One of the things I try to do when I read the stories of Jesus in the Gospels, when he uses an odd or striking metaphor like “I will make you fishers of people”[1] or, as it is put in this Gospel, “from now on you will be catching people,”[2] is to figure out if he’s referring back to Law or the Prophets, and whether it might be the lectionary’s choice for a first lesson. Sometimes that helps me figure out whether there is a thematic link between the lessons and, if so, what it’s supposed tell us, but unfortunately that’s not the case today. Jesus doesn’t seem to have had Isaiah in mind when he summoned Peter and his business partners.
So for the past week or so, I’ve been pondering what might be the reason for putting the Isaiah reading –– which, although it comes in the sixth chapter, is the story of Isaiah’s initial call to be a prophet –– together with Luke’s version of Jesus recruiting Simon Peter and the sons of Zebedee, James and John, to be disciples. The simple answer, of course, is that they are both stories of calls to ministry, but they are so different!
“As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And he got up and followed him.”
