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Let us prepare ourselves for the Lord's table by giving attention to the reading of these words from Scripture, the gospel according to Mark, the first chapter. I begin the reading at the verse which is numbered nine. In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And when

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he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens opened and the Spirit descending upon them like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, "Thou art my beloved Son, with thee I am well pleased." The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness and he was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan.

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And he was with the wild beasts and the angels ministered to him. Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee preaching the gospel of God and saying, "The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel." And passing along by the Sea of Galilee he saw Simon and Andrew, the

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brother of Simon, casting a net in the sea for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, "Follow me and I will make you become fishers of men." And immediately they left their nets and followed him. And going on a little farther he saw James the son of Zebedee and John his brother who were in their boat mending

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the nets. And immediately he called them and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and followed him. And may God bless to us and to our understanding this reading from his word. Pray with me. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen.

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Once upon a time in a land far away there lived a man named Zebedee who was married and had at least two sons, one named James the other John. They were simple and unsophisticated, largely uneducated people, but they were not poor. Fish was a staple of the diet in those days and Zebedee owned his own fishing

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boat, in fact perhaps more than one. In those days more than 300 fishing boats regularly plied the waters of the Sea of Galilee, but Zebedee's boat or boats were large enough to require additional hired hands. He was a successful entrepreneur. Sailors on fishing boats in those days had to be strong because the great

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haul nets were heavy, especially when wet and loaded with fish. They also had to be agile because they used a special kind of net, something like an umbrella, which was sometimes thrown into the water and quickly drawn out to catch fish on the surface. And of course fishermen also had to be accomplished sailors, for the Sea

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of Galilee then, even as it is today, was capable of being a mill pond at one moment and being whipped into frothing fury the next. It doesn't take a great deal of imagination to think of what this father and his sons looked like. They would have been short of stature, as most first century Jews, dark in

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complexion, particularly because they worked under the hot Sun every day. Their hair would have been black and quite thick, their teeth standing out white against the darkness of their complexion. They wore a short skirt, just a little more than what we would call a loincloth, their feet calloused and bare, their

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hands scarred from the tension and the tearing power of the nets, and their eyes, the eyes of sailors, always squinting, always looking off into the distance, always seeing things that landlubbers never seem to notice. Zebedee was probably about 35 years of age, which was a good age for those days, and the boys

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would have been about 18. 18 was older then than it is now. When our story begins, they are working together in the boats, and I must confess that I like that. I think it's good when dads and their lads work together. Of course, it's hard, too. Oftentimes, there's so much similarity between a father and a son

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that they don't get along well in a teacher-student capacity. Someone has said that kind of similarity can breed contempt. And then, of course, there was the natural tension that comes when an adolescent is seeking to demonstrate his independence as over against his father. I must confess that my views on this

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subject are somewhat colored because my father and I had great difficulties working together. On one occasion, I remember he wanted to teach me how to drive, and I wanted to learn how to drive, but it never happened. It was the unstoppable meeting the immovable. There were other things, dad's counsel, for

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example, when I was doing magic on the stage, when we got along just fine. And as I look back on our times of difference, I see them now with humor and some sadness and with the recognition that most of the fault was mine. I imagine that Zacchaeus or Zebedee had quite a time with his boys. They are known to

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have been very hot-tempered. Later, Jesus was to call them the sons of thunder, and they had a very, very high view of themselves. They didn't hesitate, these two young men, to ask Jesus for the key seats in the kingdom of heaven. So there was probably some effort for this father and his boys to get along as they fixed

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their nets. And as they were doing this, Jesus came by. A few minutes earlier, he had seen Peter and Andrew and invited them to come and be his disciples. Now he's passing by Zebedee and Sons, Incorporated, and looking up on deck of the boat, he says to James and to John, "Come and follow me, be fishers of men."

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And the Scriptures note, "And they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and followed him." Now what interests me about that is that there's no recorded objection on the part of Zebedee. I mean, here suddenly his right and left hands are getting up and going away, and Zebedee is being left

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holding the boat. They got up, evidently, hugged their dad, and left. And there's no suggestion of any complaint on his part at all. Why do you think that was? Part of it, of course, was probably because Zebedee relied on the solidity of the past. There was a fellow arrested about three weeks ago in Chicago, pulled over

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for a traffic violation, and the police discovered that on his car he had eight rearview mirrors. He said he liked to see where he'd been as much as where he was going. And there's a certain amount of wisdom in that, of course. In fact, a significant amount of wisdom. It is important for us to know whence we have

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come. And perhaps Zebedee had laid the foundations of the past so solidly for his sons that when they wanted to go off for a while he was not filled with anxiety, but could relax because he knew the firmness of that which had already been built into their character. I suppose there came a time on the lakes

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when he taught the boys how to row a boat. Now when you're rowing a boat and when the place that you want to go is behind you, it's very difficult to be rowing and be on target. If you keep looking over your shoulder while you're rowing, your course will become very erratic. And I'm sure Zebedee taught

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James and John that the way to keep a straight course is once you have gotten your target in sight, then watch your wake. Watch the trail of the churning water that you leave behind you. As long as that trail is straight, you will be progressing toward your target. In other words, if you keep the past in sight,

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you'll reach your future goal. You chart your course by looking at what's behind. Zebedee taught that to his boys and probably taught them that that not only applies to sailing but also to living. Keep your eyes on your wake. Parents who give a solid background to their children don't have to be worried when

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those children are drawn in to the fluidity of the future. That's what Proverbs means when it says, "Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it." I think it's also very likely that Zebedee had had the chance to hear Jesus preach. The scriptures say that Jesus had

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already been ministering in the area and because religion was one of the major topics of the day, everybody would go out to hear any new preacher and Jesus was very popular with the multitudes at the beginning of his ministry and I suppose he was quite popular with Zebedee also. The old man probably appreciated the

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fact that Jesus didn't invite these young men to follow him into some system or to some series of theories but rather that he said, "Follow me." He was asking for personal allegiance. You know, it has been said that we need reasons to admire a person but if you love a person you don't need any reasons and I think that

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when Jesus said to those two young men who had heard him speak before, "Come and follow me," that Zebedee looked at them and saw the expression on their faces and recognized the growing love that they had for this new young rabbi and that's one of the reasons that the father was unafraid to allow his sons to

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follow Jesus. I think it's also significant to notice that Zebedee probably was impressed with the fact that these young men were not being invited into a life of lethargy. They were not going off on some kind of vacation camping trip. They were being called to a task, "I will make you fishers

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of men." There was a commitment involved here. A requirement was being laid down and any parent rejoices when someone whom his children admire holds out a meaningful task or a worthwhile commitment for those young people to pursue. I venture that I'm far within the mark when I say this morning that some

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of you listening to me at this very moment remember some young men or women that you followed years ago and they led you to Jesus. Or perhaps you can think right now of some young man or young woman who's having considerable influence on your son or your daughter and you rejoice and are glad of it

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because you know that that person is leading your youngsters in a way that is good, leading them to be with the Christ. Well I think Zebedee had these same feelings. I think he hoped that Jesus would give to his boys a kind of larger purpose in life. You know, the conversation there around the Sea of

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Galilee every night when the day's fishing was over was not particularly illuminating. They probably talked about the price of fish in Bethsaida, which means the house of fish, or how much salt cost at Terrakia, that's the place where they salted the fish for shipping. Maybe they talked about the latest insult from

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the Romans or the latest bit of gossip from Herod's court or how big the catch had been or where they would sail tomorrow or maybe for the umpteenth time they went over that trip to Jerusalem that they had made together as a family some six years before. Now all of these things have worth, but I think a

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successful businessman like Zebedee wanted more than that for his boys. He didn't want them to be captured by the merely commonplace. Yes, it's very idyllic to live by a lakeside, but if that's your whole life, then the idyllic can become imbecilic. He wanted their horizons pushed back. One of the things I've

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noticed since coming to Pittsburgh, when you read the eulogies or the obituaries of leading figures in Pittsburgh after they're gone, you very rarely read anything in them about oppositions they might have held in the business world or the political world. It will say what they were, but there's not much spent on

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that. The majority of the eulogy is built around the humanitarian concerns to which this person gave herself or the cultural activities in which he or she was involved or the expressions of faith toward which they gave themselves. These things you see constitute a broader view and we as a society consciously or

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unconsciously respect that and I think that's part of what Zebedee wanted for James and John and I think he also wanted them to have a transformation of values. Yes, he understood it was important to fish for fish. You have to make a living, but he understood it was more important to fish for people. You

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know, there's a sense in which one can say that I might be giving too much credit to Zebedee because really the Bible doesn't say a great deal about it, but I've discovered that you can tell a great deal about parents by looking at their children and James and John went on to become two of the greatest

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disciples and I believe that in part that was because they had a great father, someone who wanted them to have values and purposes of significance. You see, in those days life was very cheap. Slavery was still practiced. The people were the mere chattel of their rulers. Women had no status in common life. Property was

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considered to be a far greater value than persons, but when someone came into contact with Jesus and when the power of Jesus Spirit began to work in that life, all of that would change. The Apostle Paul, talking about how it changed him, said, "I count all things as loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus

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Christ our Lord." He was saying nothing is as important as what Jesus teaches and Jesus emphasizes the people priority. Zebedee was not opposed to success. He was, in terms of his day, a success. He knew that success developed alertness, that it was good for the economy of the area, that it put resources to positive

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use. Who would sink a mine? Who would sail a ship? Who would plant a field if they did not want to be successful? The question, of course, becomes what is the purpose of the success? If one wishes to succeed only in order to possess more, that's covetousness and nothing else. Possession without purpose is to be more

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like an octopus than to be like a human being. The fundamental goal of success is to do good. And I think that's what Zebedee wanted his boys to learn. I've always liked the story of the cowboy who woke up in the prairie one morning and he was fixing his breakfast and he looked around for some firewood and he

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couldn't find any. So there was grass there and so he decided to light the grass on fire and to hold the skillet with the eggs in it over that. And that worked all right, except a little wind came along and it began to move the fire through the grass so he just kept following along behind holding the

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skillet over the blazing grass. And after a while the eggs were done, which would have been all right, except that by the time they were done he was two miles from where he'd left his coffee. Well, meaningful success is when you keep the eggs and the coffee together. When the busyness is an important part of life,

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but it's seen as having the goal of being a blessing to life. Success, like everything else, needs to be sanctified. It's good to fish for fish. It's perfectly right and proper to make a profit. But it's better to fish for people, to use that profit to the blessings of the daughters and the sons

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of humankind. And my how James and John learned these things from Jesus. You know they became part of the inner circle. The three disciples who were closest to Jesus were Peter and James and John. Think of the things that they saw. They were there when Jesus took the hand of that little girl who had died and spoke

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to her very gently, "Talitha kumi, little one, I say to you arise." And they saw the color flow back into her cheeks from death to life, just as when one wakes from sleep to dawn. They were there on the Mount of Transfiguration, just those three, when the refulgent glory of God came upon Jesus and he spoke of the

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apocalypse with power. They were there that night in Gethsemane, the three who were closest to him and for whose prayers he pleaded. And they knew the embarrassment of having him come with the perspiration, the bloody perspiration of his passion on his brow. They knew what it was to be ashamed because they

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had failed. And they were there when he died. John at the very foot of the cross, James some distance away. And when you watch someone you love die, oh your mind is a cataclysm of remembrances. They must have thought about all those nights about the campfire when the teachings that Jesus gave were so much brighter than

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anything the flames offered. And did they smile when they remember how he chided them when they, sailors on Galilee, became upset and ran to him for help in the midst of a storm? And I'm sure they remembered the stories and the sermons and the miracles and the beautiful bravery and the love. Strong men want to

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be loved too. And James and John were strong and noble. That's the why, the reason why Zebedee didn't mind being left holding the boat. He had put in the solidity of a past and now he put them in the hands of one who would give to them purposes and values so that they would be able to face the validity, the

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fluidity of the future. It's been my experience that children who have parents like that like to come home. When you live in a place where that kind of freeing love and devoted care, not doctrinaire preaching, but devoted care is there. When you live in a place like that you want to come home. So it

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shouldn't surprise us that later James and John returned home. The story is told in the 21st chapter of John's Gospel. It was after the cross, indeed after Jesus had risen from the dead and appeared two times to the disciples. They went back to Galilee for a little rest and relaxation. If you just read those chapters that

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tell of what happened to the disciples in those last days, you're exhausted. You can imagine what it must have been like to have lived through them. So for a little while James and John went back to Zebedee and the boats. They wanted to feel the spray. Could they still throw the nets as well as they did before? They

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wanted the excitement of counting the catch. So they went out one morning to fish and when they came back, Jesus was standing on the shore and he breakfasted with them there. And I wonder if Zebedee saw that. I hope so. I so hope he saw these strong young men of his who now had a vision of all the world in

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their eyes and a dream of conquering it for Christ in their hearts. I hope he saw them sitting with the Nazarene. There can be no joy greater to a father's heart than to see his children in the company of Christ. They weren't there for long, of course, for they were missionaries now called to turn the whole world upside

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down. Scripture tells us that James was the first of the disciples to lose his life in the service of his Savior. The story is told in the twelfth chapter of Acts. And tradition tells us, at Deas specifically, that John was the last of the disciples to die, that he lived in fact to be 97 years of age and finally

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closed his eyes in Ephesus and was buried there. And in all those missionary travels, they had very little time to be at home. So Zebedee was left holding the boat again. But I doubt if he minded. For when he'd sit by the fire at the shore or being older now by the hearth in his little house, I think his thoughts were

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occupied almost every moment with those two sons of thunder of his and the recollection of how he'd seen them sitting with Jesus, how wager he told the story hundreds of times. And I'll bet his eyes sparkled as he told it with the glint of a father who'd won a great victory for his kids and maybe

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occasionally a tear because he missed them so. Jimmy and Johnny out to widder world for Jesus. That's enough. That's enough to remember. That's enough to be proud of. That's quite enough on which to live happily ever after.

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Let us pray. As Zebedee of old rejoiced when he saw his sons sit with the Savior, so now we come to this table to sit with him. And may we do so with great joy in the presence of that one who is our comfort, who is our challenge, who is our peace,

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even Jesus Christ, who is our Lord. Amen. [The End]