In today's Gospel text, Jesus calls for repentance, expects Peter and Andrew to drop their nets and follow him, and calls James and John to leave their Father Zebedee in the boat without so much as a "So long, see you later." My task today is to issue that same call to repentance, that same call to radical obedience and decisive discipleship. For that call is urgent and cries out to be issued in all of its majesty and might.

But as preacher of the gospel -- the good news of God in Jesus Christ -- I cannot issue that call in such a way as to imply that any of us is capable of responding to it of our own free will and spiritual strength. If we can't even keep New Year's resolutions any more than 21 days into the new year, isn't it a little presumptuous to believe that we can turn our lives …