Jesus' Infomercial

Scripture: Matthew 4:12-23

Preached 01/26/2014

 

In my defense, it was 5:30 in the morning, and I was tired.  Ellery was only a few months old at this point, and sleeping like new babies do, just little bits at a time.  Rob and I were awake after her last feeding.  Rob was getting ready for work.  I was just stuck awake, doing nothing productive. It was too late for me to fall back asleep, but too early for me to start my morning routine.  So I sat there on the couch and watched some infomercials.  Small confession here—I love infomercials.  But only because they’re fantastic.  And this morning, the infomercials were, in my opinion, especially fantastic.  There was this miracle spray that could seal any crack that has ever existed, and the host used it to turn a screen door into a working boat.  There was a miracle headlight cleaner that would give you better visibility and save you money and also worked to clean about 50 other things that you definitely needed to clean. 

As a fan of these kinds of commercials, I’ve developed pretty good self-control.  After all, infomercials always claim to be the best thing ever invented, and that can’t possibly be true all the time.  So maybe it was because I was tired, or maybe it was because I didn’t have a screen door I couldn’t turn into a boat, but the next infomercial trapped me.  It was for a non-stick pan.  Not just any non-stick pan, though.  The single most amazing non-stick pan EVER.  You could cook eggs and make caramel in it, and nothing would stick.  You could attempt to scratch it with rocks, and nothing would happen.  You could run over it with your car, and it wouldn’t warp.  AND, here was the kicker—it was all organic.  I’m a sucker for that stuff.

I wanted that pan.  I really, really wanted that pan.  There was a special offer and a free gift and I was running to find my phone to buy that sucker.  I honestly didn’t care what it cost—I was going to drop my money and get that pan.  Congratulations infomercial host man, you have done your job well.

In our scripture reading this morning we have Jesus cast as the infomercial host.  He’s asking four men to drop everything for the thing that he’s offering.  Jesus doesn’t even get to give much of a sales pitch here.  There’s no screen door boat on the sea of Galilee, no donkey cleaner, no non-stick pan for those fish Simon-Peter, Andrew, James, and John were catching.  Jesus didn’t promise the disciples they’re catch more fish than ever before, get rich, get powerful, be happier—nothing fantastic or flashy.  He just gives a simple request, or a command if you want to take it that way.  Follow me and I will make you fishers of people.

Really, not the catchiest pitch he could have made there.  And to complicate matters, Jesus is asking for a lot more than those four mens’ money.  He’s asking them to literally drop everything to follow him.  He’s asking them to leave their families.  In Jesus’ time, this may have been even more significant than it was today.  Families were your source of identity, and your source of honor.  They were your inheritance, which you needed to live in ancient times.  There were also cultural customs, as well as religious ones, that demanded you take care of your parents, lest you lose your honor, and your inheritance.  To just up and abandon your family was a kind of social and cultural suicide.  And Jesus asks them to do just that.

Jesus also asks these men to leave their livelihoods.  Fishing was not just how they ate, it was how they made their money, for food other than fish, for clothes, for everything that they needed.  Along with their family identity, their livelihoods as fishermen provided them with a place in the social structure, and a measure of security in a tumultuous, conflict torn region. And Jesus asks them to literally drop their livelihood, the nets in their hands and the boats beneath them, to follow him.

That fantastic non-stick pan.  What if it had cost more than just money?  What if to get that miracle pan, the infomercial host had asked me to drop everything, much like Jesus.  To leave behind my husband, my daughter, my home, my schooling, and all my possessions?  Even in my sleep deprived state, there is nothing that infomercial could have done to convince me to drop my whole life to get that pan.

And yet, these four men, hearing Jesus simple words of promise drop everything, to follow him.  Why?  That’s the question that kept plaguing me this week.  And I exegeted, I translated, I read commentaries, I pondered the text and prayed.  Why would these men just drop everything to follow a man they didn’t know?  I did read some commentaries that explained it away, saying perhaps the men knew Jesus already, maybe they had bad relationships with their families, maybe this wasn’t as sudden as it seems at first, but here’s the thing.  All those explanations were bad.  Besides being just plain guessing or making up ideas, none of them were faithful to the text. 

Here’s what we have from Matthew “¹⁸As Jesus walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea—for they were fishermen. ¹⁹And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of people.” ²⁰Immediately they left their nets and followed him. ²¹As he went from there, he 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. ²²Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.”  Matthew makes sure we know how sudden this all is.  Jesus is just walking by the sea, and calls these men.  No advance planning, no warning, no hint of a previous relationship.  He walks, he calls, and they follow.

Why?  Well, it’s likely not because the disciples were sleep deprived and we know it’s not because Jesus gave them a really good sales pitch.  And it’s not because these four disciples were especially faithful.  In fact, as we go on to read their story in Matthew, we find that definitely isn’t the case.  They very often don’t understand what Jesus is talking about.  They say and do wrong things.  They eventually even betray and abandon him.  In other words, they were just normal people.

Why did they drop everything and follow Jesus?  The most honest answer is that we don’t know.  We have no idea why they followed Jesus, other than they heard him calling to them and decided to listen.  Right in the middle of their ordinary lives, they heard Jesus.  He offered them something different, something more.  And he gave them the simple invitation.  Follow me, to this something else.  And right in the middle of their everyday lives, they made the decision that they were, in fact, going to follow Jesus.

Here’s the problem with infomercials.  They make fantastic claims.  They always claim that the product they’re selling will completely change your life, and make fantastic too.  And they never actually live up to those claims.  I bought that non-stick pan, and you know what?  It wasn’t that great.  It was definitely not fantastic.  It was a cheap non-stick pan, and it was sadly ordinary.

And those disciples who decided to buy what Jesus was selling.  After that dramatic decision we read about, there were decidedly ordinary times.  They walked up and down dusty streets with Jesus, and things went slowly, and there were days when it seemed like nothing happened.  And I’m willing to be this is what a lot of our faith lives are like as well.  There are people, every day, who risk their lives to follow Jesus.  I am not one of those people.  My guess is none of us is one of those people.  We get up, every day, maybe say some prayers and read some scripture and take care of those normal everyday things that we need to do.

And we hear of peak, fantastic experiences of faith—like these disciples leaving behind everything to follow Jesus—and we can wonder about the quality our own faith lives.  Is our faith that cheap non-stick pan, and the faith of the disciples that fantastic kind the infomercial was actually selling?  Are we, as Christians, failing to live up to the hype?  Is there something wrong with what Jesus was selling?

Remember how Jesus didn’t actually hype anything?  Remember how Jesus’ pitch was simple?  Just follow him, and he will you fishers of people.  He doesn’t claim that following him will be fantastic all the time because he knows that as truly fantastic as it is, sometimes, following Jesus will feel very ordinary.  And yet we sometime get so fixated on those peak experiences, those leaving everything to follow Jesus, or water into wine, or raising the dead moments that we forget about the importance of the ordinary act of following.  Those ordinary things that we as followers of Jesus do, like praying, reading scripture, welcoming the stranger, practicing kindness—these are the kind of ordinary things that make up the life of faithful following of Jesus.

These first disciples weren’t all that different from us.  Sure, on that first day they left everything to follow Jesus.  But they had bad days when they just had no idea what to do and were impulsive and stubborn and even ticked Jesus off.  They also probably smelled like fish.  They were normal people, following the best they could.

And that’s what Jesus asks us to do too.  To hear this non-fantastic sounding request, and to respond by following him, doing a lot of things that don’t seem all that exciting.  By following, the best we can, day by day.  Following in those unforgettably fantastic moments, and in the ordinary forgettable moments in which we decide to pray before we slip off to sleep, or pick up the phone and call someone we haven’t seen at church for a while, or visit someone who is lonely or help someone in need. Following, and growing in faith and learning from our successes and our failures and trusting that God will fish for people out of the best we can offer, even if that best doesn’t always look fantastic.

God is working in these non-fantastic seeming acts. God is hard at work every time we share grace, or proclaim hope.  This is how healing comes and love spreads and that whole fantastic part about the kingdom of heaven being at hand happens.  Jesus calls us every moment, asking us to take another step, and follow him.  To follow him, and to live with purpose, and hope, and love.  To follow him and maybe transform ourselves and the world around us, even if it’s just a little, and it doesn’t seem all that fantastic.  To follow him, on good days and boring days and days where we have no idea where we’re going.  Just to follow.  May we always leave our nets and follow him.