A Sunday School teacher was checking with her students one day to see if they knew the people with whom Jesus lived. "How many of you know who Matthew was?", she asked. Not one kid raised a hand. "Well, then," she said, "what about Luke? How many of you know who Luke was?", she asked.

And again, the class just sat there and no one said a thing. She tried again. "How about John? Do you know who St. John was?"

And still the children just sat there in dead silence. Finally the teacher said, "Well, what about Peter? Do you know who Peter was?"

A little girl, on the front row, raised her hand rather tentatively. "Yes, Karen," the teacher said, "will you tell us who Peter was?"

And the little girl dropped her head and said sheepishly, "I 'tink he was a wabbit!"

We are not that limited in our knowledge of the disciples -- I hope. We know their names. That is, if we aren't under pressure to name them.

I think I told you about one of my most embarrassing moments. I was coming back from a trip to Europe a few years ago, and returned to this country through Chicago. I think that's the only time in my life I've ever returned from overseas travel through Chicago. And I hope I don't have to do that again -- because I've never had as much trouble with customs.

I had a very close connection to get my domestic flight back to Memphis. So, when I got to the Customs Officer, I told her that I was in a real big hurry, that I had a close connection. She saw that I was obviously nervous and anxious. I'm not sure what else she thought -- you know you hear these stories about how they detect drug smugglers and that sort of thing -- whatever the case, she saw my anxiety and quick as a flash, for some reason, she said, "What is your profession?" Well, I didn't think too much about that, so I simply responded, "I'm a Methodist minister." I was not prepared for her comeback. Without hesitation she said, "Name the first five books of the Old Testament." Well, I started, "Genesis...Exodus...Leviticus...", and I couldn't go on. My mind went completely blank.

You can imagine that that raised real questions in her mind, and I ended up in the office of the Chief Customs Inspector.

But what we need to know is not the names of the disciples -- we need to know the kind of people they were. It's when we look at who these persons Jesus called to be his disciples were that we appreciate what the Gospel is.

Our scripture lesson is Luke 5: the first 11 verses. That's Luke's record of the call of the brothers, James and John, and Simon Peter. In the next chapter, Luke 6, there is another account of the call. It seems as though a number of people had become followers of Jesus, and now from his followers, Jesus selected his inner core -- the "A" Team. Let me read verses 12 - 16 of the 6th Chapter:

"Now during those days he went out to the mountain to pray; and he spent the night in prayer to God. And when day came, he called his disciples and chose twelve of them, whom he also named apostles: Simon, whom he named Peter, and his brother Andrew, and James, and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James son of Alphaeus, and Simon, who was called the Zealot, and Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor."

There follows after this account of the call of these disciples -- verse 17: "And He came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples, and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the Coast of Tyre and Sidon."

Now I know that's a geographical description, but when I read it, a light came on in my mind. "He came down with them and stood on a level place." The ground around Jesus is always level, and in His presence we all stand on equal terms of grace. So let that be etched on your mind: The ground around Jesus is always level.

Now keep that in mind as we look at the call of Peter and the brothers James and John.

I.

Note this first: The word of God comes to us where we are. We are all on level ground in that fact: the Word of God comes to us where we are. Peter and his friends, James and John, were fishermen. They had brought their boats into the shore, and had left them and were washing their nets. And Jesus went to them where they were.

That's a heartening thought, isn't it? -- That God is going to come to us where we are.

My friend, Leonard Sweet, President of United Seminary in Dayton, tells of an unforgettable experience he had at an Amy Grant concert at Kings Island in Cincinnati. It was in the midst of the controversy that swirled around her during the summer of 1986 for "crossing over" from Gospel music into the secular market.

All sorts of people had laid into Amy Grant for the outrage of people being able to tune in any radio rock station in the nation and hear her sing about her love for Jesus.

"At the concert, Amy Grant told about songs she was working on, and how her tour was going. But then it became very quiet, and out of the silence she confessed to the pain she was feeling because of all the abuse and derision from her sisters and brothers in Christ. She then visibly straightened up and spoke of her resolve not to listen to it. And then came out these words (so powerful, Len said, that he wrote them down on the spot):

"Some people think I should stand in the light and give my witness. But I believe God has called me to stand in the dark, and there give off my light. I know there is danger in the dark, but God's Word has told me that I'm all right so long as I don't lose sight of the light." (Leonard I. Sweet, "Bibelot", 1990, Vol. 5, No. 3-6).

Amy Grant was making herself available to be the Word of God that comes to us wherever we are, But there is another side to this coin. Not only does the Word of God come to us where we are, the Evangelistic task of the church is to go where the people are -- and the witnessing task of the Christian is wherever the Christian is. That's what Amy Grant was saying. She was not going to restrict herself to a safe Christian enclave. She could be secure in the light, but she was going to run the risk of taking her songs into the dark.

There's a wonderful story out of the ministry of Dr. Alexander White, one of the great preachers of the last and early part of this century. He was for years the minister of Free St. George's Church in Edinburgh.

If we see our ministry as a church confined to this campus, in these buildings, and among us who consider ourselves a part of the congregation, we are missing the boat. Our ministry is out there, beyond these boundaries and outside the time frames of worship and study here.

What we do here is to inspire, equip, and strengthen us to be God's presence and speak God's Word "out there."

I want to lay a heavy word on you. Never forget it. There is probably someone out there who will not hear God's Word or feel God's presence unless they hear and feel through you.

So that's the first point. We are all on level ground in the presence of Jesus, and the Word of God comes to us where we are -- and that means the evangelistic task of the church is to go where the people are -- and the witnessing task of the Christian is wherever he or she is.

II

Now a second word: availability, not ability, is the key issue in discipleship.

Availability, not ability, is the key issue in discipleship.

You see, in terms of ability, James, John, and Simon Peter, no doubt were excellent fishermen. That's the way they made their living. They must have wondered about Jesus when He told them to move further out into the deep and let down their net in order to have a great catch. Was He questioning their ability? "All night," the scripture says, "they had toiled with their nets, but they had caught nothing.

Ability was not the issue. Availability was.

I've never told you about my brother, Lloyd. He was two years older than me, twin brother to my sister, Lois. He had spent 20 years in the military. During those years, we had been separated most of the time, and therefore were not very close. But he had retired and had settled in down on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and was working as a fire inspector for Ingles Ship Building Corporation. I had moved back from California to Nashville and so we were able to see each other rather often and cultivate our brother- love.

Lloyd was always a tenderhearted person -- always concerned about others. He was a little man, and on the surface had the appearance of being cocky and a bit arrogant. But, inside, he was really insecure. In fact, he had some feelings of inferiority. But, inside, he was tenderhearted, unselfish, the kind of person you'd want for a neighbor because he was thoughtful, always doing things for those around him.

On a day that became a dreadful one back in September of 1976, word came to Lloyd that some men had passed out down in the hold of a ship. It looked like they had been overcome by gas. Lloyd moved too quickly -- too carelessly. He didn't think of himself. He thought only of those men. He went down into the hold of that ship without a gas mask to rescue them. He pulled one of them out, and went back to try to help the others, and was overcome himself. He died trying to save his friends.

I've often thought of that in terms of the Christian faith, my own commitment, and Christian discipleship. What does it mean to be available? It means at least this -- not to think of our own self, not to be preoccupied with what it is going to cost us -- at least to have a heart for others. When those things characterize our life, ability will not be the issue. Availability will always be the deciding point.

III.

Now, this final word. The beginning of a life with Christ is the acknowledgement of our sin. The continuing of our Christian life is an awareness of what we might yet be by the power of Christ. Now get that: The beginning of a life with Christ is the acknowledgement of our sin. The continuing of our Christian life is an awareness of what we might yet be by the power of Christ.

Did you catch Peter's confession? When he saw the miraculous thing that was happening, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, "Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!"

But Jesus didn't let him stay on his knees. He said to him and to James and John -- "don't be afraid; from now on, you will be catching people." And the story closes with a dramatic word. "When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him."

The beginning of life with Christ is the acknowledgement of our sin. The continuing of our Christian life is an awareness of what we might yet be by the power of Christ.

Harry Crews, the novelist, described his childhood in South Georgia, in this fashion:

"I first became fascinated with the Sears Roebuck catalog because all the people in its pages were perfect. Nearly everyone I knew had something missing, a finger cut off, a toe split, an ear half-chewed away, an eye clouded with blindness from a glancing fence staple. And if they didn't have something missing, they were carrying scars from barbed wire or knives or fish hooks. But the people in the catalog had no such hurts. They were not only whole, had all their arms and legs and toes and eyes in their unscarred bodies, but they were also beautiful. Their legs were straight and their heads were never bald and on their faces were beatific expressions that I never saw much of in the faces around me. "Young as I was, though, I had known for a long time a that the catalog lied. I knew that under those fancy clothes there had to be scars, there had to be blemishes and malformations of one kind or the other because there are no perfect human beings." (Donald J. Shelby, "God Rides the Lame Horse", February 6, 1983).

Harry Crews is right, and deep down we know it.

"Have you ever felt like Peter or Paul: Inadequate, unloved, embarrassed, unworthy, unsure? I have. Such feelings overcome me when I stand in this pulpit, when I break the bread for Holy Communion, when I baptize, (when I anoint people on Sunday night and pray for them. When I lay my hands on someone's head in the hospital and pray for them even as I know they are dying. When I put my hands in the baptismal font and place that water on the heads of people who are making a profession of their faith in Christ). When in God's name, I pronounce a man and a woman husband and wife, when I stand at a graveside and would comfort the bereaved, when I listen in a telephone call confessional or that which occurs around a kitchen table in the early hours of the morning, when I pronounce absolution and offer peace to those who are pursued by demons into the depths of hell itself. At such moments I ask myself, as Karl Barth did, "What are you doing there with the Word of God upon your lips?" How can you presume to minister when you yourself need ministry? How dare you speak God's Word in Christ when you need to hear it yourself? How brazen to pray for others when you need to be prayed for. Yes, here we are, teaching what we need to be taught, counseling others not to do what we have done too often, exhorting others to be brave and faithful when we ourselves are shaking in our boots." (Donald Shelby, "God Rides the Lame Horse", Feb. 6, 1983).

Despite that kind of awareness, God calls us just the same. The beginning of a life with Christ is the acknowledgement of our sin. The continuing of our Christian life is an awareness of what we might yet be by the power of Christ.

By the grace of God, we are all we have. And we begin our life with Christ by acknowledging our sin -- we continue our life in Christ in an awareness of what we might yet be by his power.

CLOSING GREETING: As you go from this place today, I want you to remember the lesson -- verse 11: It says it all: "When they had brought their boats to shore, thy left everything and followed Him."