Just Listen: The Simple Call That Changes Everything

Are We Listening?

While working at the post office, a lady barged in complaining that she got home to find a note from the mailman saying he tried to deliver a package, but nobody was home. He banged on the door, no one answered. "My husband was home all day," she said. Giving her the package, she opens it up and says, "Gosh, I'm so excited. It's my husband's new hearing aid."

How often are we told something and do not listen? Sometimes we don't hear things, and sometimes we just don't want to listen. When I was working as a training officer, I had to teach safety to the staff. I'd finish the course, they'd go back to work, and they'd do exactly what they did before. Couldn't they hear me? Or didn't they just want to listen?

A Simple Call by the Water

Our reading today is from Matthew 4. It's about Jesus calling his first disciples. Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew were out fishing in the lake. And then the scripture says, "Come follow me and I will send you to fish for people." At once, they left their nets and followed him.

There's a moment in most good stories where a character gives an invitation, and that one invitation changes everything. A whispered invitation, a spoken invitation, and one across the water. For Simon and Andrew, that moment came when they were doing the most ordinary thing in the world — they were doing their job. They were fishing, as they had done a thousand times before.

A verse later, Jesus sees James and John also in a boat, and he calls to them. What I find interesting is that it says he called them. He didn't yell out. He simply called them. They weren't listening for him — they were repairing their nets, working hard. Away from shore, there would have been a lot of noise, the two of them working, water splashing on the boat. And yet they heard him calling, and they left the boat, left their father, and followed him.

That's an incredible thing to do — to drop everything and listen, and more importantly, not only just listen, but to come to Jesus. Who is this man? How can you just walk up and call and then people follow? Just a simple invitation, not a twenty-minute sermon, not a whole bunch of miracles, just a simple call. And yet this simple call is going to change their lives.

Belonging Before Behaving

He doesn't question them. He doesn't say, "Are they spiritual men?" He didn't ask, "Do you know the law of Moses? Do you go to the temple every holy day? Do you celebrate all of the spiritual events?" He simply says, "Follow me and you will be changed. Follow me and you'll change others." And they drop their nets and they go.

Maybe that's what Christian life is all about — three simple words: belonging, following, and sharing.

Many of us know what it's like not to belong, to be on the outside looking in. I've been through that experience. My parents and I came to Australia from Germany in 1950. When I was going to school, I was given a hard time. I felt like I didn't belong. I wasn't part of the crowd. I was on my own most of the time. I told my mother a number of times, "I'm not going back. I've had enough."

But then in late primary school, I made two friends, and they were with me all the way through the rest of school, and I felt like I belonged. I was part of something good, and it was a good feeling. It's a great feeling to know that you are needed, that you belong, that you fit in.

These men fishing must have felt something similar. Where do I fit into this world? I'm just a fisherman. Our country is occupied by Rome. I have to pay tax to Rome. I'm a working man, so religious people ignore me. Society around me doesn't ask my opinion about spiritual matters. I'm just a fisherman.

Jesus knows that they matter, and he tells them that. "You do matter, so come along with me." Those words meant a lot — not behave, but belong. A funny thing happens when you find yourself belonging to Christ. You stop fighting hard to belong somewhere because you know where you belong.

The Context of the Call

This is a tough time for Jesus. He is only beginning his ministry. He found himself at the Jordan River where John the Baptist was baptizing people, telling them to repent of their sin. John is related to Jesus, and when Jesus goes into the water to be baptized, John doesn't want to do it because he recognizes who Jesus is and who Jesus will be. But Jesus wants to be baptized by him. He knows this is the start.

He then goes into the wilderness for forty days and forty nights, and when he comes out, he begins his ministry. But then there's the sad news of John the Baptist being arrested — arrested because of the conflict between the good news of God and what the religious leaders were doing. John's simple word was, "Repent your sins and God will baptize you and forgive your sins," and that's the last thing the religious leaders wanted. From then on, Jesus begins to preach about repenting because the kingdom of heaven is near.

Being Close to the People

So Jesus tells them, "I will make you a fisher of people." He's not talking about success, getting applause, or being in zones of comfort. He's saying, "You will be changing people's lives. This is not about you. This is about them."

When Jesus calls them to be fishers of people, what he was really saying is, "You have to be close to them — like the fish are in the water." You can't sit on the shore, hope the net falls into the water, or that the fish jump into the net. That's not how it works. The fish are in the water and you have to be close to catch them.

That's what he's telling the disciples: you have to be close. We do this with a family member, in a shop, at work, with a friend, with a neighbour — all those who are struggling, all those who desperately need our help.

What Jesus is going to teach these men is that God is real and strong, that God's love is real and strong, and that he is talking to us and listening to us.

Following Without Knowing the Full Picture

So now they've gotten out of the boat and followed him. They have absolutely no idea what's going to happen. I wonder if Jesus had told them what was going to happen — whether most of them would have changed their minds.

I remember at my training course, I told my staff that if they picked up a heavy weight the wrong way, they were liable to put their back out and suffer pain for the rest of their lives. I finished the lesson, went out to make myself a cup of coffee. A truck arrived, dropped some drums. The first thing one of the workers did was bend over and pick up a heavy drum the wrong way. I told him what would happen, but he did it anyway.

In the case of the disciples, once these men started to follow Jesus, they didn't know what was going to happen, but they knew something would — and that something would be amazing. They went through Galilee and Jesus taught in the synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. These men who listened when Jesus said, "Follow me. I will make you a fisher of people," are now seeing what this meant. They are seeing the power of Jesus through the love of God, and they are part of it. Why? Because they listened and because they followed.

Just Listen

God is talking to us every day of our lives — through his word and sometimes directly to us. Like the man with the parcel, he wasn't listening. Luckily the parcel contained his hearing aid, so next time he could hear.

For us it's different. For us, our hearing aid is Jesus. He's standing on the shore and we are sitting in the boat, and he's calling us to follow. Are we listening, or are we turning our backs?

We should listen. We too can be like the disciples. We too can be fishers of people. Just listen.