3rd Sunday of the Year
January 23, 2005
Matt. 4:12-23

Both the gospels of Matthew and Mark (Matt 4:12 and Mark 1:14) point out that Jesus’ ministry begins after the arrest of John the Baptist. This might be the reflection of a simplified chronology. John's gospel presents a more complicated picture. On the one hand, the first disciples of Jesus (among them a pair of brothers, Peter and Andrew) make their first contact with Jesus while they are in the company of the Baptist (John 1:35-42); on the other hand, we learn from the same gospel (John 3:22-24; 4:1) that Jesus has a slowly expanding ministry in Judaea and Samaria (4:39-42) before John's arrest and before his Galilean ministry unfolds (4:43-45).

Another interesting window on history is offered by the fact that John also has disciples who hesitate between Jesus and John (cf. Mt 9:14 and 11:2), and need to clarify the apparent differences between the two preachers before they understand that the two have the same message. This is why in Matthew's gospel it is so important to see that the message about repentance and the Kingdom which Jesus preaches is word for word the same that John has preached (3:2=4:17)

This context is necessary if we are to understand the extremely condensed scene of the call of the first four fishermen whom Jesus invites to a lifetime of discipleship. Three of these first four (Peter and the sons of Zebedee) will become his confidants. Some 25 years later when Paul's epistle to the Galatians assesses the leadership roles in the church, two of these four men (Peter and John together with another James – that is, "the brother of Jesus" and the leader of Jesus' relatives) are called the "columns of the church.” So, the convergent testimony of various New Testament documents shows that the event by which these four fishermen leave behind their profession and their family ("their nets and their father") is an extraordinary event for the future of Jesus' movement.

"Follow me" is a mixture of invitation and command. In mere human terms it sounds like the playing out of the irresistible fascination that Jesus exercises over the hearts and minds of these young fishermen who learned about him while listening to the Baptist during their pilgrimage in Judaea. But now that his arrest has put a halt to the movement of the Baptist, they are ready to leave behind their previous way of life and begin a journey into the unknown.

The theme of "the disciples' call" is in Matthew consciously built up into a motif: new and new men will be selected (8:18), the tax collector will be called (9:9), the Twelve will be selected (10:2-4), and finally we learn from Peter that this kind of discipleship means "leaving behind every thing," even the most precious relationships of home, brothers and sisters, mother and father, children and property for the sake of Jesus' name (19:28-29).

One is justifiably thinking of the very beginning of Salvation History, the call of Abraham to leave his home and family and "go to a country which I will show you." The patriarchs of "the new age" -- these men who will be the first among the Twelve, who will be chosen to generate a new set of Twelve tribes -- begin their journey in response to a similar call. We are not speaking only of "traveling missionaries." What began with the call of these two pairs of brothers at the Lake of Galilee, later Christian ages have called the "vita apostolica," a lifetime companionship with Jesus that has become the ideal of monastic, religious and priestly life.

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