I have lived most of my adult life in a house full of athletes. More than once, I’ve helped Will limp off a marathon finish line after a PR or revived a teen who raced so hard he’d passed out with sips of Gatorade. I had long discussions with my high school rower about what he might eat before an erg test to keep him from throwing up quite as much into the trash container next to each erg machine—because throwing up is just what happens during an erg test if you’re pushing your limits.  Most recently, I watch astonished as my daughter comes home after a long workout with her team and launches into an hour of core exercises that I might be able to sustain for two minutes. 

My favorite exercise is a walk or ski chatting with a friend, followed by tea and a good book on the couch. Honestly, I don’t understand what drives any of them, but they are athletes, each of them following the inner urge to compete, to push their bodies to the limit, to always do better the next time.  I see that discipline reflected in their studies, their work, their relationships, and  I know that they would not be where or who they are without the pain. 

Last week, I spent my time here reflecting on the importance of finding a call that is true to God speaking within us, rather than to outside voices telling us what we should do.  But I didn’t say that that inner call, should we accept it, would be free from difficulty, struggle, or pain.  No one living in a household of athletes, and no one who follows Jesus’ way of love, could promise that.

Seeing how quickly the first disciples leave their boats behind when Jesus calls in today’s Gospel might suggest otherwise—that what they see ahead of them is the pure, immediate excitement of following the Messiah, the promised one, the Savior of the world. That that rush drives them to leave their family and their work behind.

I suspect their vision was much clearer than that, though. For one thing, they had to be aware that John—the first to recognize Jesus as Messiah—has just been arrested.  Following Jesus was a dangerous choice from the start.

On the other hand, fishers on the Sea of Gallilee in a land occupied by the Romans existed at the bottom of the economic ladder, more medieval peasants who worked for a wealthy landowner than modern small business owners. Layer upon layer of bureaucracy and taxation ensured that they and their families would live out their lives in poverty and deprivation no matter how hard they worked.

When one day, Jesus calls them to be fishers of men, they must have heard  the echo of the words of the prophet Jeremiah:  “I am now sending for many fishermen, says the Lord, and they shall catch them.”  Jeremiah is prophesying a time when God will restore Israel, gathering God’s scattered people and punishing those who have oppressed and polluted Israel with idols.   Where we hear a call to save souls, it’s more likely that Andrew and Simon, James and John heard a call to change, to upending the corrupt social and religious structures of Rome and Jerusalem that kept them firmly and painfully in their place.  Despite the risks and dangers, I suspect they heard his invitation to follow, deeply and immediately, as a call to rise and make life better for themselves and the people they loved. Then, though Jesus doesn’t lead exactly where they expected,  they continue to follow that call through all confusion, pain, and despair that follows into the mystery, wonder, and joy of Resurrection.

In contrast, in today’s first lesson, Jonah tries to run from God’s call to save the people of Nineveh.  Jonah is not running from his vocation—he is a respected prophet to Jeroboam II, the king of the people of Israel.  But God is sending him off to the Assyrian infidels, who, in Jonah’s opinion, are totally NOT worth saving. Not even being vomited onshore after three days in the belly of a fish is enough to convince him.  Grudgingly, he does what God tells him to do, but then immediately goes off to pout under a shade tree. I like to imagine that before his story is over, Jonah finally gets it, understanding that his call isn’t only to the easy stuff—calling God’s people to repentance when they stumble; that it’s also the painful work of calling those he considers least worthy into God’s circle of forgiveness and love.

Just under fifty years ago, Martin Luther King was imprisoned in Birmingham County Jail for organizing protests in Birmingham against the racial injustice in that city, including the uninvestigated bombings of black homes and churches.  Despite his deep calling to his work, the conditions in the jail were harsh. He was particularly hard hit when someone delivered a newspaper with a letter signed by eight white clergy (including the Episcopal Bishop of Alabama, just saying), calling for the end of protests that they claimed incited violence–though the protesters themselves were uniformly peaceful and nonviolent.  They asked the protesters to exercise patience instead and work through the justice system that had repeatedly failed them to achieve their goals.  Out of an enormously discouraging and painful time, in the margins of that same newspaper, Dr. King began writing one of the most important documents in American history, the Letter from Birmingham Jail.  In his response to the clergymen’s letter, he patiently, carefully uses biblical, classical, and personal examples to lay out the reasons why nonviolent protest is necessary in the face of unjust laws.  Then, prophetically, he calls them to turn and do what is right:

We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. 

And here we are, fifty years, 2000 years, 6000 years later, still following the call of God into dangerous territory. I’m not going to tell any one of you where or what God is calling you to. I’ve got enough of my own listening to do!   But I can guarantee that if the call is real, at some point, it’s going to be a struggle.  It’s going to exhaust us.  It’s going to hurt.  We’re going to want to run in the other direction or settle down on the couch with a good book and shut out that voice in our heads.

Still, as my family of athletes show me every day, rising up from that pain to do what’s needed is an inevitable and essential part of committing yourself to something, heart and soul.  It’s part of what the prophets, the disciples, the heroes of our faith, and Jesus himself show us is the sure, unsteady path to the Light.  In the words of our Junior Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman:

For there is always light, 

if only we’re brave enough to see it.

 If only we’re brave enough to be it.