Permission to Fail

Matthew 4:12-23 New International Version (NIV)

12 When Jesus heard that John had been put in prison, he withdrew to Galilee. 13 Leaving Nazareth, he went and lived in Capernaum, which was by the lake in the area of Zebulun and Naphtali— 14 to fulfill what was said through the prophet Isaiah:

15 “Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali,/the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan,/Galilee of the Gentiles—/16 the people living in darkness/have seen a great light;/on those living in the land of the shadow of death/a light has dawned.”

17 From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

18 As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. 19 “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” 20 At once they left their nets and followed him.

21 Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, preparing their nets. Jesus called them, 22 and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.

23 Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people.

I really hope that nobody here has ever been told that they are a total failure. But I bet most if not all of us know what it feels like to fail. We know what it feels like to not measure up. We see the beautiful models on our magazine covers and feel inadequate. Young girls starve themselves to try to look like the people that they see on the cover of Glamour or Us Weekly. Social media is terrible for our confidence. We watch videos on YouTube where people hit trick shots, nail ollies on their skateboards, and flip bottles with precision. We don’t see all of the time they spent practicing and failing, but we see the refined final product. Our friends only post pictures of their clean homes and children getting along on Facebook and Instagram. All of this contributes to our feelings of inadequacy.

And if that isn’t bad enough, the church can be a place where we don’t feel like we measure up. This super Christian over here has most of the New Testament memorized. This family sits quietly through the entire service. Someone hit their shin on a Reese hitch and didn’t even swear. It is easy to feel like we don’t measure up to the Christians around us. And I don’t know about you, but sometimes reading the Bible makes me feel worse. Abraham left his home and family behind to go to a strange land. Paul gave up power and prestige to become a poor missionary. And the disciples, well they dropped everything that they had and followed Jesus, following him to their own death! I can’t measure up to that!

Far too often we read a sanitized version of the Bible. We read the successes of people like the disciples and forget about all of their failures. It is kind of like the people who only post their successes and the victories online. We can easily miss the failures of these people who do eventually end up doing amazing things.

Today I want to look at the story of Jesus calling his first disciples to show you what you already know: nobody’s perfect, we all fail, and we all require a certain measure of grace. Today, I want to give you permission, permission to fail. Let’s start with today’s text and I’ll give you what I am calling the sanitized version first, and then we will mess with it a bit.

Just before our text for this morning we find a story that we have been working through for the past few weeks, the baptism of Jesus. Then, in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus heads straight from the waters of the Jordan River to the wilderness, where he is tempted while he fasts for 40 days. We will come back to that text in a month or so when we arrive at Lent. When Jesus gets back from the wilderness, he hears that John has been arrested, so Jesus goes somewhere else, perhaps for his own safety. He goes to Galilee, a fishing town with a big lake.

Our text tells us that as Jesus is walking around the Sea of Galilee, he sees two brothers out fishing. These fishermen had names. Verse 18 tells us they were “Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew.” Remember that, it will be important for my argument shortly. So Jesus sees Simon, called Peter, and his brother Andrew. Then in verse 19-20 we read, “‘Come, follow me,’ Jesus said, ‘and I will send you out to fish for people.’ At once they left their nets and followed him.”

First of all, I like that our modern translations use the gender-inclusive language of “fish for people,” but it just doesn’t fit the song as well. Second, how long did it take Simon called Peter and Andrew to decide to follow Jesus? They went “at once,” or “immediately.”

We find a very similar story in verses 21-22, “Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, preparing their nets. Jesus called them, and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.”

How long did it take James and John to follow Jesus? Did they think about it for a while? Nope, Matthew tells us that they dropped their nets, jumped off the boat, and followed Jesus immediately.

I’ve heard sermons, and maybe preached a few myself, that emphasized the decision these men made to leave everything behind and follow Jesus instantly. These sermons often criticize people for overthinking things or being too comfortable with their way of life to not give it all up immediately and follow Jesus. Some will even emphasize that these men did not know Jesus. No, like Abraham following the call of God, they put their faith in something unknown. These sermons usually go something like, Oh, you have a job, a mortgage, and a family? Well if Jesus calls you to go to Africa, you must drop everything, like the disciples dropped their nets, and follow Jesus! Don’t over think it, just go!

I find this more than a little unlikely. We don’t know much about these disciples’ families, but we know that Peter was married. We also find later in the Gospels that Peter’s mother-in-law was still living, and he seemed to have some responsibility in caring for her. James and John worked for their father. It would have been common in the first century for children to learn a job from their father, and then when they were old enough, take over that and help support their parents. To just drop everything and follow Jesus sounds exciting, but it also breaks one of the Ten Commandments. How honoring is it to your father and mother to leave them without support or income?

No, let’s move away from this sanitized version of the calling of the disciples because it makes me feel inadequate and inferior. And it probably isn’t true.

We have no reason to believe that this was Jesus’s first interaction with these men. In fact, I think if we read through the other Gospels, we could make an argument that Jesus had been building a relationship with them for some time. For instance, last week’s text from John tells the calling of two disciples quite differently. Last week we read that Simon and an unnamed disciple of John the Baptist followed him home, spent some time with him, and came away excited because they saw something beautiful. And when Andrew went back to get his brother, Simon, Jesus gave him a new nickname: Peter.

But if we look at our text for this morning, Simon is already called Peter. I think it is possible that he is already called Peter because Jesus gave him that nickname in a previous encounter.

Here’s the options: either John and Matthew are telling the same story in a very different way, or they are talking about two different events. I think it is more realistic to think that these potential disciples met Jesus, spent some time getting to know him, spent some time talking with their families about the possibility of following Jesus, and then dropped their nets to follow Jesus.

My reason for pushing back on the way this story is usually told is because I don’t want you to feel like a failure or like less of a Christian if you haven’t jumped at every opportunity to serve. Don’t take the sanitized, Facebook/Instagram version of this story as the norm. Big decisions require thought. As Jesus says elsewhere, you aren’t going to start building a tower unless you first consider whether or not you have the resources to finish it.

This doesn’t mean that you put it off indefinitely. I’m simply saying don’t measure yourself against a false perception of someone else, whether that be in riding a skateboard or in following Jesus.

This was the beginning of Jesus’s ministry. What if we jump ahead to the end? We find the disciples making all sorts of mistakes. Peter cuts off a soldier’s ear, which Jesus has to fix. All the disciples scatter when Jesus is arrested, running and hiding for their lives. Peter lies, denying that he even knows Jesus. After the resurrection, Thomas doubts what he has been told.

Then, in the final chapter of John’s Gospel, we find an interesting story. After Jesus had spent three years teaching the disciples how to live, teach, and heal, we find the disciples back out fishing. Jesus had a major job for these men, to share his message throughout the world! But when Jesus was gone, they want back to their old lives.

So how does John’s Gospel end? With grace. Specifically, grace for Peter. The ear-cutting, deny-even-knowing-Jesus Peter. Jesus invites Peter to feed his sheep, to continue the ministry that Jesus had begun.

Here’s my point: we need grace. And I’m not just talking about grace from God. I’m thankful for God’s grace; we all need it. But we also need grace for ourselves. And never forget, the heroes in the Bible were far from perfect. You’ve probably seen lists like this before: Noah was a drunk, Abraham was too old, Joseph was abused, Moses had a stuttering problem, Gideon was afraid, Rahab was a prostitute, David was an adulterer (not to mention a murderer), Elijah was suicidal, Jonah ran from God, Job went bankrupt, John the Baptist ate bugs, Andrew lived in the shadow of his big brother, Peter denied Christ, All the disciples fell asleep while praying (and ran away when Jesus really needed them.), Martha worried about everything, Mary Magdalene was demon-possessed, Zaccheus was too small, Timothy had tummy issues, Paul was a Christian-killer, Oh…and Lazarus was dead.

There’s something that I want to tell you. Are you listening? Lean in real close. If you are trying to be a disciple of Jesus, if you are trying to follow his teaching and his example, You, Will, Fail.

You will fail. There is only one person who has ever been able to live like Jesus. That person was Jesus. Not you. Not me. Jesus.

Think about it. Jesus asks us to do some absolutely ridiculous things. Forgive those who hurt you. Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you. That’s not easy. Even something as simple as treating someone how you want to be treated is hard stuff!

You will fail.

You will fail, and that’s okay. In fact, if you never fail, that would be a problem. Think of this logically. The Bible repeatedly tells us that nobody is perfect, that nobody is without failure. Ecclesiastes 7:20 and Romans 3:10 are good reminders. Ecclesiastes says, “Indeed, there is no one on earth who is righteous, no one who does what is right and never sins.”

But all of these Biblical examples, it is the heroes of the faith who help me the most. These are people who we remember through their nicknames, like “A man after God’s own heart,” “Father Abraham,” and “The Rock upon whom the Church was built.” They weren’t perfect. They were sinners, they were failures. The reason we remember them is because they kept trying.

And if we aren’t going to be perfect and we are called to try to follow Jesus’s perfect example, God must expect us to fail. The only way to never fail is to never try.

Winston Churchill, former Prime Minister of Great Britain, once said, “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”

I thought about ending this sermon telling the stories of several famous people who failed repeatedly, only to find success after many attempts. I thought of J.K. Rowling, whose first book about a young man named Harry Potter was rejected by 12 major publishing companies before being picked up by small Bloomsbury Publishing, who originally published 1,000 copies. Rowling has now sold over 400 million copies of her books, in an era when people don’t even read.

I thought about Colonel Sanders, who bounced around from one odd job to the next his entire life, until he found a way to pressure fry chicken, and decided to start a franchise we know today as Kentucky Fried Chicken. Sanders was 62 when the first KFC opened.

Did you know that Henry Ford went bankrupt twice before he hit it big with his Model T? Or that Samuel L. Jackson didn’t have a major role in a movie until he was 45?

Those are all great stories, but I want to close with a story that I told several years ago. It can be found in Philip Yancey’s book, Church, Why Bother? This story seemed very relevant to me as my children have been taking music lessons. Yancey tells the story of the great composer, Igor Stravinsky. Stravinsky once composed a piece that included an extremely difficult violin part. The new piece was passed on to an orchestra to be presented in the coming months.

After weeks of practice, the first chair violinist came to Stravinsky and told him that he simply could not play what Stravinsky had composed. It was too difficult, even impossible for a professional violinist to play. Stravinsky replied, “I understand that. What I am after is the sound of someone trying to play it.”

I think this is what following Jesus is meant to be as well. God knows we will fail, and at times we will fail gloriously. And to be honest, there is no guarantee that we will ever succeed. But God knows that, and that’s okay. You have permission to fail.

But then again, the only real failure is a failure to never try.