As many of you will remember from last week, we are doing a special sermon series this month called “Gone Fishin’,” where we will take a fishing trip with Jesus as we explore the fishing stories of the gospel. Now, the best fishing trips are the ones where you catch something, right? But what makes the best fishing trip even better? Maybe a few stories to share while you wait on the bite. So as we set off this morning, I want to share a fishing story with you.
Ed and Bob were long-time fishing pals. They loved to get together, launch a boat and get out into the lake in the hunt for a good catch. One day as Bob and Ed were fishing on the lake, they looked over to the shore and saw an unusually long procession of cars driving slowly by. The procession was led by a cop car, and the two men pretty quickly figured out that they were looking at a funeral procession. As they discovered what was happening, Ed slowly stood up, removed his hat, and placed his hand across his chest. Bob was baffled, he had never seen such a display by Ed. So he said, “Ed, I’ve never seen you do anything like that in your life! What gives, what’s with all the respect all of a sudden?”
Ed looked over at his old fishing buddy, shrugged a little and said, “Well, I was married to the woman for over 30 years!”
As we continue on our fishing trip with Jesus this week, we hear Matthew’s account of the calling of the first disciples. If you remember, last week, we heard Luke’s account of the same story, and we considered what it means to offer all of ourselves to Christ as he calls us into the “deep waters” to fish and be blessed. As we focus this morning on Matthew’s story we are going to consider exactly Christ means when he calls disciples to follow him and fish for people.
We talked last week about how Christ’s call is always stretching us and pulling us to deeper waters. Yet still, as we watch people change their entire lives in order to follow the call of Christ as preachers or teachers or missionaries, we often wonder, why these people would give so much up to follow a simple carpenter turned wandering preacher. And trust me, it goes the other way too, as sometime we preachers and probably missionaries too, wonder why we didn’t go into medicine or law or any of a host of other more lucrative careers. But any of you who have ever even once followed the slightest call of Christ in your lives knows the answer to that question deep down. There is just something about Jesus, the power of his presence—it was something known and felt by those first disciples, and it is no less powerful today. Sometimes Christ’s call comes slowly, starting as just the smallest inkling and growing until we can no longer ignore it. Sometimes Jesus calls people as suddenly and dramatically as he called Peter, Andrew, James, and John. But here’s the thing; when it happens to you, by whatever means and at whatever pace, you will know; Jesus has a way of getting through, and no matter where we are in life, or what we are doing, somehow we will be aware enough of his presence and call to know what it is we’re being asked to do.
I think it’s interesting to note that even before those first disciples were asked by Jesus to make a profession their faith in him, Jesus called them to go and fish for people. Jesus had been walking around the Judean countryside preaching that the kingdom of heaven was approaching. This is significant news for any Jew who longed to see the freedom and justice of God’s promised kingdom. But any faithful Jew would also understand that being a part of the kingdom of God means living those same values, and the Israelites were not exactly known for their adherence to God’s covenants and the values of the kingdom. So the whole focus of Jesus’ ministry from the very beginning is to give people the opportunity to change their ways, their hearts and their minds, to repent, as the kingdom of heaven nears. It’s an important message, isn’t it? God’s desire is that all of his creation would be a part of his eternal kingdom, and so Jesus is trying to get the word out to anybody and everybody that God’s kingdom is near and everyone needs to prepare. But in the first century, one man couldn’t get the word out to the entire world all by himself. So as Jesus is walking along and preaching, he happens by a few fishermen and he says to them in essence, “Hey, if this movement is going to be successful at all, I’m going to need your help!”
And I think the same is true for us. Believing in Christ and following him are not separate things; we have work to do for Christ from the very moment he calls us, and the most important work of all is to “fish for people,” to get the word out about the kingdom of heaven and God’s promises for God’s people. This was Christ’s mission, and as Christ’s followers, it is our mission too. When those first disciples heard the call of Jesus, they felt the power of that call and so without hesitation they left their nets and went to work as fishers of people. For all of us who know that same powerful call, we can do no less than those first disciples. Disciples today are still called to be fishers of people. We should care for the sick and the nobodies, all the people for whom the king himself sacrificed his life. Christ has shown us what we are to do, but this mission only works if his followers will become fishers of people. This is our job; it’s not just about getting a ticket into heaven by doing the “right thing.” It’s about bringing the kingdom of God all around you, living the kingdom values and fishing for people.
But fishing for people is a lot easier said than done, isn’t it? It doesn’t take much for us to get pretty apprehensive about this call from Christ. We see people who insist that following Christ means doing exactly what they do and believing exactly what they believe, and they’ll sometimes even go to great extremes to “make disciples” and force conversions. We look at that at we don’t want to be a part of that! Fishing for people can be awkward and uncomfortable, especially at first.
When I was a little kid and I used to go visit my grandparents at Lake Junaluska, my grandfather would often take my cousins and I down to the lake after dinner to fish. He had little kid-sized fishing poles he had bought for us to use, and he would always go buy some worms before we came. I remember that I’d always ask him or one of my cousins to bait the hook for me because I didn’t want to touch the slimy worms. And if I caught a fish, I would make my grandfather take it off the line and throw it back because I didn’t want to touch the slimy fish either. I haven’t gone a fishing a whole lot since I was a kid, but in the intervening years, I’ve learned that I can always fish with rubber worms or maybe even canned corn so I don’t have to touch the real worms. And I can do that little thing where you hold the fish steady with your foot while you pull the hook out of its mouth so you don’t have to touch the fish quite as much. Knowing those little tricks makes fishing a lot more enjoyable for me. I can imagine that if I fished on a regular basis, I might even get accustomed to handling grimy worms and slimy fish, and I’d probably even enjoy doing it!
I suspect that the same is probably true when it comes to fishing for people. There are all kinds of things about it that we don’t look forward to or don’t like about fishing for people at first. But after you do it for a while, it’s fun. When you fish for people and get used to it, it’s filled with joy, it becomes of part of who you are, a movement, an adventure, and in the end you realize it’s what you were made to do!
So, what is it, exactly, that we are supposed to do? Fishing for fish is pretty straight forward; get a pole, some string, a hook, and some bait, throw the hook down in the water and wait for the bite. But how do we fish for people? Lord knows fishing poles won’t work…Well, that’s certainly true, but there is one lesson from fishing that applies when it comes to people as well as fish; that is, fishing takes patience. You might not get a catch, or even a bite, on the first cast. You might not get one on the second attempt either. Research shows that it takes the average person seven times of being invited to church before they finally come. You can’t force anything to happen when it comes to fishing for people, all you can do is lay the bait out there and wait, hoping for the best.
Fishing for people is not so much about preaching, it’s about simply asking, and that can be as simple as saying, “Hey, you oughta come to church with me sometime.” Or if someone has questions about God or faith or religion, take the change to invite the person to church and introduce him or her to your Sunday School teacher so that they can answer those tough questions! And here’s the most important thing to remember when it comes to fishing for people, you don’t have to have the answer to everyone’s questions, you just have the answer to your own story. Always be ready to give your testimony about God’s work in your life, that’s the best bait of all. How has Jesus made a difference in my life? How is my life different because I’m a follower of Christ? If we can tell this story, that’s all that God is asking.
Fishing for people is not optional; it’s how the world has changed from those very first days when Jesus walked along the shore of the Sea of Galilee proclaiming the nearness of the kingdom of heaven. Its how the world will continue to be transformed until that day when God’s Kingdom is established on earth as in heaven. Fishing for people changes people, it changes lives, and kingdom of God expands. I don’t know about you, but I want to be a part of that.
As we close our time together this morning, I would like for each of us to think of one person you know who doesn’t go to church. Sometime today, pray for that person. Ask God to help you know how to reach out to that person, and then, go fishing!
