"Follow Me" - A Sermon for 1/25/26

Gospel: Matthew 4:12-23  - 12 Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. 13 He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, 14 so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:
 15 “Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the gentiles—  16 the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.”
17 From that time Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” 18 As he 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 fishers. 19 And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of people.” 20 Immediately they left their nets and followed him. 21 As 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. 22 Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.  
   23 Jesus went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.

Dear siblings in Christ, grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. 

        “What is it that pushes people to go public? What is it that pushes people to go out into the streets and declare what they believe to be true? And to call for change and to call for a new state of affairs? In Matthew chapter four, with Jesus it appears that it is the arrest of John by a petty thin-skinned tyrant. What pushes Peter and Andrew and James and John to get up and follow? Perhaps they’re inspired by the courage of Jesus himself. What is it later in the gospel that gets people on Palm Sunday to lay their garments on the ground to say, we choose this guy. This is the kind of power we want to follow in the world, one of love and mercy and self-giving… Jesus goes public with his message of the arrival of the kingdom of heaven. He has a message of mercy, of a new world, a new way of being in the world, a way in which God’s way holds sway. And eventually he gets killed for it in public by people empowered by their own superiors to do exactly that. It’s a dangerous thing Jesus does, going public.” These questions and ponderings are what Luther Seminary professor Matt Skinner shared earlier in the week on the Working Preacher social media in a video post, as he was walking around his home of Minneapolis, he ended his post by reminding and encouraging preachers to preach the truth.  
          And as professor, Matt Skinner states, we can assume that Jesus’ push to get out and start proclaiming the kingdom of heaven come near was the arrest of John the Baptist, who had prepared the way for him, and Jesus invites those four fishermen to join him in his work of proclaiming the kingdom of heaven come near. And here’s the thing, Jesus and the others aren’t proclaiming some far off kingdom of heaven that eventually we will get to experience, he is proclaiming the kingdom of heaven come near in the here and now. He is proclaiming the dream that we pray for in the Lord’s prayer “God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Jesus called his disciples and all his future followers, including each one of you, to be a part of not only proclaiming the kingdom of heaven come near, but to take critical looks at our own lives, to see where we might need to repent, as both Jesus and John before him implored all who heard them to do, to see where we might need to repent of the ways in which we haven’t lived into Jesus’ greatest commandments of loving God and loving our neighbors, to repent of the ways in which we have blocked this news and the reality of the kingdom of heaven come near to all people either intentionally or unintentionally. We might ask, how exactly can we proclaim the kingdom of heaven come near other than just saying the words? And how would we have blocked this news from others? What does it look like for the kingdom of heaven to come near, to break into our lives in the here and now? What does it look like to be God’s hands and feet, sharing God’s love out in the world with all our neighbors, making heaven on earth a closer reality so all can see and experience it?
         We hear Jesus echo the words that John shared before him, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” It is important to remember that repentance is not about feeling bad or groveling in self-hatred or pious sorrow after realizing you have done something wrong, but it is about changing directions and being transformed. When we repent we change directions, choose a different path, learn to think differently. Repentance signals an abrupt end of life as we know it on autopilot and the end of business as usual. There is an interruption and transformation in ourselves, our lives, and our communities when true repentance happens, reorienting ourselves to better answer Jesus’ call “Follow Me”. 
            Jesus’ “Follow me,” that was first spoken to Peter and Andrew, then to James and John, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of people.” The way in which they didn’t seem to have any questions about what following him entailed, and immediately got up and followed him, leaving everything behind, seemingly without a second thought. It is not said if they had ever spoken, seen or heard Jesus preach before he called them to follow, we don’t know what they were thinking, impulsively following Jesus like that, we don’t know if perhaps they were already looking for a reason and a push to get them out of their normal day to day lives. We don’t know the reasons behind their instant willingness to follow at the promise to be made fishers of people, I wonder if they even had an inkling of what that meant, it’s such an odd phrase isn’t it, fishers of people, but since they were already fishers of fish, perhaps they already had some gifts and skills that would help them to become these fishers of people that Jesus promised them they will be made to be. But what might Jesus’ disciples becoming fishers of people have to do with the message he was proclaiming of repenting for the kingdom of heaven has come near? And what does it mean in the world today and in our lives that the kingdom of heaven has come near? In a world so full of violence, terror, and oppression, what does it mean and what does it even look like that the kingdom of heaven has come near and what does it have to do with being fishers of people?     
            This is a call story for those who Jesus first called to follow him, a call story that continues on today with each of us. Jesus still calls us to follow him, so he can make us into fishers of people also, but we aren’t called to be fishers of people for the sake of getting more people through our doors. As Debie Thomas warned in the Journey with Jesus commentary, “we so easily misinterpret [the fishing metaphor] to mean that we have the power to ‘hook’ or to ‘catch’ others for God. We don’t. We are not called to cajole, manipulate, trap, bully, or even persuade others to ‘accept’ Jesus, or to join our religion. It is God alone who captures the imagination. God alone who makes the vision of God’s kingdom come alive in a human soul. All we can do is embody the vision in the particulars of our lives, reflecting into the water the profound beauty of who Christ is. The rest is up to God… [We are called to] ‘fish for people.’ People who are caught in the nets of exploitation, corruption, poverty, war, exile, homelessness, violence, disease, climate change, racism, sexism, homophobia… and the list goes on and on and on.” So, let me ask you, how are you being called to fish for people in such a way as to make the kingdom of heaven come near not just known through our words but through our actions as we work to make it a reality in the here and now? 
           And this is where we can look to our neighbors a handful of hours north of us for examples of just that. Despite all of the horrors and terror that our government has been sanctioning and allowing to be done to our fellow children of God over the last few weeks, especially with the events that took place these past few days as we watch our fellow children of God standing up for their neighbors in the ways in which the community comes together to support each other. We can see the kingdom of heaven come near in the ways in which our neighbors to the north have been providing food and water to each other, for those who are braving the extreme cold to witness, document, and testify to the atrocities being committed against their literal neighbors, to the ways in which mutual aid organizations are being utilized to ensure that those who need anything like a doctors visit or groceries can get them without leaving their homes when they fear to step outside just for having skin a darker shade then my own. The kingdom of heaven comes near in the way the community accompanies school children to and from school and watches out for each other, and in the ways that family and friends, sadly often unsuccessfully, plead for the release of preschoolers, of 5 year olds that were abducted by the occupying agents of the current empire in hopes to catch their parents, and the kingdom of heaven comes near even in the way that yesterday the VA ICU nurse used his own body to shield others from the pepper spray and brutality of the agents, who ultimately was tackled to the ground and beaten by multiple agents before they killed him with multiple gunshots. We see the kingdom of heaven come near in the way that well over 50,000 people were out marching in Twin City streets on Friday, as well as the hundreds of clergy who put their own bodies on the line outside the airport while demanding the end of this occupation, that those responsible for the loss of life be held accountable, and that our leaders do their job to protect their constituents. All of these are ways in which those there in the Twin Cities have been called to continue to share God’s love and to demand, as Jesus did, the repentance, the transformation of our systems, while proclaiming the kingdom of heaven has come near through each little and big action they do, which brings the reality of the kingdom of heaven in the here and now just that much closer. Our neighbors to the north, have been and continue to be Jesus and God’s love to each other, even in the face of such government sanctioned brutality. And even though we are not there in person, we can be left asking, how might we follow their example either to do what we can from afar like supporting mutual aid organizations, or by using our voices to also demand better from our leaders, or perhaps we may look closer to home for ways that we can best support and share the love of God and proclaim the kingdom of heaven come near in both words and actions to our local neighbors? How are you being called to follow Jesus, and be a fisher of people, being the hands and feet of God sharing God’s love with our neighbors both near and far, no matter who they are? 
           Even though Jesus’ first followers abandoned their possessions when they immediately started to follow Jesus, they didn’t leave everything behind, they brought themselves, their experiences, and their knowledge with them as they followed Jesus and became fishers of people proclaiming the kingdom of heaven come near. As Debie Thomas wrote, “Jesus did not invite them to abandon who they were; he invited them to become their most authentic, God-ordained selves. He invited them to live into the fullness of the Imago Dei [the image of God] they were born with.” She continues, “If we’re going to follow him at all, we’ll have to do it in the unique particulars of the lives, communities, cultures, families, and vocations we find ourselves in. We’ll have to trust that God prizes our intellects, our memories, our backgrounds, our educations, our skills, and that God will multiply, shape, and bring to fruition everything we offer up to God in faith from the daily stuff of our lives.” We have, you have your own unique gifts, talents and skills to bring as we follow Jesus and sharing the news of the kingdom of heaven come near. 
​             Let us end with these pondering questions: what are you being called to repent? What ways of thinking, what systems, what actions must you, must we repent and leave behind to better live into our call as fishers of people, sharing and showing God’s love in a world so full of violence, fear, hatred, and indifference? How are you being called to be God’s hands and feet working to make the kingdom of heaven come near a reality that people can finally know not just intellectually but can know through feeling it deep within their soul that it is true, that they know in this community their neighbors will always show up and support them, and that we too live into this reality, that we continue to show God’s love to each and every neighbor near and far while following Jesus’ call on our lives proclaiming repentance of the things that must change so that the kingdom of heaven come near is finally a reality for all people? Amen. 

   -- Written and Preached by Pastor Tamara Siburg

If you wish to listen to the sermon, the gospel reading starts at 31:40 and the sermon starts at 33:19