As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea—for they were fishermen. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him.

Just picture this, if you will. Two men are in the middle of fishing—they’re casting their nets into the sea—and a man walks up and says, “Follow me,” and they just drop the nets and do so. Immediately. The text doesn’t give us any details: did they stow the nets and fish first? Did they just jump into the water and run over to Jesus? When you really stop and consider this scene, there’s this strange, almost comic, urgency to the moment.

And then we read:

As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.

So it happens all over again. And this time, James and John leave immediately in the middle of mending their nets and leave their poor father alone in the boat.

Did no one comment on how strange this was? A stranger walks up and says, “Follow me” and these four men just drop what they’re doing and run off? Without even so much as a raised index finger in a “just a sec” gesture? “Hold on—let me just haul up this fish.” “Hold on, let us drop our dad off at home first.” None of that?

No. They just follow. Immediately.

It’s surprising. But why do they respond this way?

III. IMMEDIACY

A.   Straightaway

Part of it might have to do with a certain feature of Matthew’s gospel. Matthew’s text makes heavy use of Mark’s gospel and a feature of that gospel is the use of the Greek word εὐθυς euthus or εὐθεως eutheōs, which is from a Greek root meaning “straight” and means “straightaway” or “immediately.” In Mark’s gospel, this sense of immediacy is everywhere and these instances of euthus make the action unfold at a breakneck pace.

Now, Matthew’s gospel has fewer than half of the instances of this straightaway pace and often cleans them up when they do occur. (For example: in Mark’s gospel, when seeing James and John, it is Jesus who “immediately” calls the disciples, not the disciples who immediately respond).

But Matthew’s gospel preserves the sense of immediacy here in the call stories of Andrew, Simon Peter, James, and John. So, it’s not simply a holdover from Mark’s gospel. It has a relevance to the message of the text that goes beyond pacing.

B. The Kingdom at Hand

So, let’s take a look again at what is happening in this passage.

We start the text with the beginning of Jesus’ public work, right after John the Baptist is arrested. This is a signal that the preparatory time is ended and the mission formally begins.[1] Indeed, the genealogies are finished, the nativity, the wisemen, the mission of John the Baptist—all those are over and Jesus’ mission begins in earnest.

He moves to Capernaum, a city on the Sea of Galilee in Galilee of the Gentiles. Matthew uses this event to make two points: one about Jesus fulfilling yet another Old Testament prophecy, in this case, the prophetic message found in the Book of Isaiah:

But there will be no gloom for those who were in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he will make glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness— on them light has shined.

The other point Matthew makes by identifying Galilee here with Isaiah’s term גליל הגוים Galil ha-Goyim “Galilee of the Nations/Gentiles,” is in setting the stage for the eventual mission to the gentiles that the Church will undertake in Matthew’s time.

Together these point to identifying Jesus with the long-awaited deliverer who will bring light and hope to lands that have previously been in darkness and who will bring salvation to “the nations.”

And Jesus begins this ministry in precisely the same way he does in Mark’s gospel. Jesus proclaims, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has drawn near.”

This world-changing reality, the Kingdom of Heaven, God’s reign upon earth, that day of justice and peace, that day when death itself is reversed and when “the people who have walked in darkness” will “have seen a great light”—that day, is near. And so, the entire context for Jesus’ ministry is one of proclaiming the imminent arrival of the kingdom.

IV. NO TIME TO WAIT

A.   The Disciples

This news demands immediate action. As one commentator notes, the words “follow me” would never have elicited the response they did if those who heard it did not understand it to be a divine message.

And so they respond. Straightaway.

It’s the only thing that makes sense of such a response. What else could elicit what would otherwise be a comical scene of jumping out of boats and leaving your father sitting in the boat by himself? The imminent arrival of the Kingdom and the understanding that the one calling them to follow was bound up with this reality.

How they knew this is not clear. Neither Matthew nor Mark gives us any explanation as to how the disciples knew who Jesus was. Luke and John do, but their call stories are rather different from the one we find here.

Had they heard Jesus preaching in Capernaum? Had he done something that had impressed them? The text doesn’t say. It only says that when he called them, they responded. Straightaway.

B. Us

So, why don’t we respond that way?

Jesus calls Andrew and Simon Peter, James and John, and they respond immediately. Whether they knew who he was or not, we certainly know. They might not have had any idea about his message or his true identity. But they followed him anyway. Straightaway.

We, on the other hand, have had a long time to reflect on Jesus’ identity, call, mission, and purpose. What’s our excuse? Why are we more likely to be the ones who raise our index finger—“just a sec”—than the ones jumping out of our boats, racing to follow straightaway?

C. A Long-Delayed Ending

Do you all remember when the world ended seven years ago? The Mayan Calendar was expiring on December 21, 2012. Maybe you missed it. Sometimes, if you get busy, the world can end and you hardly even notice.

Or when the world ended the previous year—twice. Remember Harold Camping predicted the rapture in May 2011. And then when it didn’t happen, he recalculated and predicted it for October of that same year. Maybe you missed that, too.

Of course, the world ended on New Year’s Day 2000 when the Y2K computer bug brought down civilization as we knew it. I slept in and so by the time I woke up the world had been ended in New Zealand for 10 hours already.

There was also the end of the world in July 1999 that had been predicted by Nostradamus. And before that, the world ended in 1988, forty years after the founding of the modern state of Israel, as predicted by Hal Lindsey in his bestselling The Late Great Planet Earth.

The world had ended more than a century before that when William Miller had predicted that Jesus would return to earth in a Second Advent on October 22, 1844, leading to what historians refer to as the Great Disappointment. That followed the previous end of the world predicted by Miller in 1843.

There was also the time that the world ended in 1666—the number of the millennium added to the number of the beast. The fire of London was a sign that the world was ending then, too.

And then there was the time that the world ended six centuries earlier, in the year 1,000—at the end of the first millennium.

The point is, we’ve heard this news about the world ending and the kingdom of God arriving for a long time. The Apostle Paul was convinced it would happen in his lifetime:

“Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed….” (1 Corinthians 15:51 NRSV) and, “For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have died.” (1 Thessalonians 4:15 NRSV)

But it didn’t arrive. And every generation has had to cope with that reality. Usually by pushing off the arrival date into the indefinite future. What was once at hand and immediate now feels distant and long-delayed.

Maybe we’re just cynical and don’t want to get fleeced. After all, a lot of people lost everything they had when they sold all their possessions in anticipation of Harold Camping’s rapture in 2011 and the Millerites in the 1840’s. Perhaps we’re just too jaded to take this Kingdom of Heaven is near talk with too much seriousness. “The kingdom of heaven is near? Sure, pal. I’ve heard that one before. Fool me once…”

Maybe this is why when Jesus calls to us and says follow me, we’re more likely to raise that index finger: “just a sec.” After 2,000 years, we feel like it doesn’t quite make sense to jump right out of the boat.

V. END

But here’s the thing about the Kingdom of Heaven—it is not only a future reality. Now, to be fair, at the heart of the Christian proclamation is the message that a day is coming when God will set all things right. When sorrow and sighing will be no more, when war and violence will be no more, when injustice and oppression will be gone, when God will wipe away every tear from our eyes, and when death itself is vanquished. That is a crucial part of our proclamation and when we lose sight of that apocalyptic heart of our faith, something vital is lost.

And to be fair, even Jesus said he didn’t know when the Kingdom would come:

“But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” (Matthew 24:36, Mark 13:32 NRSV)