Captivated!
“They left everything and followed him.” The original disciples were captivated by Jesus.
“In the midst of babel, speak the truth,” William Stringfellow, a good Christian of the last century, liked to say. Do you remember the Tower of Babel in the Book of Genesis? Where God thwarted the arrogance of human ambition and made their speech incomprehensible to each other? So today we say someone babbles on. And there is a tower of babel of agendas that are driving the world to destruction. Jesus does not want us to have any agenda except to speak the truth, and only the truth can bring people to him in any lasting way. That’s what it means to be fishers/catchers of men and women. We want people to be captivated by Jesus, drawn into his nets of love and freedom and truth. As we sing in our weekly apolytikion: Blessed are you, O Christ our God. You made the fishermen wise by sending down on them the Holy Spirit, and through them, you drew the world to yourself. O lover of humankind, glory to you!
That’s our translation at Holy Trinity Church. The Greek says: Εὐλογητὸς εἶ, Χριστὲ ὁ Θεὸς ἡμῶν, ὁ πανσόφους τοὺς ἁλιεῖς ἀναδείξας, καταπέμψας αὐτοῖς τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον, καὶ δι’ αὐτῶν τὴν οἰκουμένην σαγηνεύσας, φιλάνθρωπε, δόξα σοι – …through them you caught the oikoumenē (the inhabited world) in your nets…. The Greek verb σᾰγηνεύω literally means to catch with a net, like fishermen did in ancient times and still do in many places. The nets of Christ are not nets of control or brainwashing. They are nets of love, embrace, healing; nets of revelation of divine mysteries and truth. “I am the way the truth and the life,” Jesus said. That is our message to the world, that’s what makes us fishers of men and women.
“They left everything and followed him.” They were captivated by Jesus. They were drawn to him. Something about his appearance and his commanding voice – commanding but not in the bossy or controlling ways of authorities and experts but commanding in showing the way to life and healing.
The original disciples were captivated by his voice and presence, and they left everything to follow him. Most of our people, most of the people who consider themselves members of this church are not here – they rarely are. They have not been captivated. No one is to blame – not I, not you, not the parish council; not the bishops; not the CHURCH! And it’s not programs or activities that keep people in church or bring them back. If they are not captivated by Jesus, there is nothing you or I can do. If they come once or twice a year and don’t come back for another year, it means they have not been captivated by Jesus. No one is to blame; and we do not judge or accuse those who are missing. No! Never judge or label. Jesus will wait for them. God has an eternity to wait. And in the final analysis it’s his nets that wait to be filled, not ours!!
What keeps many of us in the Orthodox Church is not the institution, or the history and traditions, and it’s not ethnic pride. What keeps us is the Liturgy, because here we meet Jesus as the giver – the giver of life, the giver of what keeps us alive and not spiritually dead. Here we encounter Christ who became one of us in order that we might become as he is. We are here because his love has found us and drawn us to himself. We are here because we are captivated by the beauty of the Lord. Glory to him!