You and I are called – the whole point of faith is that you and I go out as God’s love in the world, for the healing of all things.
Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Third Sunday after Epiphany, Lect. 3 A
Texts: Matthew 4:12-23; Isaiah 9:1-4
Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
This week our Minneapolis Bishop Jen Nagel recalled Dietrich Bonhoeffer in a message she sent to our rostered ministers.[1]
She said Bonhoeffer identified three ways that the church can respond to oppression: “by holding our government and leaders accountable to their commitments, by tending to the direct needs of those being crushed under the wheel of oppression, and finally by driving a spoke into the wheel itself.”
We are under an occupation here. There’s no other way to describe it. Yesterday’s sickening public execution of intensive care nurse Alex Pretti just underlines it. We are under occupation by government sanctioned bullies and thugs who are defended at the highest levels, completely unaccountable. These people delight, take joy, in brutality, cruelty, and humiliation, going far beyond anything law enforcement has ever been permitted to do in our nation. And so our neighbors stay locked behind doors. Preschool children are snatched in arrests or gassed in their parents’ car. People are disappearing. We are the people walking in deep darkness looking for light that Isaiah speaks of.
But our bishop is right. Bonhoeffer is right. There are these things we can do: hold our government and leaders accountable. Tend to the direct needs of those being crushed under the wheel of oppression. And drive a spike into the wheel wherever we can.
Which actually brings us to this scene by the lakeshore with four people who fish for a living. Because there’s a lot more to this story than you might think.
To see it, we need to help Matthew a little with his fellow Evangelists.
See, Luke starts this story earlier than this moment we heard. Peter and Andrew have fished all night, caught nothing, and when they come into shore, Jesus asks to use their boat for a pulpit. When he’s done teaching, he tells Peter to cast his net one more time. Peter does, and the net’s so full it nearly swamps their boat, and James and John have to help. And that’s when Jesus calls them to fish for people.
John provides the next crucial part of the story. After Jesus’ resurrection, a few disciples return to Galilee and go fishing while they wait for Jesus’ instructions. Once again they catch nothing. In the morning, someone calls from shore, and tells them to throw out their net one more time. Once again, the net fills to overflowing. John recognizes it’s Jesus, Peter swims to shore. And Jesus serves them all breakfast. And that’s when Jesus reveals what their calling truly is.
Because Jesus always called people for a purpose.
He didn’t come to start a club, or seek members to something. Or invite people to believe in God so they’d know they were somehow on the right side.
He always called them to a vocation. Every time. He said, “follow me, and I will have work for you to do.” With these four, he used fishing – their livelihood – to help them understand: I’ll send you out to fish for people. To draw people into God’s love by dragging a huge net of welcome and teaching and love through the world, catching as many as you can.
The faith Jesus invites in people is always the way for them to become who God needs in the world, for the sake of others, not an exclusive possession. So they, so we, radiate God’s love in our own bodies and voices and actions and words. Like Jesus. To draw all God’s children into the abundant life and love of God. That’s why Jesus came.
But this doesn’t seem to be how many understand Christian faith these days.
For many Christians today faith is something you own, it’s personal, centered on a hope in heaven in the next life, and it’s not about how you live here, not a calling. Many Christian voices today proclaim a way of life so radically divorced from Jesus’ teachings it’s apparent that what Jesus said, what he taught, how he lived, loved, died, doesn’t matter much to them. If you know you’re a Christian, that’s apparently enough.
But not for Jesus. He calls people to follow him so that they become God’s love in their lives. Sending out a dozen, then 70, while he’s still teaching. Filling hundreds with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and sending them out to bear God’s love.
If your faith is only for your own good, your trust is in something completely different than Christ.
John’s part makes this all clear.
These four fishermen have no clue what’s coming when Jesus first calls them today at that lakeshore. They follow, but they know nothing of what this Teacher is going to ask of them.
But by this second miraculous catch of fish, they’ve seen God’s love in person, teaching with love, healing with love, welcoming all kinds of people into God’s heart who weren’t considered worthy. They’ve seen God’s love go to the cross and suffer and die. They’ve seen God’s love rise from the dead. Now Jesus can show what “fishing for people,” what this calling really is.
Three times after that breakfast Jesus calls Peter – and you and me and everyone else who follows – to this calling: If you love me, feed my lambs. Tend my sheep. Feed my sheep. Three times, the call is to care for the ones Jesus cares for. Jesus’ sheep who need to be tended. Fed. Protected. By you. By me.
That means what people are doing in these awful days to care for all God’s children is exactly what they are called to do. What you are called to do.
With all these terrible things happening to our neighbors, Jesus says: Care for them. Feed them. Protect them. Be my love for them. In person. That’s why I called you.
And all three of Bonhoeffer’s things are how we will answer that call. And all three are being done right now, in this city. Holding leaders accountable, tending to the direct needs of those crushed, finding ways to put a stick into the wheel itself. That’s the amazing thing. Tens of thousands gather Friday in peaceful protest downtown, thousands sing in the streets day after day, or stop abductions of neighbors, including one in our neighborhood Friday. Hundreds drive, feed, care for their neighbors in any way they can. Millions refuse to believe lies and instead believe what they see and know as wrong and evil and then find a way to be love.
That’s caring for Jesus’ sheep. Doing what you’re called to do. The whole point of your faith. A calling to be God’s love in this world, outside your own self interest and for the good of the world.
But don’t forget the bursting nets.
The call is to put the nets out into the world. God’s power filled them then and will fill them now. The call is to love God’s sheep. God’s love will empower that care and protection all around the world.
This is our time, our moment, to be Christ. Perhaps never before have we in our own lives seen so clearly and close by Christ’s sheep, God’s beloved, who need love, care, food and shelter, protection from the wolves.
Follow me, Jesus said, and care for all my beloved ones. And in your loving faith and trust, and mine, and countless more, God will break the rod of the oppressor as Isaiah promises. In your love, and mine, and countless more, God will fill the nets to overflowing.
In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
[1] Email to Minneapolis Area Synod (ELCA) rostered ministers, Wednesday, January 21, 2026.
