The first disciples dropped everything to follow Jesus. They weren’t too busy. Are we too busy to follow Jesus?
My church is beginning a Bible study this week on the Gospel of Mark. I casually asked my pastor how many chapters I needed to have read before the first meeting. I like to be prepared. My mama raised me that way. He told me with a straight face that it would be good if I could go ahead and read the entire book.
“Seriously?” I asked. He just smiled and told me I could find it in my Bible. He’s a funny guy, my pastor, but being the nerd that I am, (just ask any of my former high school teachers), I started reading. I always do my homework.
Mark gets right to business. There’s very little background in his gospel. In chapter one, he talks about the calling of the disciples. One day Jesus is walking along the Sea of Galilee and he sees Simon and his brother Andrew throwing out a net into the water because they fished for a living. “He called out to them, ‘Come follow me and I will show you how to fish for people!’ And they left their nets at once and followed him.” Mark 1:17
Notice it doesn’t say they were sitting around with nothing to do. They were at work. They were busy working.
The text goes onto say that, “A little farther up the shore, Jesus saw Zebedee’s sons James and John, in a boat repairing their nets. He called them at once, and they also followed him, leaving their father Zebedee, in the boat with hired men.” Mark 1:19-20
Once again, Jesus called men who were busy working. They were repairing nets for their business. They weren’t on a coffee break. They weren’t resting or jobless. They weren’t looking for something to do. They were busy.
Finally, in chapter two, Jesus walked along and saw “Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at his tax collector’s booth. “Follow me and be my disciple,” Jesus said to him. So Levi got up and followed him.” Mark 2:14
I think I see a pattern here. Levi was busy working too. The other guys were doing more honest, blue-collar work, while Levi was engaged in very profitable and likely dishonest, white-collar work, but he was working.
I suppose these five men could have told Jesus that they were busy. They didn’t have time to follow him and be disciples and fishers of men. They had businesses to run and families to feed. They could have told him that maybe later, when the kids were bigger, or the business was running itself, or the teens weren’t so busy playing sports.
They could have told Jesus “no, not now.” But, they didn’t. They somehow knew the importance of the call and were rewarded with a front row seat of the most important story ever told. They got to witness God in flesh and all of His glory. They decided they weren’t too busy for Jesus.
What about us today? While it’s rare for us to feel called to drop everything and follow Jesus. We may be called to teach a Sunday school class, or volunteer at a soup kitchen, or youth group, or attend a new small group, or attend a Bible study, or serve on a church committee. There are so many ways we are called to follow Jesus and to serve. Are we usually willing like Simon, Andrew, James, John and Levi, or are we too busy?
What excuses do we give for not saying, “yes”? These men are huge reminders that we are all busy. They were too. Humanity has always been busy and always will be, but we can choose to say to say, “yes,” when Jesus calls, just like they did and we too, may get to see God do some amazing work.
Have an awesome day!
Wendy 🙂