"They Were Fishermen" (Matthew 4:12-23)

“Just” a Bus Driver

On the surface, school bus driver is a simple job. Deliver children from home to school and back again. But if you rode a bus as a child, you know it’s not that simple. All sorts of stuff can happen on a bus between school and home. Some children are tired of having sat at their desks all day, so they can’t help but stand up and stretch their legs. Others have gotten embroiled in a running spat with their friends, and it all boils over on the bus where there are no teachers to keep them in order. One personal memory I have is the regularity of projectiles—unwanted lunch items, sports balls, and scrunched-up paper fired by homemade slingshots. I may have even contributed to the air traffic chaos once or twice.

I’ve heard that studies report bus-driving to be a particularly high-stress occupation, and I can understand why. There are so many variables that can erupt into a problem at a moment’s notice. The traffic on your route suddenly becomes congested and you have to change your itinerary. A fight breaks out among your passengers. Questions or complaints might be fired at you from multiple people at once. And all of this on top of those exhaust fumes. It’s not a job I would want.

This past week, I stumbled onto the story of Pete, a school bus driver in Oklahoma. Several years back, a local paper had interviewed him,[1] presumably because he was not your average bus driver. He did more than take children to school and return them home safely. He was the person who greeted them by name with a smile in the morning. He was the person whose watchful eyes scanned the rearview mirror and showed concern whenever someone was upset or troubled. Plastered all over the interior of his bus were pictures and posters with inspirational quotes and encouraging reminders. Pete acknowledged in his interview that he cultivates a positive and playful attitude with the children. “Attitude,” he said, “IS everything!”

Pete also happens to be a follower of Christ. I can’t help but see a connection between his faith and his profession. He did more than steer his bus through the roads of his town. He steered the children on his bus through the roads of life, offering them good news and encouragement and, for at least a few minutes every day, a safe place where they knew they were heard and seen. He not only delivered them safe and sound to their homes, but he also pointed them toward their true, spiritual home, toward a caring power whose love is not based on grades or athletics or the approval of one’s peers but on our being God’s own children, all of us.

Pete was “just” a bus driver. But he was so much more.

God’s Kingdom: A Change in Attitude

Today’s scripture tells the story of how Jesus begins his ministry. His first words are “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Matt 4:17). That word “repent” has acquired many connotations throughout the centuries. For some people, it conveys images of sorrow and shame and begrudging submission. But the word itself in Greek, metanoia, is much simpler and morally neutral. Its root meaning is to change one’s mind, to think differently. “Think differently, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” God’s kingdom is a revolution that begins in our thinking—our attitude, you might say.

Consider it for a moment. Everyone whom Jesus encounters in his ministry, he invites into a new attitude. To the marginalized in society, the nobodies and the nothings, Jesus says, “You are somebody very special, blessed and beloved, a child of God.” To the disgraced and the humiliated, Jesus says, “Lift up your head, you are forgiven. Your sin is not who you are. You are a child of God.” To the rich, the proud and the privileged, Jesus says, “Your worth is not in your possessions or what others think of you. Let go of these things, and know true joy. For you are children of God.”

Fishermen for the Kingdom

This revolution in attitude may help to explain today’s scripture. Because it’s rather curious that right after declaring the arrival of the kingdom of God (which sounds sort of high and mighty), Jesus enlists the help of…some fishermen? What would they know about the kingdom of God? Wouldn’t it make more sense for Jesus to recruit some sharp thinkers from among the religious and political elite, maybe some scribes and a priest and a few Pharisees? Imagine Jesus among us today, enlisting the help of a few salty auto mechanics rather than pastors or elders or presidents or missionaries.

If the kingdom of God is about changing the world through the force of legislation and war, then it would make sense for Jesus to recruit the most influential leaders and thinkers of his day. But the kingdom of God is not about changing the world through force. It’s about changing our hearts and minds (which is what really changes our world). And so Jesus begins with a couple of the guys who are nearest to him. He’s there beside the Sea of Galilee, and close by are Peter and Andrew—“for they were fishermen,” Matthew tells us rather matter-of factly (Matt 4:18). Of course fishermen would be by the sea.

They were “just” fishermen. But Jesus calls them and promises, “I will make you fish for people” (Matt 4:19). I wonder, is it just to show his cleverness that Jesus makes a metaphor out of their current occupation? Or is it more? I think Jesus is blessing who they are—fishermen—and telling them at the same time that their occupation and gifts are greater than they know. I think Jesus is enlisting them as fishermen for the kingdom of God, and not just in a metaphorical sense. At the end of the gospel of John, we find Peter back on a boat, fishing. It’s what he did before; it’s what he’ll always do.

In this interpretation, Jesus does not tear away four fishermen from the sea and make them into something else. Rather, Jesus blesses four fishermen on the sea and calls them to something more.

“Whatever You Do…”

Peter of Galilee was “just” a fisherman. Pete of Oklahoma was “just” a bus driver. But they were both so much more because Jesus changed their attitude and their way of living. They learned that they were children of God. They learned that they could be part of God’s kingdom right where they were. No longer did the past define them, or their family’s expectations, or what others thought, or what they had or had not achieved. And they could not help but share this good news with their world, “just” where they were, “just” with the gifts with which they had already been equipped.

Their stories invite me to consider my own story and yours too. What could be written about us? I imagine Jesus approaching me while I read a book—“for he was a reader and a writer,” the narrator might say. And Jesus says, “Follow me, and I will make a storyteller of hope and new life.” For others, Jesus might approach them in a classroom or in a work studio or on a construction site or in a garden or on the phone or at the park—for they were teachers, carpenters, builders, gardeners, socializers. And Jesus says, “Follow me—and whatever you do, do it for me.” If that sounds almost biblical, it’s because it is. Paul writes to the Colossians, “Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus” (Col 3:17).

Maybe it’s hard to believe that your present job or role in life can be used toward the goodness of God’s kingdom. I know that voice of doubt personally. It has raised its voice in the past and said, “Making coffees for people? That’s not what God called you to do. Shifting paperwork? That’s not what God called you to do.” And I don’t know—maybe there are some things that cannot be done entirely for Christ, because they oppose or obstruct God’s kingdom rather than welcome it. But what I do know is that faith is much more like an adverb than a noun, much more like an attitude than a concrete set of actions. It has to do with the way that I conduct myself all across life. Whatever my actions are, do I do them with love, so that people might see the God who is love? Like Pete the bus driver, who smiles and says the names of his children and affirms that they are each special in his eyes.

Whatever you are, you can be one for Christ. A fisherman. A bus driver. A grandma, a builder—a butcher, a baker, a candle-stick maker! You can be part of God’s kingdom. All it takes is repentance—or if you like, a change in attitude. (As Pete would say, “Attitude IS everything!”)

Prayer

Loving God,
Who meets us where we are
On a boat, on a bus—
Sometimes life feels
Like it’s just the same thing
Over and over
…
May we hear with the disciples
Jesus calling, “Repent—
Change your attitude.”
Help us to know ourselves
As your beloved children
Already equipped with unique gifts
That only we can give.
Make us a part of your kingdom. 

In Christ, who unites us in one mind: Amen.

[1] Emily Anderson, “My Outlook: Pastor Pete Balaban, School Bus Driver,” My Outlook: Pastor Pete Balaban, School Bus Driver | Edmond Outlook, accessed January 16, 2023.