The season after the festival of Epiphany often focuses on the beginning of Jesus’ ministry here on Earth. Within those weeks before the beginning of Lent, we hear stories of Christ’s first miracle, his first healing, his first teachings, and, of course, the calling of the first disciples. Last Sunday, we heard John’s version of the tale. Today have the more familiar version from Matthew, the calling at the seashore of the fishermen.

We talked a bit last week about discipleship, about what it means to be a disciple to Jesus Christ. About how you are called to do as Christ did, to live for the world and not for yourself. As I said, that’s a tall order. You have to wonder what sort of men and women God calls to do just that. They must be remarkable individuals.

Well, once again we meet four of them in our Gospel text today. Each of them becomes in the years ahead something remarkable, two bishops, one in Rome, the other in Jerusalem. Another, an evangelist and writer of several New Testament books, and the last, a missionary to faraway lands. But if we had the chance to go back in time to the day before Jesus walked by the seashore and interviewed each one of them. Got the chance to ask them what it is within them that made them do such remarkable things, I’ve no doubt that we would receive a dumbfounded look and a response something to the effect of, “I do what?”

They are remarkable people, but they don’t know it yet.

Let’s be honest though. Peter, James, Andrew, and John probably realistically never expected to be anything but fisherman. If you had newsmagazine from 1^st century Palestine that listed the 50 best jobs, the 50 most powerful jobs, the 50 most influential jobs, fisherman would not even be close to any of those on the list. These were ordinary people, and probably never expected to be anything but ordinary people.

But Jesus knows who they truly are. He knows their potential, knows what they are truly capable of, even if they don’t know it themselves. He knows that these four fisherman have the courage, the tenacity, and ultimately the faith to change the world, to carry on the message of the Gospel after Jesus’ work here on Earth is done.

But the more I think about it, the more I wonder if there isn’t more to it than that. Could be it be that it’s not just their potential for greatness that makes Jesus call these four men and the others who come after, but maybe, just maybe, it is their ordinariness that brings the call?

Jesus has come to bring a message and to be a message. A message that God is still at work, that he is doing a new thing, providing a new way, offering mercy and forgiveness, healing and justice through his Christ. And Jesus is living that message in all that does and says, bringing healing, truth in teaching, and then ultimately giving his very life for the sake of the world.

This is the light of which both Isaiah and Matthew speak in our texts today; light in the midst of darkness, God’s salvation in the midst of evil. It’s here. The kingdom of heaven has come near.

But how to get the word out? That’s the question. Jesus, of course, spreads the message himself, through word and deed, teaching and performing miracles of healing. But as God incarnate, he’s just one man. Just like us. He needs others to help him spread this message as far and as wide as possible. He wants all people to hear of the Good News; He wants all people to believe it.

Now tell me, are you more prone to believe the word of someone who is vastly different from you or someone very much like you? If the President or a Corporate CEO or some other big shot came here to talk about the Gospel, would you buy into it? You might, of course, depending upon your opinion of such people and that’s good. But I suspect not everyone here would, and that’s bad. It’s bad because it highlights that Jesus cannot spread his message just one way. He’s got to reach people where they are, with their experiences, their ideas, and their opinions.

Enter the disciples. First the twelve, then all the others. Each one of them remarkable individuals, even if they don’t know it yet, but each one of them called also because of who and what they are now. If you want to reach the fishermen of the world, it might help to call a fisherman. He calls four. If you want to reach the tax collectors, it might help if you called a tax collector. He calls one. And it’s not just about professions and jobs and careers. It’s about all the things that make these people who they are, their interests, their ideas, their family, their opinions, and so forth. Each one of them called because Jesus knew out there somewhere was someone or someones that only they could reach.

And so now, it falls to each of us. Who are we? What are we? And who is it that we are called to proclaim the good news of the Gospel? The good news we hear every Sunday (I hope) about how God so loved the world to send his son, incarnate to live among us, die, and then rise again for our sakes. The good news that we carry with us from these four walls to wherever we go. Who is it that we encounter out there? Have they heard that the light of the world has come? Does it fall to us to tell them?

I think it does. I think that each one of us, unique as we are, is called to be a disciple and apostle of Christ because of who and what we are. Because out there somewhere, perhaps very close by, is someone that only we can reach. We can only reach them because of who we are, and God has called us to bring good news to them.

You never know. Just as those first disciples had no clue as to what they would become and they would do, our simple acts of proclamation to our neighbors, be they words or deeds, might change the world too. God knows and it’s why he’s called you. Amen.