Homily for the Third
Sunday after the Epiphany 22 January 2017
The Rev’d John R. Clarke, Rector
The Rev’d John R. Clarke, Rector
Jesus said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” Matthew 4:19
That’s the kind of game-changing talk fans came to
expect of The Unit ─ the take-no-prisoners TV series that, for three
seasons beginning in 2006, charted the missions and internal dynamics of a clone
of the US Army Delta Force.
And the force behind The Unit’s most gripping episodes? David Mamet ─ all-star, award-winning playwright, producer, and
director.
But even Mamet couldn’t protect The Unit from the critics. Their gripe? Not
enough drama.
To silence the critics, Mamet channeled Sgt. Major
Blane in a memo to The Unit’s writers.
“What is drama?” Mamet asks. “Drama is the quest of
the hero to overcome those things which prevent him or her from achieving a specific,
acute goal.” That means, “we (the
writers) must ask ourselves ─ of every scene ─ three questions:
1.
The specific, acute goal: Who
wants what?
2.
What happens if they don't get
it?
3.
Why now?
“Apply
these questions like litmus paper,” Mamet concludes, “and the answers will tell
you if the scene is dramatic or not.”
What happens when we apply that litmus test to
Jesus’ “Follow-me” script as he calls his first four disciples: Peter and
Andrew, James and John? Do we have drama?
Meaning, looking at Jesus and his disciple-targets,
1.
Who wants what?
2.
What happens if they don't get
it?
3.
Why now?
Picture this: John the Baptist is arrested in order to prevent his grassroots resistance movement
from taking on the Roman occupiers, their puppet Herod Antipas, and local
networks of informants and collaborators.
John’s hands may be tied,
but ─ and this is the answer to “Why now?” for Jesus ─ the torch is passed, and the dream lives on. Because John’s message (“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near”) ─ who
appropriates the message word for word? Jesus. Barely had to update the website.
And yet, Jesus launches his
own mission ─ his own
answer to Mamet’s question, “Who wants what?”
What does Jesus want? It’s
“specific” and “acute”: Nothing less than the Kingdom of Heaven ─ the Reign of God ─
established right here on earth ─ every nook and cranny … absent
John’s menace.
Because John? All threat,
all the time. What does John want people to get? “God’s Kingdom? Whew! We made it!”
Jesus? All opportunity,
for all time. What does he want to hear? “We made it! We made God’s
Kingdom!”
So, John the Baptist … Jesus.
Same words (“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near”). Different message.
Tone and style so different. That’s because Jesus aims for a different outcome.
But given the magnitude
of what Jesus wants, he can’t go it alone. Result? He settles on a metaphor: snagging
the best that money can’t buy.
So, he scouts for recruits among the struggling fishing enterprises
of Galilee. He spots two candidates: Simon (later, called Peter) and Andrew. He
makes the pitch: “Follow me, and I will make you fish … for people.”
Not, as the Sunday School
song goes (“I will make you fishers of men, if you follow me”). Not even “Perch
today, people tomorrow.” But “Follow me, and I will make you … I will form you … I will cajole and compel you ... to 'fish' for people.”
That’s a pitch with bite!
Obviously, because, Matthew says, “Immediately
they leave their nets and follow Jesus.”
And then Round 2. Two more
fishermen: James and John, the sons of Zebedee. Same results.
But what if the first targets
had opted out? What if Jesus didn’t get what he wanted (four yes’s)?
Fallout. No drama. Jesus
would ─ reluctantly ─
pack it all in and make a “go” of his stepfather Joseph’s home-improvement
business. Yawn!
In other words, no
Kingdom of Heaven on earth. Because if Jesus can’t snag the fishermen, what are
his chances with anyone else?
That’s because, in terms
of what Jesus wants, the fishermen
are low-hanging fruit. That’s connected to what they want.
And it’s not remotely tied
to the words of the hymn we occasionally sing:
They
cast their nets in Galilee
just off the hills of brown;
such happy, simple fisherfolk,
before the Lord came down.
just off the hills of brown;
such happy, simple fisherfolk,
before the Lord came down.
Contrary to the hymn, Peter and Andrew, James and
John — who we eventually learn can be pretty edgy on a good day — on this day, they may not have been quite
so happy, so content, such simple fisherfolk.
Reason: They’re on edge. It’s all in the numbers. In
the regional economy, Galilee is Big Business. Big Business is fish. And fishermen are not big. In fact,
they’re bottom-feeders.
Above them? The supply chain of getting fish from sea
… to market … to table: a highly-regulated, highly-bureaucratic, highly-corrupt
business, with profits trickling up, away
from â labor — where the fish are — to á where
the corporate sharks swim: the cities, like Capernaum, and even as far away as Rome.
For example, if you want to get into entry-level fishing
or expand your business, you don’t just buy a boat and a few nets and suddenly
it’s “Yo-ho-ho, a-sailing we will go!” That’s because the fishing industry is state-controlled.
Caesar and Herod sell to co-ops (like Zebedee and his two sons) the fishing
leases necessary to ply the waters of the Sea of Galilee for profit, as limited
as the profits might be.
And chances are, you lease your boat and equipment,
or borrow heavily to buy or build. Either way, you’re up to your eyeballs
in debt.
The point? There’s good news. And there’s bad news.
The bad news: The system is stacked against the
four fishermen. And it’s possible — likely, I think — the two groups of
brothers are at the tipping point.
That, for them, is the answer to “Why now?”
The good news: As Jonas Blane might say, “The universe
has been conspiring their whole life to put them right here … right now.”
Read: They’re ready
to drop their nets ─ which
they probably don’t own. They’re prepped
to abandon the boats ─ which
probably aren’t theirs. They can taste
the taste of freedom ─ a
taste they’ve never known. But they do know, as Janis Joplin used to sing, “Freedom’s
just a name for nothing left to lose.”
And they can see plainly: Jesus isn’t selling them a lease to fish for people. He’s offering them — freely (on the spot!)
opportunity ─ opportunity defined, as Jim Wallis says, by “more jobs
on Main Street, than more profits on Wall Street.”
That is what the fishermen want: Better reasons to keep on
keepin’-on. Bigger fish to fry. Drama!
And if they don’t get it? No drama. No opportunity.
No exit. Same old-same old.
Well, not quite. Because, without a major
turn-around in how things work on a grand scale, the trajectory is set. Like
today, the rich will get richer. And the fishermen ─ along
with their poor neighbors (like most, if
not all of
us) ─ will
get poorer and poorer.
That is, now, as then, the record is clear: It’s no
way to build an economy, despite what you’ll hear for the next four years. Once
again and once for all: Prosperity. Does. Not. Trickle-down. It’s no way to build
an economy. And, Jesus shows, it’s no way to build God’s kingdom.
But opportunity
is.
And, given the opportunity to make a sea-change in
their lives ─ their
whole mind-set ─ their
place in the world ─ how
they will wring possibilities out of each moment of their lives to love
neighbor and God better and better ─ Peter
and Andrew, James and John choose the opportunity only Jesus offers. They choose the opportunity Jesus offers each of us.
Proving
that God is banking on the choices we
make today, choices that create ─ in this
world ─ more opportunity for our neighbors and ourselves, and not at our neighbors' expense. Choices that add up
to equality, the kind of equality we marched to achieve ─ along with
millions of others ─ in
Saturday's shoulder-to-shoulder Women’s March for America in Boston, all across the country, and around the globe.
Bottomline: As with those four fishermen, at this
very moment, Jesus is taking the full measure of each and every one of us.
“You’ve been training for this moment your entire life,” Jesus argues. “The universe
has been conspiring your whole life to put you right here … right now.”
“Follow me,
then,” Jesus calls. “And I will make
you fish … for people.”
Amen
