Last week the theme of the lessons was “Come and see” -- the potential disciples, in the story in John’s Gospel, said to Jesus, “Rabbi, where are you staying,” and Jesus said, “Come and see.”

What comes to mind is an image from when I lived in Massachusetts. As winter progressed, sometimes there would be snowbanks so high you couldn’t see over them . In that situation, when you’re trying to get out of your driveway, for instance, you have to nudge your car forward very carefully -- you lean over the wheel and stick your nose out. You’re in a bind.... You really can’t see to move, but you have to move in order to find out if you can move. That’s the “paradox” of Jesus’s call -- “come and see” -- you don’t always want to come if you don’t know where Jesus is calling you to ... and yet if you don’t come, you’ll never find out ..and you’ll always stay stuck in the driveway...

Today’s reading from Matthew’s gospel is also about being called - and in fact the whole structure of the Bible really depends on these hundreds and hundreds of stories in which people are called by God in one way or another. Today the theme is follow me. Jesus encounters Peter and Andrew fishing by the Sea of Galilee and says that to them -- follow me - and then he calls James and John -- and “immediately,” we are told, they just get up from what they’re doing and follow. And again, this week, as last, in the Collect -- which “collects” the themes of the day -- we asked for the grace of participation in the story of God: “Give us grace, O Lord, to answer readily the call of our Savior Jesus Christ and proclaim to all people the Good News of his salvation.”

I sometimes assume too much about what other people are thinking. So let me begin this morning by finding out if we are on common ground.

How many of you think that the call of Jesus to “follow me” -- that the call of Jesus - is addressed to you - specifically to you ... that when Jesus says, “follow me,” it is you he is speaking to? (raise your hands...)

Who else would He be calling? [Collect] If all this is about ANY of us all of this -- church -- Christ -- Christianity -it’s about ALL of us If Jesus calls me, then Jesus calls you. Jesus does not just call some kind of special “holy” people. The disciples we heard about this morning were ordinary people -- in this case, fishermen -- ordinary people ... “special” only the sense that every human being is special.

The call of Jesus to follow is addressed to each one of individually and to all of us together. We’re called to follow him in our own lives and we are called to follow him here in the church in our life together. That’s just an absolutely basic, foundational fact. It’s what it means to be a Christian.