Sermons for the Month
Not Just Another Fishing Expedition
DATE: January 27, 2002
TEXT: Matthew 4:17-22“To all of you Saints here this morning, grace and peace to you from God our Father, from His Son, Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit. AMEN
Since I was a little girl in Sunday School, I've been hearing the story of Peter and Andrew and James and John and that ordinary workday along the lakeshore, sun shining, seagulls squawking, dead fish smelling… The day Jesus came up and said: "Follow me." And they did, and life was never really "ordinary" from then on. The concluding moral of the story always seemed to be that we too as we follow Jesus are to be "fishers of men" as I learned it way back when; to "fish for people," as newer translations have it.
It's a "catchy" sort of metaphor; however, I am not and never have been "into" fishing. In fact, the one and only time in my life I EVER fished, in a stocked pond with everyone else in my group hauling in catch after catch, I had not a single nibble. I suspect it was because, though I was trying to be a good sport and participate in the activity, the whole time I was transmitting a telepathic message down the fishing line: "Please don't bit this worm, it's a trick; there's a sharp hook inside it and they're planning to kill you and EAT you! Swim for your lives!" Which is the truth! I mean, that's what fishing IS! Peter and Andrew, James and John, caught fish so that people would buy them and eat them. Now I ask you - is this the best image for Christian evangelism? Frankly, I think that that is precisely what some nonchurched people fear - that we Christians are giving them a line so that we can reel them in the door and then gobble them up for our own purposes. So maybe - just maybe - Jesus means something a bit different from the picture that first pops into MY mind, of a guy in waders standing in a trout stream stalking the big one that just got away from him last time. Two weeks ago, we heard how Jesus, after the signs and wonders that attended his birth, apparently had lived a quiet life in Nazareth, doing nothing out of the ordinary, busying himself day after day with work and friends and family, with village and synagogue life. And then one day, Jesus left it all behind. He was baptized by John in the Jordan river and anointed with a unique outpouring of the Spirit of God. Immediately after that, the Gospels tell us that Jesus spent several weeks alone in the Judean desert, praying, fasting, and wrestling with demons and temptations that came straight from Satan himself. Now, hearing that John had been arrested and imprisoned at the order of King Herod, and knowing that John's mission was completed and that his time had come, Jesus returns to his home province of Galilee and begins the work that God had given him to do. So naturally, the first thing Jesus does is to recruit four commercial fisherman to be his rabbinic students, which is what "disciples" literally means. Wha-a-at?? What kind of sense does that make? If you were in charge of the selection and training of a small team of people to learn how to attend to spiritual things, where would you look for prospects? The fish market? The local Seven-Eleven?? I don't think so! I'd go to the local synagogue and find the guys who are already leaders, the ones who know their Scriptures, who have taught Sabbath School, who can recite the liturgy from memory and belt out the hymns. Jesus picks Peter and Andrew, James and John, weather-beaten, fishy-smelling, plain-talking, busy as can be with their business and at least some of them with family obligations. What foolishness is this? In fact, I guess it's that "foolishness of God" that St. Paul once wrote about, the kind that's WISER than any of us on our very best day. It's the same "foolishness" in which a dirty blood-stained cross stands as a symbol of Life. It's the "foolishness" of our Almighty God and Father who can say, "I don't need a first-round draft pick to put together a winning team; stand back and see what I can do with a bunch of rookies, has-been's, and never-was's when they follow my Son, and are taught by my Word, and are filled and supported and led by my Spirit." To picture evangelism as the act of hooking or netting a catch of fish isn't quite the point of what Jesus says here, or of what Jesus DOES here. In the original language, Jesus does NOT say, "I will make you fish for people," with "fish" as a verb and "people" as the object of the action. Jesus says, "I will make you fishers…of people," a subtle distinction, to be sure, and if you're thinking, "she's certainly finessing that point to support her own discomfort with fishing," you could be entirely correct. But to me, the phrase "fishers for people" puts the emphasis on the fishers themselves, not on the activity. What does Jesus see about four guys who are fishers which leads him to call them to His own life-altering, history-changing, eternally-significant work? I suppose he might have seen the personality traits and natural abilities which made them successful fishers - patience and persistence, perhaps; keen powers of observation; physical endurance; bravery in the face of hazardous work; a sense of teamwork; I don't KNOW what makes a good fisher, 'cause I'm not one. But I suspect that first and foremost, Jesus saw Peter and Andrew and James and John, men who happened to be working as fishers, as people whose hearts were open to the call of God such that they did not respond with, "Yeah, that sounds worthwhile, maybe I'll get involved in that someday when I have the time," but who in an instant that called for a decision were able to walk away from that which was familiar and reasonably safe, and to strike out in a new direction purely on faith and with the burning conviction that it was the Lord Himself who was calling. They weren't scribes or scholars, priests or Pharisees, they were four fishers who simply gave themselves over to the Lord, trusting that He could use them somehow, and that He would show them exactly how as events unfolded. And He did, sometimes in ways that you might have expected, and often in ways and in places way beyond their imagining. No, I don't think that evangelism is a fishing expedition - "throw them a line and see if they take the bait." But Jesus does call fishers to be evangelists. He also calls computer engineers, bank tellers, teachers, physicians, artists, business owners, attorneys, teenagers, retirees, soccer moms, and sometimes even pastors to do evangelism, which is simply the person-to person communication in words and in actions of the Good News that God is in Christ Jesus, reconciling the world to Himself through Christ's life and His sacrificial death. Evangelism is the person-to-person telling of the Good News that God has given to this world and to each person in it a hope-filled future by virtue of Jesus' Resurrection and His promise to be with us forever and to make us and all things new. Whatever it is that you do with your days, or evenings, or nights, whatever it is you do for money, or for love, Jesus is calling you, and me, to place ourselves at His discretion, to offer to His service all the raw material with which He has gifted us. As one of the Church's prayers puts it, "we offer with joy and thanksgiving what You have first given us…ourselves, our time, and our possession…" The first and foremost qualification to be on Jesus' team - in fact the ONLY qualification - is a heart open to His call, and the willingness to be taught by His words and His example, and the faith to say, "O.K. -- sure! - I'll start today!" when He stands at an open door and asks you to follow Him through. "Follow Me, and I will make you a fisher - a sales rep - a nurse - a musician - an engineer - a basketball player - a tax collector - an evangelist - for the sake of My people." When the Lord calls, I pray that we'll be willing to listen; to keep our eyes firmly fixed on Him, and in faith, to follow in His steps. AMEN