The makers of the lectionary must have chuckled to themselves, knowing that their choices for this Sunday would usually fall around the time of many congregational annual meetings.
Here's Isaiah promising that the people who have walked in darkness have seen a great light (just in case we've forgotten all those warm feelings we had back at Christmas time).
Here's Paul, writing with astonishment, "What's this that I hear? Divisions among you!!"
And Matthew's gospel, reminding us again that the disciples didn't get a job description or an estimate of volunteer hours or even, apparently, a lot of "time to pray about it," when they were called to follow. We'd like to fill in the gaps of the story with some very modern tale of existential angst and dissatisfaction with fishing, but Matthew doesn't care about that at all.
Maybe the question we should ask ourselves at annual meetings is, "What do we have to leave behind in order to follow?"
