One day a man was walking through the park on his lunch hour. He saw two men digging a hole on a hot, humid, August day.
He observed something very, very strange going on. While one man was down in the hole digging up dirt, the other man was tossing the dirt back into the same hole. The man sat down at a picnic table and watched this go on and on while he ate his lunch.
Finally the man had enough. He went over and asked the two men what was going on. The man down in the hole wiped the sweat from his face and said, “We’re a three-man crew. The fellow who plants the trees couldn’t make it today!”
An interesting story, to say the least. Maybe it is not so far-fetched. You and I are so caught up in our daily routines. We forget who or what is supposed to go into the holes in our lives. Life can become quite meaningless without putting something of value into the holes in our lives.
In today’s Gospel (Matt 4:12-23), Jesus says to Simon Peter, Andrew, James and John: “Drop your nets, leave what you are doing and follow me.” Jesus said he had special work for them to do: “I will make you fishers of men and women. I want you to help save souls.”
Jesus says this to you and to me today as well: “Drop your nets, leave what you are doing and follow me.” Put something of value and meaning in the holes of your life.”
But how practical and restrictive are Jesus’ words to any of us today? If you are of pre-retirement age, you may well say: “Lord, I’m sure you’re not talking to me. I’ve got a job, a spouse, children, an aging parent to care for. I’m a single parent. I need money. I don’t have any time. I work 5 to 6 days a week. I come home exhausted. Lord, did you ever have to make a mortgage payment, pay an electric bill, or raise a teenager?”
What if you are retired? Is Jesus talking to you? You may well say: “My family, my friends and my neighbors need me. I’ve got aches and pains and a very limited income. Jesus, you’re not talking to me!” But who then is Jesus talking to?
When my Aunt Mary was 70, she moved out to the suburbs to be closer to her children and her grandchildren. She cornered me one Christmas and said, “Medard, you’ll never believe what I am doing. I’m the “Story Lady” for the kindergarten kids in our local grammar school. I’ve found a whole new vocation late in life and I love it!”
One day at a family gathering at a doctor’s house I was introduced to the doctor’s father, who also was a doctor. He was a 75-year old internist who had retired from his practice. I asked him how he was spending his retirement – golf, family, travel? “No,” he said, “Now that I am retired, I can go to a clinic for Hospice patients and volunteer for 8 to 10 hours a day.”
“Drop your nets, leave what you are doing and follow me,” Jesus says this to each and every one of us. No exceptions allowed!
My Commentary:
This story exposes how easy it is to stay busy while accomplishing very little.
The two men digging and refilling the same hole look foolish at first, but their work is an unsettling mirror. Without the tree, the hole has no purpose. Without something living and growing placed inside, all the effort becomes a cycle of exhaustion and emptiness.
Much of life can feel like that — days filled with motion, schedules packed tight, yet nothing of lasting value is being planted.
Jesus’ call to “drop your nets” is not a command to abandon responsibility. It is an invitation to meaning. The nets represent whatever absorbs our energy without ultimately giving life — habits, routines, even respectable obligations that slowly crowd out purpose.
Jesus does not deny the reality of mortgages, exhaustion, family duties, or aging bodies. He simply refuses to let them be the final word.
The real question is not whether we have time, strength, or resources. It is whether we believe God can use what we already have.
The examples of my Aunt Mary and the retired physician make that clear. Vocation does not expire. Calling does not retire. When one chapter closes, another opens — often quieter, often humbler, but no less holy.
Jesus is speaking to everyone because everyone has holes that need filling — with compassion, service, courage, and love. When something with eternal value is planted there, life begins to grow.
“Follow me,” Jesus says. Not someday. Not when life slows down. NOW!
How do YOU respond when Jesus says to YOU, “Drop YOUR nets, stop looking at YOUR smart phone and follow me!”
GOD LOVES YOU SO MUCH THAT YOU GET TO RUN YOUR LIFE THE WAY YOU CHOOSE!
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