our church to be healthy and thriving, but I want it to happen my way.”  “Yeah, I want to follow Jesus, but I have an awful lot of other important things I really need to do first.”

            “Yeah, buts” aren’t a new thing for people of faith.  When God called him to go lead the people out of captivity in Egypt, Moses’ first response was a “yeah, but.”  When God called Esther to stand up for justice for the Jewish people, her first response was a “yeah, but.”  When God called Mary to be the mother of Jesus, her first response was a “yeah, but.”  When God called Paul to spread the good news throughout the world, his first response was a “yeah, but.”  Throughout history – and now – it is so easy for us human beings to get focused on all the things we don’t want to change – on all the things we are not willing to change.  It’s easy to focus on our fears, or our insecurities, or our uncertainties.  And when we do, then we dig in our heels, and unlike those fishermen so long ago, we instantaneously come up with a list of 100 reasons why we can’t possibly follow Jesus or say “yes” to whatever it is that God wants us to do.

So what is the good news here?  What can encourage us to lift those heels of ours, and detach our metaphorical fingernails from whatever we’re clinging to, and let go of at least some of our fears, and open ourselves to the possibility of even a little change, so that we too can follow Jesus?  It is this, my friends. 

            Jesus is very clear – here, and throughout the Gospels – as are the faithful men and women who followed him personally, and historically and then wrote about it – that if we choose – if we choose consciously – willingly – perhaps even yearningly – to say “yes” to our Christ’s invitation – we can in fact follow Him.

            One of the points we sometimes miss about this story with the fishermen is that Jesus came to a group of folks who were very ordinary, just going about the work that they knew best, and that they were best at doing.  He didn’t come to the Mother Theresas of his day, or the Desmond Tutus, or any of the great religious icons – he came to a group of ordinary, hands-on, working people.  He came to fishermen.  He came to sheep-herders.  He came to farmers and bakerwomen and businesspeople.

            And he began not with what He knew – he began with what they knew[1].  “Follow me, you fishermen, and I will teach you how to use what you know to transform the world – I’ll teach you, as it were, to fish for people.”  Is that brilliant, or what?!

            And he comes to us the very same way.

            In the words of Anna Carter Florence, “Jesus’ call to each of us begins not with what he knows, but with what we know.  It begins not with what he does best, but with what we do best.”  Follow me, you crane-operators – and house-builders – and roofers, and electricians, and plumbers – and I will make you builders of God’s house… Follow me, you teachers, and counselors, and social workers – and I will make you educators about God’s kingdom … Follow me, you doctors and nurses and physical therapists and psychotherapists – and I will make you healers of God’s people … Follow me, you retirees, you golfers, you bridge-players, you JUCO fans – and I will make you players who show others the joy in life!

            Yes, following Jesus can be scary … and it can be extraordinarily challenging or difficult … but it can also be done.  Florence says:  “We know we can do it, because it is not so different from what we have already done.  In fact, we already have several of the job skills involved.  We just have to adapt what we know… Christ always starts from where we already are[2]…” 

            And so, the questions I leave you with today are these: