They left their nets

Jesus walks the shore of Galilee and sees two brothers, Simon and Andrew, casting a net into the sea, because they were fishermen. It is an ordinary morning of ordinary work. He says two words — come after me — and adds a promise that turns their whole trade into a metaphor: I will make you into fishers for men. And then Mark writes the word that ought to stop us in our tracks. Immediately. Immediately they left the nets and followed Him. Not after the season's catch was in. Not after they had trained a replacement, settled the accounts, talked it over with their father, weighed what they would gain against what they would lose. The nets, their income, their identity as fishermen, the whole shape of the life they had built — dropped on the sand where they stood. A little farther on it happens again: James and John, mending nets in the boat with their father Zebedee, and at the call they leave the boat and the old man and the hired hands and go. There is no transition plan in the story. There is only a call, and an immediate, total yes.

We are fond of the cushioned obedience — the call we can plan around, schedule, fund, and ease into so gently that it costs us no sleep and no security. And much of the time God does work slowly, and wisdom does count the cost. But Mark's immediately stands there as a warning against turning every call into a committee. Because now and then the call is unmistakable, and the only faithful answer is the immediate one. The nets have to go down on the sand, today, before you are ready, before the season is finished, before you have talked yourself into a more comfortable version of obedience. Some disconnects cannot be cushioned and scheduled and managed; they can only be obeyed. The danger is not that you will move too fast. The danger is the slow erosion of the capacity to move at all — the soul so practiced at counting costs that it can no longer simply rise and follow. When the call is clear, the most dangerous thing you can do is wait until it is convenient.