Brief synopsis of the readings: Reading again from Isaiah we learn that God first degraded the lands of Zebulun and Naphtali (areas in the northern part of Israel) but glorified them in the end. Darkness has once again been dispelled and light has shone. All those things that burdened the people have been smashed. Matthew’s Gospel recounts the arrest of John the Baptist; when Jesus heard this he left Nazareth and went to Zebulun and Naphtali. After that he called for his disciples to repent “for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” He then saw Peter and his brother Andrew who were fishing. He invited them to follow him “and I will make you fishers of men.” They left their nets and followed Jesus. Jesus then saw two more brothers, James and John (sons of Zebedee) who were mending their fishing nets and he invited James and John to follow him and they did. The group then “went all around Galilee, teaching in synagogues, proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and curing every disease and illness among the people.”

At first glance today’s Gospel may look like Jesus, hearing that John the Baptist had been arrested, simply picked up where John left off. When Jesus began to proclaim repentance and that the kingdom was at hand he was saying exactly what John had. But if Jesus was just John’s replacement that would hardly make sense. As much as we revere John, he’s not our redeemer. We don’t know much about John though we know he had followers. But we don’t know how his followers came to follow him; I suspect like most street preachers he began to preach and those wandering by heard him and listened, and told their friends.

Jesus, however, made a point of choosing his own disciples. Here we see Peter, Andrew, James and John but we know Jesus was putting together the team that will be known as the Twelve. We don’t know Jesus’ criteria but as we’ll find out from the rest of the Gospels, these were not the best and the brightest. We will see them jealous, ambitious, foolish and clueless and in the end they will all abandon Jesus. Only when we read about them in the Act of the Apostles after Jesus ascended do we see them become true leaders. As Christians we believe that Jesus also chose us, and that should give us hope; Jesus clearly didn’t choose them by their resumes and he couldn’t use LinkedIn.

And while we’re on the subject, what caused them to say yes and follow? It’s not hard to imagine that Jesus approached others who declined to follow and during Jesus’ public ministry we see people wander in and out of Jesus’ orbit. For whatever reason these disciples stayed; we know who they are and have named churches, schools, parks and cities after them (think San Juan, Puerto Rico).

We follow in their footsteps. Our call likely wasn’t as dramatic but no less important. In the last few decades we’ve heard more and more about people who report a “born again” experience where they come to the understanding that their lives needed a new direction and they chose to follow Jesus. It’s a story as old as St. Paul and as recent as the Trappist mystic Thomas Merton and I completely respect those experiences. But I think most of us answer the call to discipleship in much more subtle experiences.

In my decades of experience in Catholic education and formation I’ve come to the conclusion that we can tell almost nothing from peoples’ religious experiences as children. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t educate children but it’s not like we’re contributing to a child’s faith 529 (college) plan to guarantee funding for adult faith. Of my childhood peers I find myself one of the few that still practices the faith we grew up with. When we hear a teenager at Confirmation, Bar or Bat Mitzvah proclaim that they have made a fully formed decision to accept adult faith I chuckle a little. And when I speak with my current peers many point to events and relationships as adults that formed them into who they are.

We should also notice that when Jesus’ first apostles answered their call they didn’t give up their professions. We can easily imagine that Jesus’ followers took discipleship as a full time job; after all, if Jesus could feed the crowds with loaves and fishes he could certainly keep his people fed and clothed. But we also see scenes where these apostles were fishing and in Acts of the Apostles we learned that Paul continued to support himself as a tent maker. Just like us, they still needed to make a living and honor their responsibilities.

I say all this because we make a mistake when we flatten these first followers into two dimensional, remote figures that have little to do with our call to follow Jesus. Seen another way, we can still learn from what we read in these passages.

However we’ve answered, and continue to answer, our call to follow Jesus it continues to be difficult, uncertain and complicated. We don’t deal with the Roman empire and we’ve found a cure for leprosy but we have different challenges these days. Our world has the ability to change the climate but lacks the willingness to make responsible decisions for our descendants. We have the freedom to practice our faith free from government persecution but find ourselves led by false prophets who lecture us on who belongs and who we should care about.

And still we move on. We need to remember that we are the flashlights of God’s kingdom, not the architect. We don’t need to know exactly how our story ends, God will take care of that. But we do need to remind ourselves of our role. Whenever we stand up for someone who has been marginalized, we light the light. Whenever we point the flashlight at injustice and provide encouragement to someone who has stumbled we continue to answer the call that led Peter, Andrew, James and John to follow Jesus.

And when we read about the call of the first apostles we need to remember that we continue to be links in that 2000 year old chain.