3rd Sunday of Epiphany
READING: Matthew 4: 12-23

The Forgotten Story on the Shore

When Jesus walks along the Sea of Galilee and calls Simon, Andrew, James and John, we rightly marvel at their astonishing response- the immediacy of their leaving, the wholeheartedness of their yes. Their decision is so swift, so uncluttered by hesitation, that the Church has long turned it into an icon of discipleship: hear the call, drop the nets, leave everything, follow. Yet another story is unfolding just out of frame- a story Matthew never names, a story the shoreline itself would have witnessed: the families who stayed.

Fishing in Galilee was not a sideline or leisure pursuit. It was survival. Nets represented daily bread, dignity, social belonging, and the thin line between enough and hunger. In a fragile local economy where most families lived hand-to-mouth, to walk away from boats and ropes was not merely bold- it was costly. And like all costly decisions, someone else had to absorb the cost. When Simon and Andrew step away from the lake and towards Jesus, someone must rise the next morning and haul the nets. When James and John leave their father Zebedee in the boat, it is not simply poetic imagery- it is the sudden loss of labour, strength and the future security of the family business. Zebedee is left quite literally holding the nets.

Imagine mothers standing in doorways at dawn, gazing at the water where their sons once worked, wondering whether they will return and what stories they will bring with them. Imagine younger siblings suddenly carrying burdens beyond their years. Imagine whispered conversations in the market: How long will they be gone? Who will keep the business afloat? Why should the rest of us pay for someone else’s holy calling? Discipleship always costs someone- not only those who leave, but also those who stay.

And yet Zebedee lets his sons walk away. He neither forbids nor protests. He does not run after them or bargain with Jesus. His letting-go is itself an act of faith, a costly surrender of control and future security. If the disciples’ leaving is a model of obedience, Zebedee’s staying is a model of trust. The early Church would later speak of whole households turning toward Christ, of families baptised together. The first hints of that truth lie here: the call of Jesus reshapes more than individual lives; it reorients entire communities.

Some leave nets; some mend them. Some walk dusty roads with the rabbi; others hold the shoreline until they return. Yet all are drawn into the widening life of God. The shoreline is holy too, and the unnamed figures who bear the cost and carry the burden are just as caught in the net of grace as the ones who follow Jesus into the unknown.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Christian writer  helps us hear the quieter consequences of this moment. In  his book “The Cost of Discipleship”, he insists that the call of Jesus demands immediate obedience: “Only he who believes is obedient, and only he who is obedient believes.” Simon, Andrew, James and John embody this radical abandonment. But Bonhoeffer would bid us notice the shadows cast by their obedience. “When Christ calls a person, he bids them come and die,” he writes. The disciples die to livelihood, identity and security. But their families die a quieter death – to income, stability, and the future they imagined.

Bonhoeffer, reflecting from the strain of imprisonment, recognised that faithful decisions reverberate beyond the believer. “It is not simply my suffering that matters, but that others are drawn into it with me.” Zebedee’s burden is not accidental collateral damage; it is part of the call’s communal cost. Discipleship intertwines destinies. The Kingdom of God  never moves without affecting the structures around it.

Yet Bonhoeffer also honours the unnoticed ones – what he calls the “unknown martyrs,” the ordinary people whose sacrifices never make the news or the pulpit. Their faithfulness lacks glamour  but it carries weight. In Galilee, these hidden saints are the villagers who wake before dawn to mend extra nets, field probing questions, and keep the community functioning despite the absence of strong hands. Without them, the mission of Jesus might have faltered before it began.

Bonhoeffer refuses to frame discipleship as solitary heroism. “There is no following Christ that is not following in the Church.” The obedience of the disciples is not about individual achievement; it is the seed of a faith  community. The road Jesus walks will eventually lead back to the shoreline, and the ones who stayed will find themselves transformed and included. For Bonhoeffer, every cost required by Christ opens into a deeper freedom. Families may lose sons and daughters today, but they gain a wider belonging tomorrow. “In the call of Christ, all ties are broken – only to be bound more closely in him.”

Which brings us to today. If we take this story seriously, we must put away the illusion that discipleship is a private affair between “me and God”. When one person steps out in faith, others feel the ripple. A young adult answering a call to serve may leave anxious parents and family  behind. A lay minister takes on a demanding role and their partner shoulders childcare alone. A congregation sends a priest or pioneer to a new post and discovers suddenly that the familiar local load now feels heavier. Faith, always and inevitably, is communal.

We must also remember that those who stay and steady the boat are disciples too. Not everyone is called to leave. Many are called to stay and  sustain. The carer who quietly tends a sick relative, the church treasurer who balances fragile accounts, the volunteer who unlocks the door each week- these are the hidden saints of our own shoreline. Their offering is quieter but no less costly; their obedience is deeper than it appears.

Such recognition calls for a church that notices sacrifice rather than assuming it. A church that shares burdens rather than exploiting quiet generosity. A church that releases rather than clings- trusting that if someone is called elsewhere, God will provide what remains lacking. And a church that honours grief as much as excitement- because every departure is also a loss, and every new calling stretches the community that sends.

This is what a shoreline church looks like: compassionate, realistic, courageous and grounded in grace. A church that remembers that discipleship is not just following Jesus down the road, but holding steady when others go. A church that honours the unnamed, blesses the stayers, supports the burdened, and releases the called, trusting that all- walkers and waiters alike- are being drawn into God’s wide, generous, ever-expanding story.

May we be ready to leave when Christ calls.

May we be faithful and wise when we stay.

And may we recognise every person, visible or hidden, already caught in the movement of God’s love.

Zebedee: The One Left Holding the Nets

I remember the morning my boys walked away.

We were doing what we always did –  mending nets, preparing boats, working the rhythm that kept food on the table and dignity in our hands. Fishing was not a choice but a life. You inherited the nets, and you passed them on.

Then Jesus came. Not like the rabbis who passed through, gathering followers and leaving dust behind. This one looked straight at us. Or rather, straight at my sons.

He didn’t negotiate. He didn’t ask politely. He simply said, Follow me.

And before I could speak, James and John dropped the nets, stepped over the side of the boat, and walked after him. No glance back. No request for permission. Just obedience that felt both reckless and holy.

I could have shouted. I could have stopped them. But something stronger than rope held me still. In that moment I knew: if I called them back, I would be calling them away from life.

It felt like loss –  not inspiration.

I went home alone that night. Their mother’s face told the whole story. We had expected to hand the nets to the boys one day. Instead they vanished across the lake following a preacher with no plan, no wages, no security. The cost fell hard on those who stayed.

And people whispered. What kind of father loses both sons? What family can survive fewer hands, fewer fish, fewer coins?

When Christ calls a person, he bids them come and die.

My sons died to the future I imagined.

And we died to certainty, income, and control.

But that death was not the end. Their absence became news. Their stories returned before they did –  healings, teachings, hope spreading like a rumour of dawn. And when eventually they came home, they stood not as boys who deserted me, but as men whose lives had opened beyond the shoreline.

I am still here with the nets. My calling was to stay. Theirs was to go. But now I know this: discipleship costs everyone — those who leave and those who remain. And in ways I still do not fully understand, grace reaches us all.

Some follow Jesus down the road.

Some hold the shore until they return.

Both belong to the Kingdom.

Photo Credit: Cassiano Psomas (Unsplash.com)