“Jesus saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea...And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him…Jesus saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.” (Matt 4:18-22)
The key word in the calling of Saints Peter, Andrew, James and John is “immediately.” Jesus said follow me, and that was it. They dropped everything. They didn’t send word to their wives. They didn’t tell their children. They didn’t even ask where they were going. They just dropped everything and followed after him.
The way Jesus called his apostles can be intimidating for us. These golden examples we have of Jesus intervening in the lives of mere mortals is sudden, explicit and bold. It can leave you thinking that this is the only way God interacts with mankind. He occasionally comes down and gives someone an explicit order to someone and they follow it. Too many of us these days believe that God only intervenes with a select few and on very rare occasions.
Even sadder than this outlook, the media keeps telling us that the younger people of America are all atheists, not believing in God at all. However, the fact is that this is an exaggeration. Yes there are people who deny any God, just like I did as teenager, but they are few in number. If you look at the statistics and reports that have been coming out recently about American and European religious belief, most people do believe in God. The problem is, they believe that God is thoroughly uninterested in mankind. The majority belief of most of these younger people is that God simply wants us to lead a good life, and doesn’t intervene in our lives anymore. Sure, God shook people up in the past, just like he did for the apostles, but He is past that now. God has left enough evidence and teaching around that can guide you to a good life. These believers go to bed each night knowing that God will leave them alone. When they do go to church, this group of believer feels descriptive words for God like Father and Son are old and unnecessary, because they imply a God who is too personal. Liturgies calling God Eternal One, or Creator God, or of Jesus simply as Redeemer or Teacher abound. These liturgies appeal to this thought pattern. There is no chance of the Eternal One or the Redeemer of intervening directly in your life.
My problem with all this is that I can tell you from personal experience that God IS directly involved in all our lives. The world around us is full of God and His actions, we just refuse to see it.
Here is what I think people are getting hung up on. It’s the story of “follow me immediately!” Few people have this clear experience in their lives. The times when God gives a direct call to us is more the exception than the rule. Instead, I believe God’s involvement in our lives is mostly subtle. Gentle prods and nudges along the way. This is how God respects out free will. God puts people, places and things in our paths, and we are free to acknowledge them for what they are or not. God lets us make up our own mind.
When I look back at my life, I can see a hundred things that are clearly God interacting with me in my life, even if I didn’t see it at the time. Let me give you an example.
As most of you know, I was raised by a strict atheist. In the house there were no Bibles, in fact, my father banned them from the house. He didn’t want my mind being polluted by what was in them. I think he thought that if I opened up a bible I might be instantly brainwashed and turned into a priest or something….Turns out he was half right!
When I was in junior high most of us loved it whenever we walked into a class room and saw a substitute sitting there. It usually meant a class of no work. There was, however, once substitute teacher at our school who no one liked: Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson always made us work at our desks quietly, and on top of that, we found out that he was a pastor. This added a whole layer of scariness to the man. I don’t know much about Pastor Wilson. I do know that he was a Lutheran pastor who somehow ended up being a substitute teacher on the side.
Whenever I walked into a classroom and saw that Mr. Wilson sitting there, unlike the other kids, I was overjoyed. Not because it meant no teaching, but because it meant that I got to spend the next 60 minutes interrogating Pastor Wilson about the church. Pastor Wilson knew that I was a rabid atheist and apparently found it worth his time to let me sit next to him at his desk and ask him 100 questions about Christianity, with me trying to trap him in a contradictory answer. One day in the middle of one of my tirades against Christianity, Pastor Wilson stopped me. “Matt, have you ever actually read the Bible?” “Well, no;” I replied. “My father doesn’t want that junk in the house!” He asked: “Would you like one?” Strangely, I told him yes.
The next morning at 7 AM, I met Pastor Wilson at his car in the teacher’s parking lot, and he handed me a Bible at great risk to himself. In Boston the separation of Church and state is taken very seriously. If Pastor Wilson was caught giving me this Bible, he would not only lose his job, but most likely be sued by ACLU. On the inside cover page of the Bible Pastor Wilson gave me he wrote “May you find the Truth!” Pastor Wilson risked his job hoping he could help me find the Truth.
Later on that day, I started reading that forbidden book and seeing what all this Jesus stuff was about. Of course, I started with the Book of Revelation, which is not the best place for anybody to begin their Bible experience with. But you all know how this story end…it ends with me standing here before you in the pulpit.
Now, you could call this encounter between me and Pastor Wilson happy coincidence, and or the strange ways of the world and what have you. When I look back at this experience. I see God clearly at work.
When I was young punk, I’m not sure I would have listed had God come down to me in the chariot that Ezekiel saw and commanded me “Matt! Follow Me!” I probably would have said to Him “You don’t exist! No get out of my way!” What I could accept as a young punk was gentle prodding. God could somehow put me in front of his servant Pastor Wilson who would patiently listen to me rant and rave and then hand me a Bible that said “may you find the truth.” God nudged me closer to him in small steps over the years.
This is what I want these younger generations out there, and indeed all of us, to know, is that God is involved in your life. If you say He isn’t involved, it’s probably because of what you are looking for. If you think back on your life and say “Right, no angels, no flaming chariots and visions. God has nothing to do with my life!,” then you are looking for the wrong things.
Think back to the people who have loved you in your life and made you a better person. Remember the trying situations in your life that you though would be the end of you, but somehow you found the strength to pull through. Recall a small comment made by one person that gave you new understating on something key in your life. Remember the beauty you have encountered in the world and marveled at. These are God’s, the loving Father’s involvement in our lives. Subtle things that have made us into the people we are today.
I am willing to bet that Saints Peter, Andrew, James and John all had these moments in their lives. Loving moments with their families as children. Pondering the miracle of life when they held their children in their hands. People who came into their lives that made them ponder what God wanted of them and the world. These where things that lead up to that moment when Divine Love incarnate stood before them and said “Follow me!” and they did.
Ponder all these events in your own lives. Look for God in places you don’t expect him. And if and when God comes to you with a clear calling while you are looking for Him, you will be in a position where you will want to say “Yes Lord, I will follow!”
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