The call of Simon and Andrew

Who did Jesus think he is?

by Douglas Miller

As we were growing up, our parents were always careful to tell us to be careful about whom we trusted. They told us to be very careful if a stranger came up and asked them to do something, and to tell out parents about it.

We were all given warnings like this, and we all needed to be. I remember one time when our son's school had a program called “danger stranger”, which made such an impression on him that he would not sit near anyone he did not know when we went to Church. Such warnings also overlooked that children are often in greater danger from people they do know than from strangers.

We all have to be careful about who we trust. Very careful. Just this past week, the ACCC issued a warning about online sites where people seek a romantic relationship. The warning was that such sites are regularly used by people who seek to get money fraudulently. There was the case in the past year of a woman who became involved with a man who claimed to be an ASIO agent, who was on the run because ASIO wanted to send him back to Iraq, and he needed to hide and evade detection, and he needed as lot of money to help him do that.

None of the story was true. It was all a ruse to take money from a needy person. We all have to be careful about who we trust.

In these days of the Internet, I receive many amazingly good offers. In recent weeks, I received an email from the Manager of the National Bank of Abu Dhabi, wanting to place an enormous amount of money in my bank account. I received another email from a woman dying of cancer, who wants to put her wealth to good use by putting it in my bank account.

Now you may think differently, but I don't believe any of that.

I have also received emails apparently from major Australian banks, telling me that there is a problem with my bank account, and I need to click on the attached link to sort it out. The most basic obvious check shows that the link is not on the Banks website, and not in Australia. It is in the USA, or Brazil, or Israel, or Thailand, or one of several other places. Such emails are routinely sent all over the place by criminal networks, and you never believe them.

You never believe them.

The bottom line with the Internet is that you have no evidence that the person is who they say they are. That has to be checked.

But it is not just the Internet. As a Minister, I have had many people contact me over the years with their account of hard luck, asking for some support, and you have to be very careful. On the one hand, there are people in real need, who should receive some support. But on the other hand, I have heard many bogus stories. There are people who have learned to supplement their income by going round telling hard luck stories to ministers and anyone else who will listen.

We have all had to learn strategies to discern which stories are true and which stories are false.

Now keep that in mind, and think about what Mark says about Simon and Andrew. Mark tells us that Simon, who Jesus renamed Simon Peter, and his brother Andrew were on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, casting a net into the sea. That was their work. They were fishermen. And Jesus came along to these two young men, and said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people”.

Now there is no suggestion that Simon and Andrew had met Jesus before, or that they knew anything about him. He was a complete stranger that walked up. Yet, immediately, they walked away from their nets and followed Jesus.

Now that is just so not what ought to happen. Think about it. If you or I went to some building site, or some railway yard, and went up to two young men working there, and said, “follow me”; what do you think would happen?

You all know what would happen. They would say, “Get lost. Who do you think you are?”. And I think I left some words out of that sentence. And that is exactly what they would say, and it is what they should say.

If we had been there, and we had been their friends, we would have said, “Simon, Andrew, what do you think you're doing following that man? You've got no idea who he is, or what he's planning to do. Just don't do it. Just walk away”. That's what we would have said, and that is normally what we should have said.

On the other hand, we all need to trust some people. We all need to form a mature view of who we can trust and who we can't. During this past week, I saw a young man with a T-shirt on the tram. The T-shirt said, “Nobody knows the truth; we trust in nobody”. I assume it was an atheist kind of message, and a take-off of the American motto, “In God we trust”. But the reality is that we cannot live like that. To live effectively we have to make judgments that there are some people we can trust, and make a judgment about who they are. Without any trust in anyone, we are simply an isolated and ineffective individual. I think that young man probably had some friends and probably trusted them, but I don't know. We have to be cautious about it, but we have to make judgments about who we can trust and who we can work with.

So if we had been friends of Simon and Andrew, what would we have suggested? I'm sure we would have told them to check it out first. Who knows this person Who can confirm that he is of good character? They should ask Jesus what the deal is. What do you mean by “fishers of people”? What will the pay be like? What is the get-out clause if things goes wrong? Where's the written contract? These are all question s we would sensibly suggest to Simon and Andrew.

But we would have been wasting our breath? I'm sure they could have thought of all these questions too, but they simply left the nets behind, and walked away, and followed Jesus, and their lives would never be the same again.

Mark tells us nothing about what they thought at this point. Simply that they came to a decision, and it was immediate.

So far we have thought about this from where Simon and Andrew might see it. Now look at it from where Jesus might see it.

Now we said before, that, if you or I went to some building site, or a railway yard, and went up to two young men working there, and said, “follow me”; what would happen? They would say, “Get lost. Who do you think you are?”, or words to that effect.

Now that raises the question. Jesus went up to two men he did not know, and said, “follow me”. Who did Jesus think he is? Mark says a little later that Jesus spoke with authority. He assumed he could say things like, “follow me”, and Simon and Andrew accepted that authority, but some other people did not. So who did Jesus think he is? It is common for people to say that they respect Jesus as a great teacher of good ethical ideas, who showed people a way of love. That is true as far as it goes.

But Jesus himself believed he was someone much more than that. He believed he was someone who could speak with authority in the name of God, and call people to particular actions as part of God's purpose. Now this story immediately follows the story of Jesus' baptism; verses 9-11. Mark tells us that, when Jesus was baptised, Jesus saw the heavens opened, and the Holy Spirit descend on him like a dove, and the voice of the Father declaring, “you are my beloved Son, with you I am well-pleased”.

So who did Jesus think he is. He thought he was God's special Son raised up to declare that the kingdom of God has come near, and to call people into the life of the Kingdom.

And that leaves us with the question, “Who do you think Jesus is?” This is where the view of Jesus as a great moral teacher rather breaks down. Was he really a great moral teacher if he imagined himself to be the special Son of the Father, when he was nothing of the kind?

So at the end of the day, the Gospel comes to us, and we have to make a decision. We believe Jesus or we don't. Nobody else can make that decision for us. The decision of our parents was fine for them, but we must each decide for ourselves when Jesus calls us to follow him.

We believe him or we don't. I invite you to put your trust in Christ, the Son of God, and to serve him in the way you live your life.

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