My dear brothers,
Today’s Gospel reading is about the call of the disciples of Christ. First of all, our Christ needs disciples who will become his co-workers in the work of evangelizing people. That is, they will lead their fellow human beings to know Christ. The Gospel describes their work and calls them “fishers of men”. They were fishers of fish and now they are becoming fishers of men. Christ gives them a mission, that is why they are called apostles.
Second, Christ chooses simple and humble people to be his disciples and apostles. The fisherman and the carpenter, at that time, were the poorest professionals. But they sought the truth, to know the true God. The Lord did not approach the wise men of our world, but the ignorant, because they were simple and humble. Because they were not proud. Because they saw the truth clearly. Saint Porphyrios the Causocalyvite, our modern Saint, had finished the first elementary school and went a few months to the second. But he saw from a distance of 300,000 kilometers the problem of the Apollo 13 spacecraft on the Moon! And with his advice to a Greek aeronautical engineer, he helped bring it back to Earth. His humility claimed him to receive information from God and to heal the needs of people!
Third, Christ’s disciples responded to his call as ordinary people, without much thought in themselves. Whoever who overthinks things and puts things into his mind, he usually gets lost in his thoughts. It is a risk to find God in our lives. The very clever and the so-called “saints” block our way to God. Christ is the One who opens the way. The disciples did not want to save the world by their minds but by their personal relationship with Christ.
My dear brothers,the true pastor, teacher and educator, first humbles himself, crushes his ego and then takes up the teaching duties entrusted to him by the Lord. Because, in every case, our God is alive, illuminating and guiding us. He asks of us a spirit of brokenness and obedience to His will. We wish to have it.
Metropolitan of Drama Dorotheos
