Are We All Called to Be Fishers of Men?

I’m writing this from Madison, WI, where I”m spending 10 days in orientation for my Graduate and Faculty Ministry work with InterVarsity. We began the orientation talking about calling, and we studied the call of Jesus’ first disciples in Luke 5:1-11. Something that the group immediately noticed is that Jesus approaches and calls Simon Peter, James and John at their place of work: catching fish.

What’s also interesting is that Jesus not only approaches them there, but calls them in such a way that he speaks directly into their job. After the miraculously large catch of fish, Jesus says, “From now on you will be catching men.” This comes to fulfillment in Acts 2 at Pentecost. Peter preaches the gospel and a “catch” of 3,000 repent and are baptized.

Previously, I had always thought of the call from Jesus to be “catching men”  as a universal call to all of Christ’s followers. (I also always felt a bit of guilt for not converting 3,000…) I’m now thinking though, “that catching men” was a call uniquely given to the first disciples. Most of us aren’t fishermen, and consequently, most of us have never seen 3,000 people come to faith at once.

We do, however, all have particular work that Christ speaks into. For instance, my Dad is an auto mechanic. Would Christ come to my Dad and tell him to be a ‘fisher of men,’ or would he rather say, ‘from now on you’ll be a mechanic of men.”? Thinking about my Dad’s service to church, this actually makes a lot of sense. My dad has never preached the gospel to 3,000 and seen them convert, but he has served as a Stephen’s minister, a ministry designed to meet people individually in their brokenness. Granted, my Dad doesn’t “fix” people in this ministry, he merely walks along side them, but a ministry like this fits the mindset of a mechanic much more than a ministry of mass evangelism.

As one who does ministry in the academy, I also wonder: In what manner does Christ’s call speak directly into the work of those in the academy? How does the work of a teaching professor or research professor influence their ministry in the Church and on campus?

Christ doesn’t only call at the lakeside. Christ calls in the classroom, in the lab, and in the office. He calls in the home, in the studio, and in our neigbhorhood. He calls us all with the universal command to follow, but also calls each of us to particularly ministry for which we are uniquely suited. Will we listen and obey?

Incarnational Ministry as Submissive Defiance

This evening at Upper Room, I’m preaching a sermon on Luke 2:41-52, the story of the boy Jesus in the temple. What struck me most about this text is how the incarnate Jesus interacts with his surrounding culture of religious institution and his family.

Firstly, Jesus is in some ways defiant to the culture. Jesus in the temple does not act like your typical 12 year old boy. Most 12 year olds don’t impress religious experts. He defies the expectations of the religious institution and remains in the temple even after the Passover feast has ended and everyone else goes home. He defies his parents and does not leave with them so that he can be “about his Father’s matters.”

Yet, Jesus is also submissive. When his parents find him, he submits to them and his role as their child. It seems to me that the text implies that Jesus was in some way punished by his parents for remaining behind. In other words, even though he was defiant, Jesus accepted the consequences of that defiance.

This is the pattern the church takes in Acts. Consider the example of Peter and John before the Sanhedrin in Acts 4. Peter and John’s testimony before them is this: “You must judge whether in God’s sight it is right to listen to you rather than God, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.” In other words, Peter and John won’t stop preaching the gospel, regardless of how unpopular the message is. Yet, they also submit themselves to the consequences of that defiance as their culture dictates. They leave the judgment to the Sanhedrin.

I think one of the problems of post-Christendom churches is that they have forgotten this pattern of “submissive defiance.” As the Church loses it’s place in the center of culture, some churches have refused to be submissive to the culture, and attempt to assert their “rights” or whatever cultural influence they have left. Consider my previous post on the Focus on the Family Action statement regarding Obama’s election as an example. To what extent are such statements, largely coming from the right wing side of the church, nothing more than failed attempts to assert a power and influence the now-marginalized church does not have?

On the other side of the coin, there are churches that have lost their sense of cultural defiance. These churches have become so used to being at the center of the culture that they are willing, it seems, to go wherever the culture goes to remain in their place of privilege. Consider churches that have given in to “every wind of false doctrine” with regard to biblical standards of sexuality, or the uniqueness of Jesus Christ’s Lordship.

For the church to be faithful in the 21st century, it needs to recover this sense of “submissive defiance” that we find in Jesus’ incarnation and in the pattern of the Acts church. It means being relentless in the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the holiness of God, even when that message is an unpopular one. It also means submitting to the surrounding culture’s reaction to that message, even when that means being pushed to the margins of the society.

The Lord is a Warrior

When I was a kid, I used to love watching WWF wrestling. One of my favorite wrestlers to watch was this guy…

… the Ultimate Warrior. He was always one of the toughest “good guys” there was. Every now and then one of the “bad guys” would start to beat him up, but then all of sudden, just when you thought it was all over, the Ultimate Warrior would start shaking the ring ropes and would “miraculously” get his strength back. Then it really was over, the Ultimate Warrior would go crazy and destroy everyone in his path.

Strangely enough, I was reminded of the Ultimate Warrior this past week when reading my Bible. (Go ahead and laugh… I am.) I’ve been reading Judges, and this past week took me through the stories of Samson. Samson seems to “go crazy” twice in chapter 14. First, he’s approached by a lion, you’d think the lion would destroy Samson, but nope, Samson tears apart the lion with his bare hands. Then again at the end of the chapter, Samson strikes down thirty men of Ashkelon when they cheated at solving his riddle. Samson was destroying everything in his path… and he didn’t even have ring ropes to shake.

Here’s the part that really surprises me, in both instances, with the lion and with the men of Ashkelon, what prompts Samson to do all this is that “the Spirit of the LORD rushed upon him.” (See vv.  and 19). Huh? When I think of the Holy Spirit coming upon someone, I usually think of Jesus’ words (quoting Isaiah) in Luke 4: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.” See, I can understand the Holy Spirit coming upon someone to preach the gospel. Sometimes, I’ll even think of the Spirit of the Lord coming upon people and causing them to speak in tongues. (Not often, of course. I am Presbyterian after all.) But the Spirit of the Lord coming upon someone and causing them to destroy a lion, or 30 of the person’s enemies?

I suppose this is a good reminder of the “wildness of God.” C.S. Lewis’ oft-quoted line about Aslan is true: he’s not a tame lion. God is not tame. There’s a wildness to God the Holy Spirit. We cannot tame Him, despite our best efforts. Maybe when we pray for the Holy Spirit to come, we should be more careful, we might actually wake him.

The Mischievous, Scandalous Spirit

I think God sometimes puts a passage of Scripture in our path to drive home to us something he wants us to learn. God did that with me over the course of this week, and I suspect He was doing it with others too. Three times this week, the story of Jesus in the synagogue in Nazareth from Luke 4 was read in worship. The story was first read on Wednesday in chapel. Ironically, its appearance on this day was an “accident.” Dr. Purves, the liturgist for the day, was given the order of service, which contained a typo. He was supposed to read from Luke 24, this Sunday’s lectionary reading, but thanks to the typo, we heard Luke 4. The next day was ESF chapel, and we used the same text as the basis for our drama and sermon. Then again tonight for the Metro Urban Institute’s Intensive Weekend, the preacher’s sermon was based on this text. Three days in a row the story of Jesus reading from the scroll in Isaiah in his hometown was read in worship at PTS. The leaders of the three services had no interaction with one another, and the text doesn’t appear in either the daily lectionary for this week or in the Revised Common Lectionary for this Sunday. Is this just a coincidence, or is the Holy Spirit up to some mischief?

As I’ve reflected on this passage of Scripture over the past three days, what’s struck me the most is how easy we try to make this teaching of Jesus. The people of Nazareth wanted to kill Jesus by the end of this story because they were so enraged at the thought of Syrians receiving benefits from the “year of the Lord’s favor.” In ESF chapel, no one wanted to throw us out (even if we staged a fake “mob”) when we said that this teaching of Jesus implies a concern for all the nations of the world. Tonight at the MUI worship, no one wanted to kick out the preacher who said that this teaching applied to the poor and oppressed of our cities. In fact, we gave the preacher a standing ovation. Is our lack of anger at this teaching simply because we’re so much like Jesus? Do we really get this more than the first hearers of it in Nazareth? I’m afraid not. It’s pretty easy for a bunch of mission-minded evangelicals to apply this text to global Christianity. It’s also easy for a group of urban pastors and lay leaders to apply this text to the oppressed in their own city.

This isn’t to say that the text doesn’t apply to these groups; it does. BUT, the text is just as much a call to the reader to move beyond the box of their own concerns. As an evangelical in America, I can’t help but wonder who this text is reminding me of. Illegal immigrants maybe? Terrorists? I’m not certain. All I know is that until I start to get a bit angry at what Jesus is trying to teach me here, I probably haven’t figured it out.