Abstract
In the “Town of Jesus,” pilgrims and tourists can still gaze down to the dirt floor of Christianity. Amid the ruins of Capernaum, under a protective deck of tempered glass in the center of a modern church, lie the remains of a humble dwelling. The circular walls, which archaeologists date to the 2nd century
Whether or not that claim is true, this little house was never the home of wealthy or privileged people. In Jesus’ time, the inhabitants of Capernaum were humble laborers who eked out a living either by farming nearby fields and vineyards or by fishing on the lake. Some fishermen were lucky enough to own a boat, but most were dispossessed peasants who looked for daily work on someone else’s vessel. Even when their nets were full, their pockets rarely were once the tax collectors had taken their cuts (Jonathan L. Reed, Archaeology and the Galilean Jesus, Trinity Press, 2000, 164–65). The fishermen of Capernaum lived hand-to-mouth, scratching a smelly, scaly subsistence out of sheer determination and hard work.
This undercurrent of labor and toil is apparent even in the names Scripture gives to this region of the world. As “the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali” (Matt 4:13), Galilee was linked with the struggle between Leah and Rachel, mothers of the eponymous ancestors of the tribes of Israel. When Leah suffered a period of infertility after bearing four sons, Rachel entered the childbearing race by offering her handmaiden, Bilhah, to Jacob. The servant bore two sons for Rachel, one of whom was Naphtali. Leah, wanting to protect her lead in the motherhood department, not only offered her own handmaiden to Jacob, but also craftily used some mandrakes to purchase additional time with her husband from Rachel. One result of this mandrake arbitrage was another son, Zebulun. Thus, the names of these two sons recall a long history of intense labor (in every sense of the word) by two wives and mothers working to preserve their respective places in the world. Rachel said it best when she named her son Naphtali: “with mighty wrestlings I have wrestled with my sister” (Gen 30:8).
Years later, when Jesus met these fishermen on the shore, they were busy doing some wrestling of their own. They were wrestling with their nets, casting them out and wrangling them in. As much as we might be tempted to idealize their call stories, the truth is that Jesus came up to Peter, Andrew, James, and John while they were at work. It was important work, because several families depended on it. If the fishermen did not produce, their families did not eat. In a subsistence economy, these men did not have the luxury of a day off. They were working hard because they had no other choice.
Given this economic reality, their response was especially amazing. In Matt 4:20, we are told that the disciples immediately “left” their nets. While this translation fairly interprets the Greek verb áphíēmí (“to send away”), it omits an important nuance. Writing to a later generation of disciples, Paul uses this same word to describe the premature end of a marriage (1 Cor 7:11). So, these fishermen arguably did more than leave their nets. We could say that they divorced their nets. While preachers should tread cautiously around the sensitive topic of divorce, the reaction of these fishermen does terminate a significant relationship. Their nets had supported them and their families dependably, yet these men still abandoned those nets. They forsook them, cut them off, and walked away. Irresistibly drawn by an ambiguous call from a stranger, the fishermen severed themselves from the only life they had ever known, leaving it all behind in a wet, tangled heap on the beach.
What kind of call could have precipitated such a momentous reaction? In the NRSV, “follow me” reads like an authoritative command. But that is not what this is. Unlike the exchange that Jesus will have with the rich young man (to whom Jesus gives imperative instructions: “go,” “sell,” “give,” and “follow,” Matt 19:21), Jesus does not instruct these fishermen. In fact, Jesus does not use a verb at all. In the Greek, the best translation for Jesus’ call to the fishermen is “come on!” It is not a command, but an invitation. Jesus is luring these men—literally fishing for them. He is beckoning them to follow him into a new life, a different life, a better life.
As I pondered the way Jesus bid these disciples to “come on” after him, I could not help thinking of John Belushi’s character “Bluto” in the movie Animal House (Harold Ramis, Douglas Kenney, and Chris Miller, screenwriters; Universal Pictures, 1978). The fraternity members are sullen, having just learned that they have been kicked out of school. Resisting despair, Bluto tries to move his friends to action with his famous “was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?” speech. As he concludes his historically inaccurate but rousing discourse, he runs out of the room yelling “Who’s with me? Let’s go! Come on!” The pep talk works. Encouraged by Bluto’s invitation, the men of Delta House conclude that the “situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody’s part,” and they are “just the guys to do it.”
While Animal House is admittedly a frivolous movie, this illustration points to a reality of discipleship that is not at all frivolous. Preachers would be wise to remember that Jesus finds his disciples not in pristine, idealized environments, but in the gritty, visceral details of everyday living. For the first disciples, that place was a smelly shoreline in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali. When Jesus came along, they were knee-deep in water, working hard to earn a living and feed their families. If disciples are called out of Galilee, then Galilee is full of “people who have lost their bearings, whose faith flickers at best, who compromise their integrity for a buck, who sit in the pews most Sundays yet still are mostly confused about who Jesus is or how to follow him” (Brian K. Blount and Gary W. Charles, Preaching Mark in Two Voices, Westminster John Knox, 2002, 272–73). Working people like this usually find that the nets in their hands, the calluses on their fingers, and the hungry children in their homes are a lot more real than a mysterious, unannounced stranger who wants them to “fish for people.” Most of them find it difficult to shake the nagging fear that dropping everything to follow Jesus might be, at the end of the day, just “a really futile and stupid gesture.”
Nevertheless, this fear is something that every disciple must overcome to follow Jesus. Everyone who wishes to “come on” after him will have to “divorce” themselves from something in his or her life. It may be something holding her back or weighing her down. It may be something he loves or something he hates. It may be something easy to abandon or something really hard to leave behind. For Peter and Andrew, it was a trade, a livelihood, and a pile of netting. For James and John, it was a boat, a father, and the only way of life they had ever known. For better or for worse, making the choice to “drop the nets” and walk away is the first task of a new life, the opportunity cost of discipleship.
Even if a preacher cannot make this choice for the people in the pews, a preacher can remind them that the luring call of Jesus is unlike any other offer. Having begun simply and informally, the summons of Christ will change and increase throughout Matthew’s Gospel, building in power and scope but never losing its character as an invitation: “Come on to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest” (Matt 11:28); “Come on to the wedding feast,” the heavenly banquet, for “everything is ready” (Matt 22:4); “Come on, all you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matt 25:34); “Come on, see the place where he* lay,” because “he is not here in this tomb . . . he has been raised” (Matt 28:6).
This invitation forms the dirt floor of Christianity. It does not get any more basic or any more visceral than this moment of invitation and acceptance, call and response. It is here, in the dusty reality of “the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings” of existence (Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus: A Critical Study of Its Progress from Reimarus to Wrede, Macmillan, 1968, 403; cited in Blount and Charles, Preaching Mark in Two Voices, 272), that people who labor and struggle can still be found by the One who longs for them to experience more than just getting by. What Jesus offers is nothing less than the Way, the Truth, and the Life, but a new life cannot be discovered until that offer is accepted and an old life is left behind. Tourists, pilgrims, and would-be disciples can still gaze all the way down to this ancient floor. It can still be found in Galilee, wherever that may be for them.