Perspective: Two Stories of Calling

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

Two Stories of Calling

Then I heard the Lord's voice saying, "Whom should I send, and who will go for us?"

I said, "I'm here; send me."

Isaiah 6:8 (CEB)

Here I am, Lord

Is it I, Lord?

I have heard You calling in the night

I will go, Lord

If You lead me

I will hold Your people in my heart

From "Here I Am, Lord" by Daniel Schutte

In the Gospel of Mark, we read that Jesus is walking by the Sea of Galilee, one day early in His ministry.  He spots two brothers, Simon and Andrew, who are fishing, and He says to them, "Come, follow me, and I'll show you how to fish for people."  Immediately, the two fishermen leave their nets in the sea and start following Him.  Jesus walks further along the seashore and spots two more fishermen, James and John, who are mending their nets with their father.  Jesus calls the two fishermen to follow Him, and immediately they leave their father and his fishing business behind and start following Him.¹

We read very similar stories in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke,² which are most likely based on the Gospel of Mark, according to most biblical scholars.  Luke, ever the storyteller, weaves in a fishing story.

In the Gospel of John, on the other hand, we read a very different story.  One day, John the Baptist is standing with two of his disciples when he sees Jesus.  He points to Jesus and says to his disciples, "Look!  The Lamb of God!"  Immediately, the two leave John and start following Jesus from a distance.  Eventually, Jesus turns around, spots His two stalkers, and asks them, "What are you looking for?"  In response, they ask, "Rabbi, where are you staying?"³  In other words, they aren't interested in just picking His brain for a few minutes; they want to start following Him as His students.⁴  Later on, one of these first two followers of Jesus, whose name is Andrew, invites his bother Simon to meet Jesus.⁵

In three of the Gospels, Jesus approaches the people who become His first disciples.

In the fourth Gospel, Jesus is approached by the people who become His first disciples.

I highlight these two different stories, not to point out a contradiction between the Gospels but rather to suggest that maybe people can experience a calling from God in different ways.  Maybe some people are perfectly content with the lives they are living when they start feeling called to something greater, while other people yearn for a higher calling and begin seeking one out.  Maybe, for some people, a call from God feels less like an invitation to do something in particular and more like a vague sense of discontent with life as it is.

I suspect that most of us think that a call from God is something that comes to us, as it came to the fishermen in three of the four Gospels.  Maybe a call from God is also something we can go out and find, as it was for the first disciples in John's Gospel.  My own call to lay ministry was more like the latter.  I was dissatisfied with my life as it was, so I began to seek out a higher purpose in life.  Perhaps God called me through my discontent.

If you feel that you are being called by God into a new adventure in life, may you have the courage to journey into the unfamiliar.  If you feel dissatisfied with your life as it is, may you consider that your discontent is a call in itself, and may you have the courage to explore other paths in life.  There is no one-size-fits-all narrative when it comes to the life of faith.


Notes:

1. Mark 1:16-20 (CEB)
2. Matthew 4:18-22 and Luke 5:1-11
3. John 1:35-39 (CEB)
4. William Barclay.  The New Daily Study Bible: The Gospel of John, Volume One.  2001, Saint Andrew Press.  p. 102
5. John 1:40-42

The Calling of Saint Peter and Saint Andrew was painted by James Tissot in the late 1800s.