I both love and hate the text from the gospel of Matthew this morning.  I love the idea of Jesus coming along and hailing these fisherman with a deep and earnest call, "Follow me."  They look into his big brown gentle eyes and they are drawn to Jesus, sensing the presence of God in a deeper and more profound way than they ever thought possible.  These fisherman immediately fall into step with him, leaving behind their livelihood and their lives to pursue this enigmatic bringer of God's presence.  The transition is almost magical and hypnotic.  Which is the same reason why I hate this text.  Give me a break, these boys have potential cult members written all over them, blindly falling into line with the first fast talker that comes their way making promises.

Even if I knew that Jesus was indeed the very Son of God, I am not convinced I would be able to drop my life
and follow him so quickly.  I think I would have a few questions first.  I would have a few qualifiers as to how far I was willing to go and what I was willing to do.

Most of us have a few qualifiers we place upon our relationship with God.  Most of us wish to have a healthy spiritual life, wish to find some grounding in our beliefs, wish to feel God's presence in our lives.  But how many of us are prepared to have God call us out of our lives?
 

I am sure those four fishermen had their own set of qualifiers and reservations and rational reasons not to follow this Jesus.  I am sure it was not easy leaving behind family, and friends and a healthy business on the sea to follow this man along the dusty roads of Palestine.

I wonder what drove them on to follow, and follow so quickly.  If all of those things, their family, friends, livelihood, were all on one side of the scale of their decision, what was bearing weight on the other side of the scale to tip it in the direction of following?  What were they needing, hungering for, what was empty inside of them that was strong enough to outweigh all of the things in this life most of us would never wish to leave behind?  Would they have labeled it a longing for God?  Did they even know they had one before Jesus came calling for them?

I am not convinced that Peter and Andrew, and James and John, had any certainty at all about who they were following.  Perhaps there was a gentle nudging in their hearts that made them realize, that just maybe this wandering holy man was in touch with something that they wanted to touch, to know.

 I am reminded of a portion of a poem by Emily Dickinson,
"I dwell in possibility-
A fairer house than Prose-
More numerous of Windows-
Superior- for doors...
Of Visitors- the fairest-
For Occupation- This-
The spreading wide my narrow Hands
To Gather Paradise-"
 
Perhaps the turning of the tide for these men had nothing at all do with certainty.  It had to do with trusting that our lives may afford us the possibility of intimate relationship with God.  Perhaps they kept their eyes peeled out their windows for a vision of God's presence, and their doors unlocked to the arrival of the divine in their midst.

These fisherman were not religious fanatics, in fact there is no evidence that they were particularly devout in any outstanding fashion.  They were just men, just mortals, who knew at some level deep inside themselves, that their was a reality beyond their daily routine.  They realized on some level that eating, sleeping, and working were not the only things for which they were created.

In her book, "Things Seen and Unseen" Nora Gallagher writes of a misunderstanding as a child that led to deep understanding as an adult.  "Every Sunday at Trinity, we said the Lord's Prayer together.  We settled into it like chickens hunkering down to roost, like people entering into the houses of their childhoods.  Sometimes we became one voice, one rhythm, and I was carried on a sea of voices. 'Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.'

"When we said 'hallowed' I could feel a hollow place open up in me.  As a child learning the prayer, having no idea what 'hallowed meant, I had imagined making a cave for God's name in the banks of the irrigation ditches that flowed past the house.  I was not far off: to hallow, to make holy, is to make a place inside and outside the self, a space fit for God, God-shaped."

My guess is that these fisherman already had that small hollow place inside of them.  When Jesus called them to follow they sensed the possibility of having that hollow place filled with the spirit of God, and they jumped at the chance.  My guess is that we too can sense that hollow place inside of us.  Mind you, not all the time.  When we are busy rushing around there is hardly the chance to notice such a hushed thing.  But in those moments when we stop and listen, in the quiet of late night, we sense the hollow space, in a time of crisis, we sense the hollow space, in times of questioning, we sense the hollow space.

We do not always have a name for it but we often seek a variety of ways to fill it up.  Some of us try with success at work, others with food, others with alcohol or television, or some other diversion.  At best these substitutes only serve to numb us to the reality of the space within us.  They do not fill it.
 
Some of us are wise enough to recognize that hallow space reserved for God within us but we do not believe God will really come along and offer to fill us up.  Maybe God makes those offers to the saints and people in the Bible, but I do not believe that God is coming along to make that offer to me.

Well when those fisherman got the offer they were neither saints nor people in the bible.  They were just working folk seeing to their work.  They took a risk, for a moment they decided to believe in the possibility that God had come looking for them and offering to fill up that hollow space inside of them with the spirit of the divine.  They took a step toward Jesus and all of a sudden they were followers.  Did they question along the way?  Were they skeptical at times?  Confused?  Filled with doubt?  Certainly.  Did they have any idea where that first step would take them?  No.  But they took the risk.

They recognized the existential emptiness that playing it safe and trusting in their daily routines entailed and they looked the other way into the unknown, into the possibility.  It is the kind of choice each one of us faces everyday.  Do we keep our heads down and go about our daily business or do we take the risk to lift our heads, look around, and listen for God's approach in our lives.
 
More from Nora Gallagher, "In 'The Production of the World,'  his essay on Van Gogh, John Berger writes 'For an animal its natural environment and habitat are given; for a human...reality is not a given: it has to be continually sought out, held--I am tempted to say salvaged.'" Our daily reality does not have to be devoid of God's presence.  We make the choice.  Do we view the world we inhabit as some flat material existence or do we choose to recognize the possibility that God's presence is imbued in all that surrounds us, calling each one of us in our own way, follow me.  The choice is ours.

Amen.