“…Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.” – Matthew 4:22

It’s the same boat. It’s the same net.
It’s the same lake. It’s the same fish.

They all seem a little smaller now.

They always were too big for this small beach,
my “Sons of Thunder,” louder and more
vigorous upon the lines than even I,
the Thunderer himself, had been.

Brash? I’ll say, and I’ve been brash and more.
We should have seen it coming, I expect,
when two such souls as she and I
brought similar selves into the world.

We tried the obvious and useless, yes we did.
“Please use your inside voices!” at a roar.
They laughed when they grew old enough
to see the irony, and laughter filled the house.

It filled the village and the beach and echoed
to the skies, the laughter of these two,
and if two parents, sober citizens, could not
join in, well, we smiled and smiled and smiled.

They always were too big for this small beach,
but still, I never thought they’d step away
to follow a poor traveling preacher or
take up a life of shouting out for God.

I’m glad, although I grumble at this pile
of nets awaiting my attention and repair.
This teacher can expand their lives and minds
and souls. The nets and fish and boat… will not.

My breathing settles in a gut-deep sigh.
I’ll claim the tear is sand blown in my eye.
There’s more room in this boat than just a while ago,
so how has it grown smaller in that time?

It’s the same boat. It’s the same net.
It’s the same lake. It’s the same fish.

They all seem a little smaller now.

A poem/prayer based on Matthew 4:12-23, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year A, the Third Sunday after the Epiphany.

The image is Jesus calls James and John from their boat; their father Zebedee stands behind them. Woodcut, date and author unknown. Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://wellcomeimages.org Jesus calls James and John from their boat; their father Zebedee stands behind them. Woodcut. Published: – Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Author’s note: I need to credit two writers with renewing my thinking about Zebedee and this scene and I commend their work to you: Melissa Bane Sevier’s essay “Left Behind” and Maren Tirabassi’s poem “Zebedee (portrait of the original empty-netter).”