faith

Story: Unsatisfied

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 2 Comments

July 5, 2026

Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

It was her first time to be leader of the flock. She greatly appreciated the responsibility. Look at all those birds – twenty or more – who would rely on her to help them find food and shelter and safety. There were ‘apapane like herself, there were ‘amakihi, there were ‘akepa, there was even a pair of ‘alawi and a remarkably patient i’iwi.

She thought the i’iwi might be trouble, but he was quiet and polite and seemed to be thoughtful, not like the grumpy, crabby ones who’d sometimes chased her around the forest. She was glad for his presence and, it turned out, eventually glad for his wisdom. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

While the i’iwi wasn’t a problem, quite a few of the ‘apapane were. One or two seemed irritated that she was a leader so young. One or two didn’t seem to like having a leader at all. And one or two just didn’t pay much attention, so they flew in the wrong direction a lot.

Quite a few of them, however, criticized everything she found, everything she did, and everything she didn’t do. If she found koa in flower, they muttered about ohi’a. If she found a tree full of fruit, they muttered about nectar. If she found a big selection of caterpillars, they wanted full-grown bugs.

They were never satisfied with the things she found. And they weren’t satisfied with the things she had nothing to do with. “Why isn’t it sunnier?” they demanded when it was raining, and “I’m so thirsty” when the sun came out. “It’s too windy to fly!” they complained while flying perfectly well, and “It’s so much work to fly with no wind,” they’d moan an hour later when the breeze subsided.

She felt like a horrible leader, the worst one ever, and she considered stepping down before her turn as leader was done.

“Don’t worry about them,” said the i’iwi unexpectedly. “They’re never satisfied. If you were perfect, they wouldn’t be satisfied.”

“Do you read minds?” she asked.

“No,” he said, “I read the sad way you’re perching and the way you flinch every time they complain. It’s easy when you’ve seen it before.”

“You’ve seen it before?” she asked. “I thought it was me.”

“It’s you, it’s the leader before you, and all the leaders before that,” the i’iwi told her. “If they said left, these birds would say right. If they were in midst of a grove of ohi’a, they’d be asking for mamane – and out of season.

“I don’t know why some birds are never satisfied,” he said, “but it’s true. Some never are. All you can do is the best you can, realizing that it won’t be enough, because perfection wouldn’t be enough. And when your time as leader is over, maybe you’ll take a moment to reassure the next one that they’re doing better than any of these other birds will ever admit.”

The ‘apapane looked at the i’iwi again, and realized that he’d been through it himself. He’d been through it, knew how it felt, and knew that she was doing her best.

“Thank you,” she said. “I’ll follow that advice.”

“Thank you for your leadership,” he said. “You’ve done well for us, and I’m grateful.”

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories in full ahead of time, but I tell them from memory and improvisation, so the story as I wrote it does not precisely match the story as I told it.

Photo of an ‘apapane by Eric Anderson.

Story: Fish Stories

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 4 Comments

June 28, 2026

Jeremiah 28:5-9
Matthew 10:40-42

I’m not a fisherman. You’re not likely to find me along the shore with a long fishing rod or standing in the shallows somewhere with a net. What I do know about fishing, however, is a piece of advice I’ve only picked up in recent years.

“It’s called fishing, not catching. There’s a reason for that.”

People who fish spend more time not catching fish than they spend actually catching fish, and that matches my admittedly limited experience.

The ‘auku’u doesn’t have much choice about whether to go fishing or not. If you want to eat, and your diet is basically fish, well, you’ve got to go fishing. For our young ‘auku’u here (you can tell she’s young because of her brown feathers and orange eyes; the older ones have blue-black feathers and red eyes), that wasn’t a problem. She liked fishing.

She liked catching better, but she didn’t mind fishing, at least if it led to some catching. The problem was that she wasn’t entirely clear on where to go to minimize the fishing and maximize the catching. That’s one of things you learn if you’re a young ‘auku’u, and she was still learning.

She knew two older ‘auku’u who were happy to give her advice. One was a cheerful uncle of a bird who was always enthusiastic about guiding her to good spots. The other was a rather gloomy auntie, and she was much more likely to say, “Don’t go to this spot; there’s no fish there.” The number of spots she could tell you had no fish in them was impressively long, but also downright depressing. The young ‘auku’u wanted to be told where to go, not where not to go.

So she tended to listen to the happy uncle.

It worked out less well than you’d hope. When she asked him, “Uncle, are there fish in that pool in the next cove?” he tended to say something like, “Oh, my, yes. I’m sure there are. Go have a good breakfast!” Reassured, she’d go see. Sometimes there were fish there, but more times than not, there weren’t.

She learned to ask him, “Have you checked that lately?” but he always said he’d checked it today, and strangely, the fish had often gone somewhere else by the time she arrived.

She did far more fishing than catching in the spots uncle suggested.

Gloomy auntie, on the other hand, didn’t get things wrong very often. There were times when uncle said, “Fish here!” and auntie said, “There’s no fish there,” and auntie had been right. When auntie said she’s found fish recently, there were always fish to catch there. She was always gloomy, but she was often right.

The young ‘auku’u asked her straight out one day: “Auntie, why do you and uncle tell me different things about fishing, and why don’t I find fish where he says more often?”

Auntie considered this question rather sadly, then said, “Niece, I tell you what I actually know about. I know the spots I’ve been to on the day, so I know when there’s no fish there. I might not always know where the fish are, but I can tell you where I haven’t found them.

“Your uncle, on the other hand, likes to tell happy stories, and he doesn’t check things before he tells them. Sometimes he’ll be right by pure chance, but most of the time he just doesn’t know and he says it anyway.”

The young ‘auku’u considered this. “Sunny stories are all very well,” she said to her auntie, “but fishing is fishing and catching is catching, and one of them will have me hungry and the other won’t. If it’s all right, auntie, I’ll ask your advice more than uncle.”

“That’s fine,” said auntie, “and when you have nieces and they ask your advice, try to tell them what you know, and not what you’d like to believe. They’ll eat better that way.”

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories in full, but I tell them from memory and improvisation. The story as I wrote it does not precisely match the story as I told it.

Photo of an immature ‘auku’u (black-crowned night heron) by Eric Anderson.

Watch… Me?

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 1 Comment

[Jesus said,] “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.'” – Matthew 9:13

Would you like to know what blessing is? asks Jesus:
Watch me.

Would you like to know what light is? asks Jesus:
Watch me.

Would you like to know what righteousness is? asks Jesus:
Watch me.

Would you like to know what love is? asks Jesus:
Watch me.

Would you like to know what honesty is? asks Jesus:
Watch me.

Would you like to know faithfulness is? asks Jesus:
Watch me.

If you watch me, says Jesus, you will find compassion.
You will find forgiveness.
You will find welcome.

If you watch me, says Jesus, you will find healing.
You will find inclusion.
You will find life.

The challenge, says Jesus, for those who would follow me,
is when people would know about
blessing and light, righteousness, love.
When people would know about
honesty, faithfulness, healing, inclusion, and life:
What will they see when they watch you?

And I ask:
What will they see
when they watch me?

A poem/prayer based on Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year A, Proper 5 (10).

Photo by Eric Anderson.

Story: Courage

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 1 Comment
A bird with black feathers and a white bill, with a white forehead shield, swimming in gray water with droplets visible on its back.

May 3, 2026

Acts 7:55-60
John 14:1-14

The ala’e keokeo – also known as the Hawaiian Coot, and I guess it is pretty cute – lives along the shorelines, particularly enjoying the old fishponds built by the Hawaiians because the edges are rich in the water plants they like to eat. “Ala’e” means forehead, and “keokeo” means white – so the Hawaiians certainly called it by its appearance.

One young ala’e keokeo liked a lot about his life. He liked the sun, and he even liked the rain when it fell. He had brothers and sisters and parents and aunties and uncles in plenty, and even when they were teasing one another he liked them. He liked swimming in the fishpond, even if he didn’t have webbed feet like a duck. He liked the foods he ate: seeds, stems, and roots for the most part. There was only one problem.

He was afraid of the water.

Does it seem odd that he liked swimming but was afraid of the water? Well, it did to me, too. What he was afraid of was putting his head in the water. Plenty of people don’t like that, either. They’ll step into the water up to the shoulders, but put their head in? No.

That was his feeling about it. Put his head in the water? Absolutely not.

To be truthful, he could get along with his head firmly above water. The plant seeds he ate waved over the water, so that was OK. He could pull on stems from above, too. The only time it became a problem was with roots, and wouldn’t you know it?

One of his favorite foods was the root of a pond grass that he absolutely could not pull up from overhead. He tried and tried, and he could not do it.

He resigned himself to a life without his favorite root, but it turned out he didn’t have to. It turned out that when it came time to find someone to build a nest and hatch chicks with, she was a generous and compassionate bird. She didn’t tease him about not diving, the way his cousins did. Instead, from time to time she dove down and brought one or two up, and gave them to him.

He loved her for it.

When she laid their eggs, she stayed with the nest continuously for the first couple days – it would take them a while to learn that he could keep them warm, too. She got hungry, and he went back and forth from the grasses to the nest bringing her seeds and shoots.

As he set out for another foraging trip, he overheard her sigh, “I’m so hungry for a root or two.” She didn’t mean him to hear her, and he didn’t let on that he’d heard. That trip, though, he made sure to find some of those plants as he plucked seeds and shoots.

The next trip, he returned to that same spot. He looked at the water. It was fairly clear. He could see the bottom of the pond and knew just where the root would be. He closed his eyes and held a memory of his wife in his mind – then he dove into the pond.

He wasn’t good at it, because diving takes practice, but he did it, and he did it again until he gripped a root in his beak. He brought it back to the nest, where his wife gasped to see it.

“Here you are,” he said. “I knew you’d want one.”

“Thank you so much,” she told him. “This was so good of you.”

“I wanted to do it for you,” he said. And then he went back to do it again.

Sometimes courage comes from what we need, and sometimes it comes from wanting to do something for someone we love. Love can help us move through the fear and help us do amazing things for one another and for God.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories ahead of time, but I tell them from memory (plus improvisation). The story as I wrote it and the story as I told it are not identical.

Photo of an ala’e keokeo by Eric Anderson.

Flexible Hope

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 2 Comments


“But filled with the Holy Spirit, he [Stephen] gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.” – Acts of the Apostles 7:55

I wonder about Stephen, what he knew
when he was brought before the council of
the priests. Did he expect they’d hear him out?
Or see the door as gateway to his grave?

Oh what a fool he was to speak the words
he did if he had hope they’d hear him as
they’d heard out the apostles not so long
before, and waited on the signs of God.

Yes, “stiff-necked people” echoed Genesis,
and all he said about the troubled times
of their ancestors had been said before
by those who crafted First and Second Kings,

But telling those in power that they lived
just as their grim progenitors had done,
as faithless slayers of the prophets, roused
their wrath and spurred them order his death.

Now, if he had a hope of being heard
he spoke the ravings of a fool, and died
for it, but if saw the writing on
the wall, he spoke a liberated word.

Without a hope of living through this trial,
his mind and tongue could speak his fearless truth,
his soul adjust to choose another hope,
one which did not rely on human beings.

“I see the heavens opened and the Son
of Man, who stands there next to God,” he said,
and as they dragged him to his death, he found
that hope is flexible enough for all.

A poem/prayer based on Acts 7:55-60, the Revised Common Lectionary First Reading for Year A, Fifth Sunday of Easter.

The image is The Martyrdom of Saint Stephen by Bernardo Daddi (ca. 1337-1338). Photo by Sailko – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=73011620.

Story: The Fast and the Futile

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 3 Comments
A bird in flight, wings spread wide. The bird coloring is mostly brown.

March 1, 2026

Romans 4:1-5, 13-17
John 3:1-17

Saltiness, sweetness, bitterness, and sourness. Those are the four senses of the human tastebuds. I’ve told stories about the first three over the last three weeks. Shall we go for sour?

Let’s go for sour.

He was the fasted akekeke in his generation (the English name is ruddy turnstone, and there is some reddishness in their brown feathers, and they do turn stones when looking for food). Yes, the fastest akekeke in his generation, and everybody knew it.

After hatching and fledging he’d quickly begun winning races among his siblings and cousins and friends in Alaska. They’d made a short journey to the shoreline where they’d munched on crabs and fish and snails before making the long flight to Hawai’i. That had been his first time, so even though he could fly very fast, he stayed with the other birds and they arrived on the island together.

But as spring approached and the return to Alaska, he started to think about winning.

“I’m going to win the race,” he announced to his friends and cousins.

“What race?” they asked.

“The race back to Alaska,” he said. “I’m going to win.”

“There’s a race?” they said, and they looked at one another in confusion.

“And I’m going to win,” he said firmly, and leaped into the air to practice.

“What are you talking about, son?” asked his father later on. “What race are you flying in?”

“The race to Alaska,” said the young bird. “I’m going to win.”

“But there’s no race,” said his father. “We just fly to the same place.”

“What good is that?” said the fastest akekeke in his generation. “There has to be a race. And I’m going to win.”

And that was that. His father, his mother, his sisters and brothers, his tutus, his cousins, his friends: Nobody could convince him that there wasn’t a race, that there wasn’t anything to win.

“I’m going to win the race,” he insisted.

When the day came for the akekeke to begin their flight to Alaska, he was among the first to take to the sky. He pressed on hard, and rapidly drew to the front of the flock, then beyond it. He was the fastest flyer in his generation, after all.

It wasn’t long before he couldn’t make out the other birds behind him. He was alone in the sky. He was confident, though, that he knew where he was going, and he was also right. He did. It was a long tiresome journey, but he made a successful landing on the Alaskan shores and began hunting for food.

He’d won.

But as he satisfied his hunger, he realized that another hunger remained unsatisfied. He’d won, but there was no celebration. There was nobody there. He was the only akekeke on a long empty beach. He was lonely. It was a sour victory.

It took quite some time before the other akekeke began arriving. It took longer for his father to find him. “How was your race?” he asked his son.

“The flight was all right,” he said, “but you’re right. It wasn’t a race.”

“The victory wasn’t what you thought?” said the father.

“It was sour,” said the son.

“How about now?” asked the father, “with everybody else here?”

The son looked around at the busily feeding akekeke, and the sourness subsided. He felt good again.

“Everybody is in the same place,” he told his father. “We’ve all won.”

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories ahead of time, but I tell them from a combination of memory and improvisation. On this day, for example, one of the youngsters raced up to the front, which was a little unfortunate given the theme of the story.

Photo of an akekeke in flight by Eric Anderson.

That Was Fast

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 2 Comments
Clouds in the sky with sunlight illuminating from behind and to the side.

Having selected my Lenten discipline of giving up judgmentalism (and writing about it), I was promptly challenged to keep that discipline. I hadn’t even finished the first essay about the project when I encountered this story on Religion News Service by a reporter I follow on the BlueSky social network, Jack Jenkins: “400 Christian leaders urge resistance to Trump administration on Ash Wednesday.”

One of the reasons I chose to examine judgment and judgmentalism this Lent is that I’ve been challenged for judgmentalism. I’ve been taken to task for criticizing some behaviors while excusing others. I’ve been told that some of the things I protest in some have been done by others – did I protest them?

The critique has sometimes been fair. I can’t say I was aware of all the examples that I didn’t protest (which makes it harder to protest them), but it’s also true that those wouldn’t have circulated in places where I pay attention. Limit your attention; limit your awareness. That’s something to consider as I continue this Lenten reflection on judgmentalism.

There on the very first day I had to discern and judge, because the statement invited religious leaders to sign on. Whether I signed or not, I would be making a judgment.

I hadn’t expected it to happen so fast. I hadn’t expected to face a significant decision before I’d laid up some intellectual foundations. Ah, well. As Robert Burns wrote to a mouse:

But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men
          Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
          For promis’d joy!

Robert Burns, from “To a Mouse”

So what to use to discern?

When I first considered this question over pork chops and mashed potato, the first thing I thought of as a feature of discernment was time. Before choosing, give it time. Before deciding, give it time. Before acting, give it time. I expect to spend more time on this element (see what I did there?) through the next six weeks, but even as I thought it over I realized that we make a number of decisions in the moment and rightly so. When I finished my meal I drove home. I made decision after decision in those few minutes without reflecting on it for more than an instant. If I hadn’t, I’d have run the front of my car into a car in front of me.

Likewise, I have to admit that I have spent long periods of time considering my actions and ended up deeply regretting what I’d chosen. Time is no panacea.

Nevertheless, I decided I would consider the decision over a day.

(I decided I would decide. See what I did there?)

I read the statement “A Call to Christians in a Crisis of Faith and Democracy” several times. It’s not a subtle piece. “We are facing a cruel and oppressive government,” it claims. “This political crisis is driven by people who have fallen for the temptation of absolute power,” it asserts. “Governance is being hollowed out and replaced with corruption, loyalty tests, intimidation, and the normalization of lawlessness,” it states. Strong words. Strong judgments. The authors of the statement have looked at the acts of the administration and made conclusions about the character of those acts: cruel, oppressive, corrupt, and lawless. Further, they have asserted that the temptation of absolute power is a driving factor for those who direct those acts.

I face the question: Do I concur with those judgments? Do I agree with their characterization of these acts? Do I accept the diagnosis of the motives?

Further, I read the list of signatories. Although I’ve been in ministry a long time, I didn’t recognize all the names. I saw many that were familiar, including quite a few whose words and work I’ve greatly admired. I also saw a number of people from organizations I’ve never heard of. I saw that representatives of the “mainline” Protestant churches clearly predominated, with a lot of leaders from ecumenical settings. A number of the people who signed come from my own denomination, the United Church of Christ, including our General Minister and President. Some of the signers are colleagues I deeply respect. Some are dear friends.

I face the question: Are these people whose discernment I trust? While I still have to do my own work, can I trust the work they have done?

The statement is not simply a diagnosis of our condition. It is also a call to action. Those who signed made eight commitments. The authors expanded more on them than I have here:

  • Protect and stand with vulnerable people,
  • Love our neighbors,
  • Speak truth to power,
  • Seek peace,
  • Do justice,
  • Strengthen democracy,
  • Practice hope, and
  • Ground our discipleship in prayer and inward journey.

I face the question: Are these commitments I can make? Are they consistent with my understanding of Christianity? Are they things I have the power to do? Are they things I have the will to do?

I slept on it. I read the statement again (and again). I reviewed the names. I found more names I knew. I considered the commitments.

Here’s the thing: I knew I was inclined to add my name to the list when I read Jack Jenkins’ headline. That was my first judgment, my off-the-cuff discernment. But was it judgmental? Particularly given the strong language about the political and spiritual condition of the nation?

Also, was I (am I) merely reinforcing my own pre-established conclusions? On the Sunday after the election, I said, “The United States has re-elected as President a devourer of widows’ houses. Plain and simple. Already his followers have sent messages to African American children telling them to report for sale as slaves. Already his followers have sent messages to women: ‘Your body. My choice.’”

Of the three areas of discernment I’ve named here, I had no problems with the commitments. I’ve held those as virtues consistent with Christianity for many years (which raises the problem of reinforcing my conclusions again). There were more than enough people whose judgment I trust in the list to make their willingness to sign compelling. The sticking point was: Do I agree enough with the diagnosis section to sign on to it? Do I need to learn more that either confirms or refutes that characterization of the administration’s acts?

This morning I sat with it again, considered it again. And I came to the same conclusion with which I’d started: I believe I know enough. I agree with the characterization. I need to make the commitment.

I signed.

Angels Hovering ‘Round

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 4 Comments
In the center of a large dramatic landscape of mountains and clouds, two smaller figures speak to one another. One, in pink, is Jesus. The other, in brown, is Satan.


“Then the devil left [Jesus], and suddenly angels came and waited on him.” – Matthew 4:11

He challenged you, Jesus.
Summon the angels! They won’t let you fall.
You won’t have a bruise on your heel,
Nor a strike from a snake.

You said no. No to bread.
No to flight. No to glory
(that fails to transcend
all the kingdoms of earth).

Then he left. And who came?
Yes, the angels. The angels.
They were hovering ’round,
And they brought you relief.

Well, Jesus, I’m tempted.
So tempted, you know,
so hungry and weary,
confused and distressed.

Where are the angels?
Will they tend my bruises?
Will they feed my hungers?
Where are the angels, Jesus the Christ?

“There are angels hov’ring ’round.”

A poem/prayer based on Matthew 4:1-11, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year A, First Sunday in Lent.

The image is Weite Gebirgslandschaft mit der Versuchung Christi (Vast Mountain Landscape with the Temptation of Christ) by Jan Brueghel the Elder – dorotheum.com heruntergeladen am 30. September 2012, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21801997.

Story: Finding Sweetness

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 2 Comments

February 15, 2026

Exodus 24:12-18
Matthew 17:1-9

Last week it was saltiness. This week it’s sweetness. We’re making our way around the taste buds, I guess. I don’t actually have plans to visit sourness or bitterness, but who knows?

An i’iwi was having a hard time. They’re used to sipping nectar from ohi’a flowers and koa flowers and mamane flowers and lots of other flowers, and nectar is basically flower sugar. It’s pretty sweet. It does change, though, a little like the way that some oranges are sweeter than others. It’s got to do with the rainfall or lack of it, and the soil nourishment, and lots of other things that I don’t know about and the i’iwi doesn’t know about and the tree might know about but trees don’t talk about that sort of thing very much.

In any case, the i’iwi wasn’t finding much in the way of sweet nectar. Nectar, yes. Enough to keep her from getting hungry, yes. Sweetness that satisfied: not so much.

So she went looking for sweetness.

It’s not uncommon for the nectar-feeding birds of the mountains to fly about looking for nectar. She had a somewhat different agenda, though: sweeter nectar, and not just nectar. For whatever reasons, though, the nectars she sampled tasted much the same: a little dry, a little bland. She could eat it, but she really wanted something better. It was the difference between your grandmother’s chocolate chip cookie, and the cookie you ate the reminds you how much better grandmother’s chocolate chip cookies are.

She didn’t find it.

She was sitting grumpily on a branch complaining about this to her mother. I’iwi can be pretty good at being grumpy birds, and she was putting in the practice to get really good at it. Her mother, I must say, wasn’t a particularly grumpy bird and didn’t want to be.

“So you want to find sweetness?” she asked her daughter. “Where have you looked?”

Her daughter described her flights up the mountain, and down the mountain, and along the slopes of the mountain, and how the nectar just wasn’t what she wanted or hoped for.

“Those are the only places you checked?” said mother.

“Where else?” said the daughter. “I could fly farther but will that work out any better?”

“I don’t know,” said her mother, “especially because I think you can find sweetness much closer to home.”

“Where?” demanded her daughter. “Where is there sweetness here?”

“There’s the warmth of the sun on your feathers,” said her mother, “and the sound of the rain on the leaves. There’s the scent of mamane on the wind, the great blue of the clear sky, and the dramatic greys of the cloudy sky.”

“Those are ordinary things!” her daughter protested.

“Well, there’s also the way your father loves you, and your grandparents love you, and the way I love you,” mother said. “Is that ordinary?”

“It is,” said the daughter, “but it’s special, too.”

“Best of all,” said mother, “is the sweetness that’s inside you. It goes with you wherever you fly. You never have to worry that it will run out. Even when no one is around, even in the coldest, darkest night, even when none of the trees are in blossom, there is sweetness in your heart.”

“You helped put it there,” said her daughter.

“Sip that sweetness when you need to, daughter,” said her mother. “Sip it and be refreshed.”

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories ahead of time, but I tell them from memory and improvisation. The story as you have read it is not identical to the way I told it.

Photo of an i’iwi by Eric Anderson.

Did They Know?

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 4 Comments
A black and white drawing with two men in the foreground at left hauling a fishing net. At right further away a third man beckons at them as they look toward him.

“As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea for they were fishers. And he said to them, ‘Follow me, and I will make you fishers of people.'” – Matthew 4:18-19

Matthew left it out, of course.
What did you tell them, Jesus?

“Hey, guys, I’m sort of on the run
since they took John, although
they probably don’t know my name,
so that’s all right, you think?
Come follow me.

“Now mind you, folks will hear my name,
and quickly, too, if I am any judge.
They’ll come even from Syria to seek
some healing for their bodies and their souls.
Come follow me.

“I’m sure no one will think to look for me
atop a mountain peak – unless they follow those
who follow me, and frankly guys, I hope
to leave a wide and beaten track.
Come follow me.

“Now come along. We’ve work to do
that doesn’t need a net. No, we’re as likely to
be caught in Roman or Herodian nets as John.
They’ll lift us high – but not as high as God will raise us all.
Come follow me.”

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

The image is from The End of that Person (1980), published by the Indonesian Bible Society. Anonymous artist – Koleksi Wikimedia Indonesia, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=141661922.