A Reflection on Zebedee

Text: Matthew 4:12-23

As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.

I’ve been thinking about Zebedee this week. We don’t know much about him, just that he was a fisherman and the father of James and John. What did Jesus’ coming mean to him? 

I imagine he spent most of his life in Capernaum. It was on the Sea of Galilee, which is really just a good sized lake. The main source of commerce was fishing. This was the land of Zebulun and Naphtali. It was one of the most northern areas of Israel, and it had often been the first area of the region to be conquered by invaders. The Assyrians came through this area first. The Babylonians took over this area first. The Romans probably conquered this area first. The people in this region were seen as walking in darkness by the prophet Isaiah not because of their personal sins. They walked in darkness because they were the region that was consistently occupied by an outside force. That consistent take over, the coming of new occupiers over centuries left a mark on the region. It was both Jewish and Gentile. It was indeed called the Galilee of the Gentiles. This blending of cultures and its relative lack of power made it distinctive. Here was where Zebedee lived. Here was where Jesus set up his home base. Unlike other gospels, which record Jesus’ travels back and forth to Jerusalem, much of what Jesus says and does in Matthew is located in Galilee if not in Capernaum itself.

There is a theological reasoning for this centering Jesus' message in the region of Galilee in Matthew. Matthew wants to emphasize that the area that was constantly being taken over was now the place where something new was happening, where God’s reign was taking over. Out of the occupied land, a new freedom was coming. 

And here in this region is the old fisherman, Zebedee, whose sons would become apostles, sharing this message to the ends of the earth, eventually being killed for their efforts. His sons gave up much of their identity for their calls. They gave up being fishermen in order to bring people to the good news of Christ. They gave up stability and security to follow Jesus. But what did Zebedee do?

We know that Zebedee had to be an important figure in the life of his community. His name was remembered and written down.His sons were called the Sons of Zebedee, centering their lives in their relationship with their father. Was his business particularly successful? Was he a prominent member in the local synagogue? Either way he was someone held in high esteem and honored. His sons could have had similar prominence. He had raised them well and taught them all he knew. It is clear that the love between them ran deep. Then Jesus called Zebedee’s sons while they were mending their nets with him and his sons left him behind. 

Was Zebedee angry? Scared? Sad? I can only think of parents who try to raise their children in a certain way only to see them go in a completely different direction. It’s like the parents who wanted a doctor and instead had an artist. Even if the end result is good, it’s still jarring. The whole family has to renegotiate how they are in relationship to each other now that the child is doing something their parents didn't expect. How much more so when sons are raised to take over the family business and then just walk away out of the blue one day? 

It’s not that Zebedee never saw his sons again. They stayed in the area and Capernaum' population was roughly around 1,500 people. They saw each other. They walked away from their father’s business and family home, then they all had to figure out together what that meant. Zebedee in his own way had to turn his life around, to go a different direction, which is the true meaning of repentance. He had to see his children in a new light and discover them both as the same people they had always been and completely different. 

Zebedee also had his own role to play in the Kingdom of Heaven that had come to them. It was not the same as his sons. He didn’t lay down his fishing nets and become an apostle. But he was a disciple in his own way. He was honored and given immortal memory in the Gospel because he helped the spread of the gospel in the way he was called to do. While his sons gave up fishing, perhaps he helped fund the ministry through fishing. Perhaps he spent long hours listening and absorbing Jesus’ message, learning from the teacher his sons left everything to follow. Perhaps he stood up for Jesus when he was criticized in the synagogue. Zebedee did not drop everything, but he did follow. That we know for sure. 

As we seek our own identities in Christ, as we listen for what God is calling us to do, I think too often we try to force ourselves into the model of James and John. We think we need to lay down everything in order to follow Christ. Some of us are called to do that. That's an important and sacred role. Many of us have had times when we have had to drop our nets and walk away. Many pastors and priests have experiences of Christ that mirror these brothers. Sometimes turning towards God means dropping everything and doing something new. 

But sometimes calls are much more subtle. What if you’re already where you are meant to be? What if you’re already doing the thing you are called to do? What if your call at this moment is not to do something different but to do what you are already doing with a newfound or renewed purpose? 

I think one of those hard periods of life is actually about a year or two into a dream job. Many of us go to school, work hard, and finally get what we desire. It’s that certification or that professorship or that promotion… And we do the thing and for a while it feels really great. Then slowly it becomes routine. The luster is gone. Perhaps the question begins to pop up, “Is this it?” When the sheen of newness wears off, there’s a time of examination. Why are we doing what we are doing? What is our purpose now that the goal we aimed for is accomplished and the excitement has worn off? Sometimes that is the moment when people find that what they were working towards isn’t actually what they wanted. But more often I think we find that what we were working towards is exactly what we’re supposed to do, it just feels different now. 

I remember talking with a friend who is a pediatrician at a hospital. He was about two years into position, his first job after residency. He shared that he had recently gone through several months where he wondered if this was where he was really supposed to be and what he was really supposed to be doing. He still loved the kids and the medicine, but the peculiarities of his co-workers, of the department meetings, of the paperwork, of everything that felt peripheral to being a doctor was getting to him. Eventually he concluded that his hospital was fine, that his job was worth it, he was just experiencing his job for the fullness of what it was, with all its peaks and valleys. The practice of medicine, as much as he loved it, involved tedium and frustrations as well. He decided that he was happy staying where he was. He just had a fuller experience of what it was to have that job. 

God calls us into something new in those moments, not a career change or major life upheaval. Instead, God calls us to allow God to shape our perspectives in a new way. We are experiencing the fullness of what we are called to do, with all the peaks and valleys. 

In those moments, we are called to be more like Zebedee and less like James and John. Zebedee was no less called than his sons, he was just called to remain even as his sons were called to leave their family business behind. He experienced wrestling with where he fit in and had to listen deeply to what God was saying specifically to him while seeing clearly how God was calling his children. 

Throughout the Gospels we find stories of people being called to stay and people called to go somewhere new. I am especially struck by the person who was healed of a legion of demons in the country of the Gerasenes. He begged Jesus to let him go with him, but Jesus told him to stay. He had to build a new life exactly where he was. Zebedee was called in that same way. Jesus' message to him was, "Stay exactly where you are, even though everything has changed."

Sometimes people are meant to stay in the boat, sometimes Jesus asks them to drop their nets. We ultimately have to discern with God which we are called to do. Are we Zebedee or are we his sons? In our lifetimes, we shift from one group to another as we move into the next right thing for us. The message of Jesus’ calling in Capernaum is to follow Jesus’ lead, not to always drop everything. So may we listen and follow what Jesus asks us to do now and always. Amen.