Net Work
(Rutgers, January 24, 1999; 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A;
Week of Prayer for Christian Unity; Annual Meeting of the Congregation)
Isaiah 9:1–4 (OT, pp. 706–707); Matthew 4:12–23 (NT, pp. 3–4)
If Jesus had conducted his ministry in our time and place
instead of in the first century and around the Sea of Galilee,
the Gospel of Matthew might have depicted
a kind of net work different from fishing,
and it might have described
the calling of Jesus's first disciples in this way:
"As Jesus walked along a strand of people hooked up
to the ocean of Internet,
he saw Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrea, his sister:
one of them surfing the net,
and the other, browsing off-line with Netscape Netcaster—
for they were geeks.
"And Jesus said to them,
'Follow me, and I will make you surf for people.'
"And immediately they left the net;
they clicked on 'close,' logged off, shut down,
and followed him.
"As Jesus left that site,
he saw two others, Jane and her brother John,
who shared the e-mail address zebedee2@ix.netcom. com .
They were working in their office with their father, zebedee1,
trying to link their computers into a Local Area Network.
And Jesus called them.
"Immediately, Jane and John left their LAN,
their e-mail, their office, and their father,
and followed Jesus—to do another kind of net work,
to develop a new inter-net service provider, and
to connect people to a different type of world-wide web!"
Now, the first-century Gospel of Matthew doesn't explain
why these first four disciples left their nets
and so quickly followed Jesus.
But this particular 20th-century American can tell you with certainty
that if Jesus had called me anytime during the last few months—
while Rob and our hired computer technician Ed
have been trying to hook my desktop PC
into our office's LAN, or Local Area Network—
I'd have been willing to abandon that network
and follow Jesus, in a flash, out of sheer frustration,
for as we speak I still can't receive internal mail
or print out my e-mail on the network printer.
I'm sure I'd do almost anything
to experience net escape!
But Matthew gives us no indication that those first-century fishers
Peter and Andrew and James and John were in any way
eager to give up working and mending their particular nets.
So far as anyone knows,
they were perfectly content with their lives and livelihood.
No, the original Matthew has no interest at all
in psychologizing the events of Jesus's first-century ministry.
So Matthew neither offers nor hints at a motivation
for the first followers' astonishing behavior.
As Matthew describes it,
Jesus takes the initiative, not the two pairs of siblings.
It is he who sees them, comes to them, speaks to them—
proclaiming the command, "Follow me!'
and promising only, "I will make you fish for people."
As Matthew portrays it, the four fishers have never before seen Jesus.
His teachings? They've not yet heard any.
His miracles? He's not yet done any.
So clearly those play no role in the decision to leave their nets.
What's more, even when Jesus speaks to the four,
he offers them no rationale for following him;
he suggests neither what following him will mean
nor where it will lead.
He just commands, and they follow.
Indeed, one may say that it is this encounter
between Jesus and the four fishers
that is, as Matthew tells the story, Jesus's very first miracle!
For here at the beginning of Jesus's ministry,
the miraculous power of his spoken word is able to create disciples
in the same way that at the beginning of the world
the miraculous power of God's spoken word was able to create
light, the earth, the seas, vegetation, fish, and humankind.
Jesus comes to these four first-century fishers
unexpectedly, disruptively, demandingly—
asking them not for their admiration
but for their obedience.
The fishers' discipleship is not an offer they make to Jesus.
It's a summons Jesus issues to them.
It's a command that intrudes into their lives, calling them
away from their network of family affiliations,
away from their previous work with nets,
calling them into a new network of affiliations,
into a new kind of net work.
And the power of Jesus's command is such
that it moves the four to become disciples,
even though they have no inkling
of what it is they're getting into,
of what it means to engage in the work of Christ,
of what it means to leave their nets but keep on netting,
of what it is to fish, or net, for people.
It's only in hindsight that we're able to discern the meaning
of Jesus's promise to his disciples when he says,
"I will make you net for people."
It's only in hindsight that we're able to see that fishing for people
is Christ's metaphor for gathering together into one net,
into one world-wide web,
into one wondrously interconnected community
of God's justice, love, and peace,
the whole, incredible diversity of humankind.
Fishing for people is Christ's metaphor
for gathering together into the same net of harmony
ethnic groups that are living in murderous tension—
like Albanians and Serbs,
Palestinians and Jews,
Hutus and Tutsis.
Fishing for people is Christ's metaphor
for gathering together into one world-wide web of love
racial groups that feel hatred and distrust for each other—
blacks and whites and browns and yellows.
Fishing for people is Christ's metaphor for gathering together into
one wondrously interconnected community of God's justice
economic classes whose interrelationships are poisoned
by a mixture of contempt, greed, abuse, sloth, and envy—
namely, the wealthy, the middle class,
the working class, the poor, the desperately poor.
Fishing for people is Christ's metaphor
for gathering together into one net of co-operative spirit
political partisans whose distrust pevents
the well-being of societies—
the far-right, center-right, center-left, far-left.
Fishing for people is Christ's metaphor
for gathering together into one world-wide web of trust
nationalities divided by culture and history—
like the Scots, whose patron saint is Andrew,
and the Spaniards, whose patron saint is James.
Fishing for people is Christ's metaphor for gathering into one
wondrously interconnected community of God's love and peace
Christian denominations that have been divided
by doctrine, and ritual,
and a history of suspicion and enmity—
Roman Catholics, loyal to St. Peter,
Eastern Orthodox, loyal to St. John,
and Presbyterians and Episcopalians,
Lutherans and Methodists, Baptists,
Evangelicals, and Pentecostals–
all of us fishes who've been swimming
in different directions and now need
to be net-worked back together
into some form of renewed unity.
It is to the likes of us that Christ's command comes anew,
"Follow me, and I will make you fish for people."
It's a command that intrudes into our lives, calling us
away from our previous networks of national, ethnic, racial,
political, economic, and denominational affiliation,
away from our previous styles of work,
and calling us into new networks of affiliation
to be brought about by re-imagining
what this net work is that we are called to do.
As we cast our nets into the sea seeking to gather
into one wondrously interconnected community
of God's justice, love, and peace
the whole, incredible diversity of humankind,
we probably have no inkling of what it is we're getting into,
of what it means to engage in this work of Christ,
or of how often we are likely to fail
in the task of following Christ.
As depicted in the gospels,
the discipleship of Peter and Andrew and James and John
was certainly far from perfect.
They sometimes responded to the task of following Jesus
angrily, thoughtlessly, fearfully, shamefully!
Why, according to the Gospel of Matthew,
Peter, the most celebrated of the four, angrily rebukes Jesus when
he says that following him will lead to suffering! (16:21–23)
And later, Peter thoughtlessly falls asleep
while Jesus is in agony in the Garden of Gethsemane,
dozing even after Jesus twice asks him not to.
Some follower he! (26:36–46)
Then Peter fearfully denies Jesus, three times claiming that he's
never even known Jesus, let alone followed him. (26:69–75)
And then Peter shamefully abandons Jesus
at the time of the crucifixion.
During Jesus's hours on the cross,
Peter is nowhere to be seen,
doubtless hoping he won't be noticed,
won't be identified as a follower. (27:55–56)
But here's the good news for us who are called to follow Jesus.
Both before and after his resurrection,
Jesus keeps on loving Peter—and Andrew and James and John—
Jesus keeps on forgiving them
and keeps on putting them back to their net work
of fishing for people and creating
that wondrously interconnected community
of God's justice, love, and peace.
This is good news indeed
for all of us who've been called to follow Jesus,
for all of us who've been called to help Jesus
develop a new inter-net service provider and to help Jesus
connect people into a different type of world-wide web.
For we know that we too like Peter and Andrew and James
and John will have our bad times as well as our good times.
We know for sure that in following Jesus we will sometimes act
angrily, and thoughtlessly, and fearfully, and shamefully!
But what a sustaining source of comfort and joy it is to know
that whenever we experience failure in our following of Jesus,
failure in our Christ-commanded net work of surfing for people,
Christ will keep on loving us, keep on forgiving us,
and keep on returning us to that work—
in spite of ourselves.
Thanks be to God!
Let us pray:
O God, help us to leave our old nets behind,
and sustain us as we surf instead for people,
seeking to gather all of humankind
into the world-wide web
of Your justice, love, and peace. Amen.
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