What is the point of a life on earth? What are we supposed to do with the lives we have?
Just after Jesus began his public ministry, he was walking along the seashore. He saw Andrew and Simon Peter, brothers who were fishermen. The two were engaged in the most practical, commonplace, understandable thing we can imagine anyone doing—making money. That is, they were plying their trade and doing their day jobs. They were catching fish.
I wrote about the first recorded sentence of Jesus’ ministry. Now, in the scene in which Jesus encounters these men, he speaks what would appear to be the second recorded sentence. According to Matthew 4:19, Jesus said, “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.”
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How practical is it really, what Andrew and Peter were doing when they heard this call?
That is, how practical is it that we focus so much of our mind, time, attention, and planning on our efforts to obtain income or wealth?
These efforts are consuming. To a great extent, they define us. Our sense of how successful, fruitful, or secure we are is rooted in this pursuit.
P.J. O’Rourke is a political writer. His writings wouldn’t seem to have much in common with a study of the gospels, but stay with me a moment. O’Rourke, in one of his books, offered this critique of controlled, centrally planned economies. One of the challenges in these regimes, he said, is to figure out just what the economy is for. A market economy has the mechanism of supply and demand guiding resources to where they will realize the most value. This effect has been called “the invisible hand.” But when authorities determine for themselves what to make and what work people should do, one of the frequent results is great loops of production that don’t add up to a purpose. Ore is mined to meet steel quotas, steel quotas are set by mining machine manufacturing, mining machines are built to meet the ore requirements, and on and on and on.
Here is my point:
In our own lives, how easy is it to settle into the same kind of huge, purposeless loops that don’t go anywhere?
We allow ourselves to become busy without considering what we’re busy about. For example, I might pour my energy into pursuing ever more income so I can afford a big house with shiny luxuries and distant vacations—simply because these comforts are what I need to console myself against the weariness of pouring so much energy into pursuing an income. One pursuit compels another, and I am stuck in the loop. All of this happens because I have ignored a different sort of “invisible hand.”
Jesus, in that first sentence of his ministry (Matthew 4:17), refers to a greater realm that is right here at hand. The comforts and successes of this world are fleeting and temporary, but your life does not have to be like that. By connecting to this greater realm, you can surpass this world and outlast it. What, then, is the point of this world?
What is worth pursuing?
There is something. This second sentence of Jesus’ ministry, the call to the fishermen, is a logical extension of the first sentence. The one other thing we do encounter in this world that also has the potential to surpass the world and outlast it is the life of another person.
Service to people is worth doing, and the hearts of people are treasures worth pursuing.
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So does that mean you quit your day job to pursue them?
Do you leave your nets behind to follow Jesus, in the way that Andrew and Peter did?
In a few cases, yes. Some people do find themselves led away from their current work into entirely different callings.
But as a general rule: No. Quitting your day job would entirely miss the point of the good news of the kingdom of God.
We do not experience the kingdom through a career change. We experience it through a heart change.
Jesus teaches us to get free of our circumstances where those circumstances lead us to sin. Beyond that, however, there is no particular set of circumstances that might not be right—that might not provide the opportunity to build up some other person who is also, like you, adored by God.
Indeed, God may have planted you in precisely these circumstances to fulfill some purpose that you are precisely equipped to fulfill.
My friend Zeke is an elder at MCC. He offers a take on the “fishers of men” verse that richly expands its applicability. Jesus did not call us all to be “fishers,” he said. Rather, in this call to the brothers, we see Jesus speaking to the men from within their own particular background and profession. Part of who these men were included the skill, patience, and discipline they applied to gather fish into nets. Now, these same parts of who they were would obtain even greater value in the work of gathering people into the “net” of God’s love.
Each of us has our own particular background, profession, and life experiences—much different from those of a couple of fishermen in Galilee. We should listen for the distinct and individual way that God will make use of each of us.
To an architect, he might say: “You will now design spaces for love in people’s lives.”
To a paramedic: “You will be a first-responder during times of spiritual trauma.”
To a marketing manager: “You will raise the awareness of what is eternal.”
To a dental hygienist: “You will fight the decay of my people’s hearts.”
Related post:
Brokenness is the Beginning: The Third Sentence
Photo courtesy freestockphotos.com
