Follow Jesus Consciously and Intentionally

Homily for Second Sunday after Pentecost (7 June 2026)

Romans 2:10-16…………….Matthew 4:18-23

Today’s reading from the Gospel according to St Matthew tells the story of the call of the first Apostles, Andrew and Peter, then James and John.  The story is short and simple.

Jesus sees two fishermen, Andrew and his brother Peter, and tells them to follow Him and He will make them fishers of men.  Immediately, they leave everything and follow Him.  James and his brother John, two more fishermen, do the same.

This story can seem almost unbelievable to us.  Didn’t these fishermen have any questions or any doubts?  Didn’t they at least ask who this unknown man was who said, “Follow me”?  Didn’t they want some sort of assurance or guarantee that they’d be OK?  We recall that even Mary the Theotokos asked questions when the angel told her she would bear a child—even though she was a virgin—and that her child would be the Son of the Most High.

Amazingly, Andrew, Peter, James, and John did not ask questions or require a guarantee.  They power of God must have been so evident to them that they just knew they had to respond to Jesus’ call.  Surely, as they travelled around the country with Jesus, as He was preaching and teaching and healing, they soon became convinced that they had made the right decision.  Although sometimes they had trouble understanding what His words and actions meant.

But what about us?  We also have to make the decision to follow Jesus.  He calls each one of us to follow Him and, in our own ways, to be apostles.

Do we recognize the power of God enough to follow Him immediately?  Do we really believe that He can change our lives, forgive our sins, heal our souls and bodies?  Can He make us fishers of men—people who bring other people to God?

I’m sure that we would all say that we believe this.  But do we act like we believe it?  A lot of the time we do not.  We are comfortable with our lives the way they are.  We don’t always understand what Jesus seems to be saying to us.  We don’t want to upset people. We don’t want people to think we are religious fanatics.  Dropping everything to follow Jesus would be uncomfortable and inconvenient.  We’d like to be good Christians and have our sins forgiven (if we admit that we have any sins) and gain salvation to eternal life. We’d like all of this—but we often don’t seem to want to work for it or to take risks.

Yet that is what God calls us to do.  Jesus doesn’t say, “Follow me when it’s convenient or if it’s not too much trouble—and I’ll throw in health insurance and stock options.”  He simply says, “Follow me.  Have faith and follow me.”

That means, for most of us, to be aware, every minute of every day, of being a Christian.  It means making time for personal prayer and for worship in church.  It means not being embarrassed about going to church and about fasting during Great Lent.  It means praying before meals in restaurants as well as at home.  It means saying “Thank God” when good things happen instead of saying “That was lucky.”  It means taking care of our own families—and taking care of the poor and of our church.  It means welcoming people who don’t look like us or talk our language or have the same family life we have.  It means intentionally seeing every person as an ikon of Christ and treating them as we would treat the Lord.  To use a once-familiar expression, it means asking “What would Jesus do?” in every situation and circumstance.

If we do these things, we are following Christ, like Andrew and Peter and James and John—the fishermen who became fishers of men.  And we do these good things, not to earn a reward or to obey the rules, but because the Law has been written in our hearts by God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, to whom we give thanks and praise and glory now and ever and to ages of ages.  Amen.