The Call to Adventure

Presented to Warners Bay Uniting Church and Boolaroo Uniting Church

Based on Matthew 4:12-23  January 25 2026

 

In every good story, there is a call to action for the hero or heroine. Joseph Campbell describes this as “the call to adventure”, that moment when the hero makes the decision to move beyond the realm of the known and the familiar into the unknown. We might think of Frodo’s call from Gandalf to leave behind the familiar in order to answer this call, or of The basic premise of the hero’s journey starts off with the hero recognizing that life has become stale, that their world has become a bit boring and predictable, or perhaps too confining. So they receive a call or an inner nudge to leave home for an adventure of some kind, and they find the courage to do just that. Whilst on this journey, they encounter dragons to slay, problems to overcome, it could be anger, depression, addiction, or a trial of some kind, and through the process of facing these metaphorical dragons and slaying them, they paradoxically find the means to free themselves from its talons and discover a freedom they never knew.

 

Once the hero or heroine has found this freedom, Richard Rohr contends that they begin to “discover his or her Real Life, which is always a much deeper river, hidden beneath the appearances. Most people confuse their life situation with their actual life, which is an underlying flow beneath the everyday events. The deeper discovery is largely what religious people mean by finding their soul.”1 Finally, the hero or heroine returns home and through their transformative journey, they become agents of change in their community as they begin to relate to it and nurture it from a much deeper level than they could before. As a result, the community itself expands and

finds itself renewed.

 

In many ways, the real gift of the hero’s journey is to put us in touch with what Rohr describes as “the Real life”, the reality beyond our surface life situation. For on the surface it may appear the dragon or the problem has bested us, however as we tap into that deeper reality which is within all of us, we discover the spiritual tools to if not vanquish the dragon, to at least tame it down somewhat and find

1 “Falling Upward” – Richard Rohr – (Jossey-Bass, 2011)

our equilibrium once again. So the key here is to be able to differentiate between one’s life situation, and one’s actual Real life, for it’s in this in between place where God meets us and calls us beyond the surface of things, into a deeper, more fulfilling reality.

 

In the Gospel this morning, Jesus invites Simon, Andrew, James and John on this universal call to adventure. He invites them to come and journey with him to a place beyond the ordinary into the extraordinary. He invites them to come and journey with him so they can come face to face with their own metaphorical dragons and slay or at least tame them. He invites them to come and journey with him to a place beyond the surface life, into the Real life. I believe when the disciples made the decision to put down their nets and to follow Christ, they caught a glimpse of that deeper reality and

it inspired them to take action.

 

Ted A. Smith, Assistant Professor of Ethics and Society at Vanderbilt University Divinity School puts it like this:

 

“in calling the Galilean fishermen to discipleship, Jesus does not just ask them to add one more task to their busy lives. He calls them into a new way of being. When Simon and Andrew leave their nets, they leave a way of life. This is even clearer with James and John, who leave not only their nets but also their father.” These disciples leave behind a whole matrix of work, family, and place – all the stuff of a new identity. ”They leave behind everything for this new way of life.”

 

Now I don’t think the text is saying we should just go off and desert family, friends, and our day jobs – but I do believe the Gospel today is challenging us to consider “what might I be called to set down in order to follow the call of Jesus more intentionally?” Because this call of God comes to us to wake us up out of our complacency and the illusion that we have it all together, and invites us on a journey into the ever expanding consciousness of God. A consciousness that opens for us a wider reality to the one we know now, and one that calls us into a new way of being.

2 Ted A. Smith “Feasting on the Word” – (2008, Westminster John Knox Press)

 

For many people and churches today, it can be a challenging thought to move beyond the surface level of life, into a commitment to the deeper life. We may struggle to put down our nets, our sense of security and comfort with what we know, with what we can reach out and touch, but the call Jesus places on the disciples this morning and by extension upon us, is a call that requires us to let go of at least some of our security nets in order to step out into the unknown and journey deeper into God. As we do this, we step into a new way of being and relating in this world, a way that is not so dependent on the outer affirmation and successes of society, but one that is driven by the inner affirmation and call of God. What might God be calling you to put down in order to follow God more closely? What might be the net that you need to let go of in your own life that is perhaps holding you back from committing to journeying deeper into God and nurturing your spiritual life? There are many nets that we can get ourselves tangled up in that make it difficult for us to want to set them down and leave them.

 

But of course, making that shift can be scary, it can be costly, because we know things will never quite be the same again. One can relate to the turmoil Bilbo goes through as he thinks of all that he must now set down in order to pursue his inner life’s quest. We, like the Hobbit might be caught up in an identity that tries to sabotage our inner call. An identity that says we’re too busy, or we’re too practical for these sorts of matters. We might be caught up in anxiety, or perhaps a hint of apathy, of “I’ll get around to it one day”. But what’s so challenging about today’s gospel, is that the call of Jesus comes to the disciples and their response is immediate and absolute. They not only leave their nets behind in order to follow the call to adventure and discipleship – they leave everything they ever knew behind in order to nurture their call.

 

Most of us will never be asked to leave behind our homes and our livelihoods in order to follow Christ, but the Gospel this morning does point out that we will be asked to put something down in order to respond to the call of God. Discipleship is costly, and does require something of us. So it’s good for us to reflect on what that might be. What is one thing you can identify that you might be called to set down this week in order to journey with Christ more deeply this Epiphany season, to enter into this new way of being more intentionally? And how might you make just a little more room this week for Jesus’ call to adventure to take root in your own life, opening you up to the fullness and wondrous possibilities of what can happen when we heed Jesus’ call to follow him, to let go of our securities, and to simply trust that he will lead us into the future God has called us into.