The wild restless sea
Sermon preached in St Salvators Chapel on Sunday 29th November 2009 by Rev. Neil Garder, Minister of Canongate Kirk, Edinburgh
Readings: Zechariah 8: 20-23, Matthew 4: 12-20
It's a great pleasure to be back in the University Chapel and especially to be back in St Andrews on the eve of St Andrew's Day. It's always around this time of year that I find myself reluctantly engaged in the laborious task of transferring details from one diary to another - not because I'm highly organised a whole month ahead of the New Year, sadly, but because I use a church diary that starts on the first Sunday of Advent, the first day of the new year in the Christian calendar, today! This church diary is the only one that gives me enough room for a Sunday - every other diary gives less room to the Sabbath than it does to a weekday, whilst mine allocates twice the space, costs a fortune and weighs a ton in the process. Nevertheless today we find ourselves at the first Sunday of Advent, the beginning of a new liturgical year which stretches before us like so many as yet unwritten pages in a brand new diary. And at the same time, on the eve of St Andrew's Day, we find ourselves looking back through the mists of time to when St Andrew himself was clearing his diary, making a new beginning, setting off with his brother Simon Peter and following Jesus. At once they left their nets and followed him.
Our reading from St Matthew's Gospel helpfully addresses both of today's themes, Advent and Andrew, in the space of a few verses. At the beginning of the passage the familiar reminder of Isaiah's foretelling of a new dawn - the people that lived in darkness have seen a great light; light has dawned on those who lived in the land of the death's dark shadow. And at the end the equally familiar encounter between Jesus walking by the sea of Galilee and Simon Peter and Andrew casting their net into the lake. Jesus said to them 'Come with me, and I will make you fishers of men'. At once they left their nets and followed him. At once they left their nets and followed him. I always think the most remarkable words of that sentence are the first two. At once they left their nets and followed him. At once. Immediately. Without hesitation. Without so much as a backward glance. They left their nets and followed him. Left their nets drifting in the water and their boat hauled up on the shore. Left their homes and their families. Left all the things they had ever known, the people and places that had meant so much to them for so long. Left it all behind. At once. At once they left their nets and followed him.
They must surely have heard something about him. Word must have gone round that Jesus of Nazareth had come to the lakeside. Fishing communities were close communities, and incomers would be noticed. Especially when they went about proclaiming the message: Repent, the kingdom of Heaven is upon you. Well, word would get round wouldn't it? But apart from hearsay there's no evidence that Simon Peter or Andrew knew much about him at all, certainly not enough to leave behind the people they loved and the places they knew and exchange it all to go with Jesus, off into the unknown. And yet that's exactly what they did. At once they left their nets and followed him. At once.
The fulfilment of prophecy usually took a little longer. The initial arrival of Jesus in Galilee was eventually in fulfilment of the words that Isaiah had uttered many centuries before. St Matthew spells it out: This was to fulfil the words of the prophet Isaiah about the land of Zebulun, the land of Naphtali, the road to the sea, the land beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles - For centuries the people had been watching and waiting and wondering. And only now the people that lived in darkness have seen a great light; only now has light dawned on those who lived in the land of death's dark shadow. Isaiah wasn't the only one who had looked ahead to that far-distant moment. Zechariah, writing 300 years later but still 500 years before the birth of Jesus, similarly looked ahead to the dawning of a new age. Nations and dwellers in many cities will come in the future, he wrote, people of one city will approach those of another and say Let us go to entreat the favour of the Lord; let us resort to the Lord of hosts; and I too shall go. And Zechariah concludes with a wonderful vision of ten people from nations of every language taking the robe of one Jew and saying 'Let us accompany you, for we have heard that God is with you'. Words that could so easily have been spoken by the otherwise silent saints, Andrew and Peter, as they left their nets and followed him. Let us accompany you, for we have heard that God is with you. Let us resort to the Lord of hosts. And I too shall go. At once they left their nets and followed him.
Jesus calls us! O'er the tumult
Of our life's wild restless sea,
Day by day his voice is sounding,
Saying 'Christian, follow me'.
The waters of the sea of Galilee could be pretty wild and restless at times. But Andrew and Peter knew them well, after all their family had fished the same waters for generations and they knew where storms might suddenly arise, where dangerous gusts could sweep down from the surrounding hills and take less experienced fishermen by surprise. And yet they were ready to exchange it all, and at once, for the uncharted waters that Jesus would leave in his wake, the waters of their new life's wild restless sea, wild and restless and unknown and unpredictable. At once they left their nets and followed him. It was a slightly later saint, Saint Augustine of Hippo, who in the tumult of his own life's wild restless sea once wrote 'Thou hast made us for thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in thee'. Yesterday I walked along the beach and the sea was as calm and benign as I could ever remember it. Today it's a different story - how quickly and unexpectedly and completely things can change. The first Sunday of Advent, the beginning of a new liturgical year, gives each one of us an opportunity to take stock of the tumult of our life's wild restless sea, of all that weighs us down and holds us back, of all that clutters up our diaries and limits our horizons, of all that entraps and entangles us like so many old fishing nets hauled up on the shore. An opportunity too to refocus on the old light still burning in the darkness but not so far off now, and on the new dawn breaking just beyond the horizon.
O come, o come, Emmanuel and ransom captive Israel
At once they left their nets and followed him. And now may God bless to us this preaching of his most holy word, and to God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, be all praise and glory now and forever. Amen.