Peculiarities of Saviors’ personnel policy

Christ calls the apostles Andrew and Peter to serve. Photo: arthive.com

This Sunday’s Gospel reading doesn’t seem to provide us with much material for reflection. It speaks of Christ calling the apostles (Matthew 4:18-23). This event is described in the briefest and simplest way. Christ approached the fishermen and said, "Follow me." They silently, without a word, stood up and followed Him. The scene, you must agree, is strange.

Who did the apostles follow? God, who became man and came to earth for our salvation? Of course not! Up until the very death of the Savior, they still didn't fully understand who He really was. Even after His Resurrection, they would not yet grasp it. Only the Holy Spirit, who descended upon them on the Day of Pentecost, would bring them clarity regarding the Personality of the Messiah.

Did they follow a miracle worker? But is that a reason to abandon their father, nets, families and the fishing business that so laboriously supported their households? Imagine a situation where someone shows up at any workplace and says, "Leave everything and follow me, we'll now walk together." Who would listen to him? And yet, the apostles stood up, without looking back at anyone, and followed Christ’s call. It seems as if they had been waiting their whole lives for Him to come and call them. Why this happened is something we need to try to understand today...

But Christ’s choice is just as "strange". If we are talking about a mission involving preaching, why call people who have no connection to this field whatsoever? A fisherman’s job is to weave nets, cast them into the sea, pull out fish and then take them to market. Fishermen had nothing to do with theology, rhetoric or knowledge of the Scriptures. Yet, they would later travel far and wide, preaching, persuading and debating. Why wouldn’t God assemble a more suitable team? Any human resources specialist would never approve such an "unqualified" selection of personnel.

It should be noted here that the entire biblical narrative shows us that the actions of God's Providence were rarely connected with human notions of common sense and worldly logic. God always chose what seemed to be the most "unsuitable".

The chosen people become a rootless, nomadic tribe with no history or written language. To negotiate with Pharaoh and his educated elite, God sends Moses, who is stammering and inarticulate. He chooses the shepherd David to be king, and He Himself is born into the family of a poor carpenter, not even in a house, but in a livestock stable. But that is why He is God, for by using what seems to be the most "unsuitable" instruments of His Providence, He still achieves His purpose. This, apparently, was also the reasoning behind His choice of apostles.

But why did the apostles themselves agree to follow? Especially after hearing the phrase, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men" (Matthew 4:19). You’d think they would have needed to think about it a hundred times before deciding to make such a job change. They understood how to catch fish, but catching people – that was something entirely new. Maybe, it would have been right to go home first and discuss it with their families? Yet, we read in the Gospel that no one consulted with anyone. Moreover, James and John left their father alone in the boat with the fishing gear, standing up and following Christ. There's little logic or common sense here either.

We will never fully understand God’s Providence, because it is known only to Him. But the apostles were people just like us, and we can try to understand their motivation for following Christ. When we talk about motives for behavior and choices in different life situations, we usually consider the arguments of reason. But all the holy fathers write unambiguously: "Reason is the servant of the heart" (John of Kronstadt). It is only a regulator, a dispatcher for a deeper, ruling organ within a person. The feelings of a purified heart are a more reliable indicator than the conclusions of the mind. To understand another person, it is more important to discern what his heart lives by, rather than what his head thinks. The apostles' hearts recognized God in Christ long before their minds grasped it. That’s why the will of the fishermen responded to Christ’s call with agreement.

The will of a person is not some independent element of the soul. It is the resultant force of the aspirations and desires of our heart.

Each of us knows how unbearably difficult it is to communicate with people in whose presence we have to carefully weigh every word, fearing that we may be misunderstood, etc. Such communication is not a joy but a heavy labor from which we want to free ourselves as soon as possible. On the other hand, how easy it is to be with simple people, without "pretensions", without hidden motives, without what is called being "too clever for their own good". With people whose simple, light and pure hearts radiate light, it is always good and joyful to be around. They may be highly or poorly educated, have high or low intelligence – it doesn’t matter. What matters is who they are in essence. If this is true in relation to people, how much more can be said about God, in whom a human heart lives. Seeing Christ, hearing His voice, the apostles followed not His words but the Man who spoke them. Because "never has anyone spoken like this man" (John 7:46).

The fact that the apostles responded to Christ's call, hearing it with their souls rather than their minds, also speaks of the deep purity of their hearts. They were simple laborers, not burdened by self-importance, by the significance of their own personalities, or by any of the things that the "powerful of this world" pride themselves on. Even sinners, prostitutes, and petty criminals were able to feel the light emanating from Christ's heart and were drawn to Him. But those "puffed up" by their own exceptional significance, the so-called "righteous", hated Him and crucified Him.

This reveals one of the paradoxes of sin. The pious Jews, while crucifying their own King and God, were afraid to enter Pilate's courtyard "so they would not be ceremonially defiled, but could eat the Passover meal ". They were not afraid of being defiled by the blood of the Righteous One but were deeply concerned about their ceremonial purity. And only one member of the Sanhedrin, overcoming his fear of breaking a taboo, went directly to Pilate to "ask for the body of Jesus". By then, it no longer mattered to him what his "colleagues" would think of him, how the Sanhedrin would judge it, because Nicodemus, like Joseph of Arimathea, had already become a Christian.

We, too, can become like the apostles when, beyond the prescribed rules, beyond what is “allowed” and what is “forbidden”, during this Apostles’ Fast, we strive to see the living Christ and recognize the one law He calls us to follow – the Law of Love.

We will become true Christians when we are able to love Christ with a "mad" love, a love that has no logic, no calculations, and no reasoning of the mind – a love that lives only in the heart. But we must also remember that God Himself loves us with the same "mad" love. A love with no calculations, that loves "not because of" but "just because."

Reflecting on God's "unqualified" personnel policy, I can't help but want to say to Him: "Lord, I am the most unfit candidate to live in Your Kingdom. There is nothing in me that those who aspire to this place of dwelling should possess. But, Lord, do as You have always done. Save me not 'because of' but in spite of...".

Read also