January 20, 2008
John 1:35-51

The Rev. David A. Davis

“Come and See”

            Jesus calling the disciples. Scroll down through the frames you have in your mind, the memories you have of Jesus calling the disciples. What you learned about it. What you have always pictured. Allow the slideshow to play on the laptop of your imagination. Jesus. Fishermen. Boats. Nets. Consider the images or the sounds that come to mind when you type in “Jesus and the call of the disciples”. A Sunday school song complete with hand motions. A favorite hymn. Mrs. Weddle standing at the flannelgraph trying to get the row boat to stick. Mr. Hezlup passing ‘round the little sticks so you could make fishing poles. The net that hung on the day-glow green wall in the youth group room that had all your names attached. Maybe there’s not much to go on in your search engine. Some just haven’t heard how Jesus came to have the few who were following him. For others among us it didn’t come from Church School or youth group, it came from reading a gospel here or there, reading about Jesus and the call. Jesus. Peter. James. John. Andrew. Philip. Bartholomew. Matthew. Thomas. James, the son of Alphaeus. Thaddaeus. Simon. Judas. So go ahead, if you can, conjure up what you think it looked like when Jesus gave the shout out to the twelve, robed and bearded men dropping everything and turning away and leaving all just because he said so. What comes to your mind when you think of those first disciples and their “facebook”? Snapshots of the call. From flannelgraphs to facebook, all of us trying to wrap our heads and our hearts around Jesus and his call to discipleship.
            There is that scene of the fisherman hard at work casting their nets in the Sea of Galilee. Jesus walks by and sees those men surrounded by their way of life. Some are fishing just off shore. Down the way a few others are mending their nets. The Lord calls out to them; “Follow me and I will make you fish for people!” It is the story as told by Matthew and Mark. And as the scripture tells us, those fishermen immediately left their nets and followed him. Immediately. One may not think of “immediately” as a biblical word; like the word “blessed” or the term “parable” or the phrase “You have heard it said.” But “immediately” is a biblical word that packs a notion of something miraculous, something supernatural, something out of the ordinary. Immediately they dropped everything and followed Jesus. They left the sea. They left their work. They dropped the tools of the trade. They left the co-workers gathered around. Matthew and Mark even point out to their readers that they left their father. They left all. Immediately. And followed.
            Or click on the very brief account of Jesus calling the tax collector. The tax man is in the office. He is sitting in the tax booth. He is literally hemmed in by all the symbolism of power and establishment and government and corruption and kick back and domination and greed. When Jesus drops by and calls him, the tax collector “rose and followed him.” He left everything Luke reports. And Jesus didn’t just call him, Jesus had the nerve to then go into the house and share in a feast. A whole house full from the tax office. They all turned out for the party. It is the call of the disciples turned into one of those quintessential eating and drinking with sinners kind of thing. A calling to make a point.
            Or picture the scene of the soon-to be disciples out of their boats and washing their nets. Jesus is in the midst of teaching and surrounded by a crowd. The crowd is leaning in to hear the Word. The crowd is so large that Jesus asks the fishermen if he can get in one of the boats and push out a bit so that people can have some room and he can have some space and everyone can hear. Jesus sits down and teaches from the boat. When he finishes, he tells Simon that they really ought to go out to deeper water and toss in the net. The tired fishermen politely respond that they had been at it all night long and had nothing to show for it. But having nothing to lose, the fishermen drop the nets and so many fish are caught that the net begins to break. Others have to come and help with hauling in the catch. The boats themselves were starting to sink. Simon Peter drops at the feet of Jesus “Go away Lord, I am nothing but a sinner!” Jesus said, “Do not be afraid, from now on you will be catching people.” And Luke, in his gospel, tells what happened after the miraculous catch of fish, “they left everything and followed him.”
            Matthew and Mark describe the scene with that sense of urgency. An “immediacy” that crosses over into the miraculous. Luke offers a twist that involves miraculous abundance, a divine blessing of life overflowing. All three tell of that tax collector rising up from his chair, and then Jesus sitting down to a feast full of sinners. In each case, in each scene, with each call, the disciples drop everything and go. The momentous, legendary story that has grown to mythic proportions in the family of faith’s family tree. Jesus and the call of his disciples.  
Jesus and the call of those first twelve. And almost every follower since wonders about measuring up when it comes to call, drop, and follow. But then there’s John. John’s gospel. After the miraculous, after the dramatic, after nets bursting and nets dropping, there’s John. John’s gospel. John’s word to you and to me. No lake. No fishing. No boats. No water. No breaking nets. Nothing immediate. Nothing urgent. Nothing really miraculous.
John the Baptist is standing with two of his disciples. Jesus happens to walk by. “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” the Baptist said. John, the gospel writer tries to make it seem dramatic. The Baptist “exclaimed”, we’re told, complete with exclamation point in the English translation. Maybe he just said “Dude, there’s the Lamb of God.” Regardless, the two hear it from John the Baptist. One of them was Andrew. The other goes unnamed. They follow Jesus for a while. Along the way, Jesus turns and asks them what they are looking for. They ask Jesus where he was staying. He says “Come and see”. The two stay the rest of the day. At some point Andrew goes to find his brother Simon Peter. Andrew tells Simon. “We have found the Messiah.” Andrew then brings Simon to see Jesus.
The next day Jesus finds Phillip and says to him “follow me.” Philip happens to be from the same town around Galilee as Andrew and Peter. One wonders if Andrew and Peter had already given Philip the heads up. Philip then finds Nathanael, and says to him, “We have found the one whom the law and prophets wrote about. We have found Jesus from Nazareth.” “Come on” Nathanael responds, “Nazareth? Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip, not giving up or not giving in or maybe just not thinking it was very funny, says “Come and see.” Jesus sees Nathanael coming his way and comment on this spirit, his character, his integrity; “there’s no deceit in him” Jesus tells no one in particular. “How did you get to know me” Nathanael wonders out loud apparently missing the Peter, Andrew, Philip connection. Jesus shrugs, “I saw you over there under the tree before Philip called you”
Nathanael replies with an exuberance that seems to far outshine any particular prophetic insight revealed by Jesus. “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the king of Israel.” Jesus must have been amused by Nathanael’s reaction, by his affirmation, his royal anointing. “You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You believe because of this?” (and in my mind I see Jesus pointing  to Andrew, then to Simon Peter, then to Philip, then to Nathanael, then to himself.) Then Jesus tosses in one of those biblical phrases; “Very truly I tell you” and he goes on to describe Nathanael seeing angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” All of that basically means that Jesus said to him, “Nathanael, you haven’t seen anything yet!”
John the Baptist told Andrew and another disciple. Andrew went to find Simon Peter and told him. Both Andrew and Peter knew Philip before Jesus found him. Philip then told Nathanael. No boats. No nets. No overwhelming catch. Nothing immediate. Nothing urgent. Nothing really miraculous. When it comes to John’s gospel and the call of the disciples, it’s just word of mouth.
A long time ago I found myself sitting with some church members and thirty or forty thousand other folks in Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. We weren’t watching a game, we were listening to some preaching. It was a revival type of thing; part concert, part worship service, part preaching marathon with a dozen preachers or so. At some point during the day, one of the preachers asked how many people there had come to faith or found themselves encounter God or really heard about Jesus for the first time at a stadium event like that one. By stadium event, the preacher meant a Billy Graham type crusade with thousands of people, lots of music, and a high level of emotion. I watched a significant number stand up in answer to that question, maybe several hundred, even a thousand around the stadium. Then the preacher inquired as to how many people started their faith journey because a friend had told them, or a parent had guided them, or their child had led them. The preacher wanted to know how many had experience the call to discipleship through a community of faith. The question was raised and everyone else in the stadium stood up. It was amazing, really. Thousands upon thousands of believers stood to affirm their walk of faith started when someone invited them to “come and see.”
   When writing about his call to ministry, Martin Luther King, Jr said that it wasn’t something miraculous or supernatural. It was an “inner urge to serve humanity”. He told about joining the Baptist Church. An evangelist came to his father’s church when Dr. King was only five. “The church has always been a second home for me” he wrote. Best friends. Family. But he admitted that he went down the aisle that morning to keep up with his older sister. “I decided that I would not let her get ahead of me!” In his summary of those early years he concludes “Of course I was religious. I grew up in the church. My father is a preacher, my grandfather was a preacher, my great-grandfather was a preacher, my only brother is a preacher, my daddy’s brother is a preacher. So I didn’t have a choice.” Or in other words, it was word of mouth.
If you stop and think about it, people still come to meet Jesus by word of mouth. People still find themselves claimed by God’s Spirit and coming to a saving knowledge of the Son of God because someone else invited them. Lives can be changed, someone blind can now see, one who was lost can then be found, because of God’s grace and one of the saints who simply said “would you like to come and see?” That someone could meet Jesus along the highway of his soul because his child was a member of the youth group and he asked his dad to go with him to worship. That someone could be drawn into a searching, questioning journey of faith because of an early morning conversation in the office about life’s purpose and deep joy, because of a co-worker who was willing to say “well, for me it’s like this.”
That someone struggling with grief and battling loneliness could find a fresh connection to God that comes with strength and comfort, all because a neighbor in her building said “would you like to go with me next Thursday night” That a young person whose family has just moved to town could hear about Jesus for the first time really, and experience that call to discipleship because a new friend and a neighbor from just down the street said after English class, “Would you like to come with me on Sunday night?” That a child could grow up in faith like a watered garden with rich soil because year after year different teachers gave of their time to teach and write notes and tell him how much God loves him, because a congregation acted on that baptismal vow.
When you stop and think about it, God still works, Jesus still calls by word of mouth. It is so miraculous.
When’s the last time you said it to someone, anyone. “Come and see”?

 

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