Linda (from Pulpit with frustration) – Tim. Tim! It’s your turn. Don’t you think that you should be up here?
Tim (from first pew) – That’s OK. I can see from here.
Linda – But you’re supposed to be giving the sermon.
Tim – I thought that I’d just watch. Somebody else will do it. You did a good job last week.
Linda – But your name is on the bulletin and I’m not prepared. You’re the one who is supposed to answer the call this week.
Tim
When you are called, you are called. There is no getting around it.
Our text to day is about the beginning of Jesus ministry and his calling of the first disciples. It’s a fish story alright, but it is a great fish story.
I’m not much for fishing because I’m allergic to fish. Not only can’t I eat what I catch, but I can’t even take them off the hook without getting a rash. I did go fishing with my dad on occasion. He is a fly fisherman, but after I managed to hook my own ear we usually used lures and fished on a lake.
I did learn one great truth about fishing from my dad. You know the old adage – “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you give him an excuse to sit on a boat and drink beer for a lifetime.”
I found that there is a fine line between fishing and just standing around with a line in the water looking like an idiot. Mostly, I looked like an idiot.
Fishermen in Jesus day did use hooks on occasions. These hooks, usually made of bone, are not very efficient. They were used when one wanted to catch a small number of a specific kind of fish, because with a hook you can select a specific bait and fish at a specific depth.
There were two basic kinds of nets. One was something like a draw-string purse. A single person could throw this net from shore or from a boat and pull it in. As it was pulled, the net tightened, and fish might be caught.
The second kind of net was like a wide volleyball net with weights at the bottom. The net would be stretched between two or more boats and pulled together in a circle and then brought up.
Nets are not selective. They pull in all types of fish. Under Jewish ceremonial law, fish without scales could not be eaten, but they could still be caught and sold. Fishermen in the Sea of Galilee were generally fishing for tilapia, but if they caught eels or something else, they were allowed to sell their catch to gentiles.
Fishermen often used nets at night because that was when schools of fish came close to the surface.
Let’s get back to the story. The beginning of Jesus’ ministry and the call of his first disciples is in all of the gospels, and each adds its own details. I’ve tried to put the whole story together using all of the sources and filling in the blanks with my best guess. Here is what I think happened.
Jesus was living in Nazareth. He had not really begun his public ministry, but he must have already been teaching because from the beginning he is referred to as “Rabbi.”
We know that Jesus had an association with John the Baptist. Not only was Jesus baptized by John, but in the Gospel of John, Jesus is coming to see John on some other occasion and John says “Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.”
There is someone else in our story that had an association with John. Andrew, the brother of Peter and one of the twelve, was a disciple of John and he was there when John made the announcement. Andrew even went and had a meal with Jesus.
One thing that I hadn’t really noticed before is that Jesus’ public ministry began exactly at the same time that John the Baptist was arrested. At John’s arrest, Jesus moved from Nazareth to Capernaum, where John had been preaching, and immediately began speaking to large crowds. It is reasonable to assume that those early crowds were composed mostly of John’s followers.
Imagine this scene. There are two boats working together with a drag net. On one boat is Peter and Andrew, and maybe one or two others. On the other boat we have James and John with their father, Zebedee. They have been fishing all night and have little to show for their efforts. There is nothing to sell. There will be little to eat tonight.
As morning dawns and they are heading for shore, they see a crowd of people gathered on the shore. A few weeks ago, that would not have been an unusual sight. John the Baptist had been preaching to exactly the same sort of crowds in exactly the same place. This time it seemed odd, because John had been arrested. They may have been wondering if the Baptist had been released.
Andrew suggests that they make their way to that spot. “Let’s see what is going on.” They approach, and as they draw near they see and hear a Rabbi from Nazareth speaking to the crowd. The crowd is sitting on a hillside. The preacher is at the bottom of the hill at the edge of the lake. The two boats approach.
They listen for a few a few minutes, but soon Jesus recognizes Andrew and motions for the boat to come right to the shore. When it does, He climbs up on the bow of the boat and continues the sermon from there. Andrew feels honored. It also seems familiar because the theme for the day is “Repent for the Kingdom is at Hand.” Andrew has heard that message from the Baptist. It is comforting to hear those familiar words again with John in jail, but there is a new edge when they are spoken by Jesus. Andrew senses a deep tug on his heart.
Peter is a captive audience. The preacher is standing on his boat. He is tired and wants to go home to bed, but he can’t leave because the preacher is standing on his boat. Standing on HIS boat He might as well listen to the sermon. He never really listened to the Baptist that much, but the words of Jesus appealed to the common people of Israel. They struck a chord with Peter.
The sermon ends. Time to go home and admit the failure of this miserable night. But this Rabbi has another idea. What does this carpenter turned Rabbi know about fishing? There’s no fishing in Nazareth. But the teacher insists so Peter and Andrew take their boat out again and lower the net. Immediately, the net is so full of fish that they have to call their partners in the second boat to come and help with the haul.
Now the Rabbi has another message for these four fishermen. He says, come with me and I will make you fishers of men. Amazingly, they leave their nets behind and they follow this preacher.
The focus of the story in the Gospels is on Peter because it is Peter who became the leader of the twelve. To me though, the hero of the story is not Peter, it is Andrew. Andrew is the one who was already a fisher of men. It is Andrew who brought the others to hear the words of the Savior.
The tendency to ignore Andrew and focus on Peter is not something new with us. Andrew is mentioned 13 times in the Gospels. In all but one of those passages, Peter is mentioned as well. Andrew is always Peter’s brother. It is never the other way around.
I can relate to that. We stayed in the same town the whole time that I was growing up. I have an older sister who is a certified genius. Her undergraduate degree is in math, her doctorate is in chemistry, and she works doing high energy physics. She is good looking, talented, and nearly perfect. I know that for a fact because I was always compared to her. I dreaded the first day of school every year because I knew what would happen. The teacher would say, I asked to have you in my class because I had your sister Pam. I can remember times when I had the highest scores in the class, only to hear the teacher say, “But you should have seen his sister.”
Fishermen generally don’t get the credit that they deserve. Even when they land a great catch, it is the fish that is the center of attention.
We will talk about being fishers of men in a minute, but before we do, let’s think about Jesus message. What was it and how was it different from what John had said.
Both the Baptist and Jesus preached a message of change. That is what “repent” really means. It is not about feeling sorry, it is about going forward in a new direction. The difference between the Baptist and Jesus is that John talked about preparing the way for a future kingdom of God. Jesus talked about living the Kingdom of God that is right here right now.
Change is a difficult thing for us. Things inevitably change. They might change for the better or they might change for the worse. It is up to us working in the power of God to make sure that they change for the better.
There is a great story about change from right here in Indiana. In 1870, the Methodists were having their annual conference in Indiana. The presiding Bishop was asking a group for an interpretation of current events, when the president of the college where the conference was held volunteered his input: "I think we are living in a very exciting age. I believe we are coming into a time when we will see wonderful inventions. I believe we will fly through the air like birds!" Bishop Wright, visibly disturbed by this scientifically based comment proclaimed, "This is heresy, this is blasphemy; I read in my Bible that flight is reserved for the angels. We will not have such talk here in my area." Bishop Wright then returned home to his two young sons, Orville and Wilbur.
Why fishers of men? The message of the Gospel is simple. Christ came to seek and to save those who are lost. We are called to be followers of Christ. We must work to seek and to save those who are lost. We must be concerned with those outside the faith and show them the way home.
There is a story about a very rugged piece of coastland where ships often went aground. The people of that area built a small rescue station on a rock near that shore. They had a light and a small life raft and they took turns manning the station. When a ship went a ground, they would ring a bell and the small band of volunteers would take out their little boat and rescue those whom they could.
Those who were saved from those rough waters donated funds to build up that rescue station. Eventually they had a fine building and several boats.
As time passed, crews were hired to man the rescue boats. The rescue station had transformed itself into a sort of club house. People gathered there and ate and talked. The place was still decorated with scenes of the sea and of the rescues. There was even an old rescue boat inside that had been remade into a salad bar.
Not much later, there were budget problems. Something had to go. They couldn’t cut out the dinners or the other events that were now so much of the community. Finally, the decision was made to cut the funding for the boats. After all, they were needed so infrequently.
Just down the coast, a group of people became concerned about those who might be on ships that wrecked on that treacherous piece of shore. They found a rock and built a small rescue station. With one small boat, they took turns manning the station and ringing the bell so that all could come when a ship ran a ground.
To often the church is like that old rescue station. We talk about fishing. We play an important role in our community, but before too long, the only fish that we are catching are the ones who happen to jump in the boat.
What happens when we don’t fish? They fight, they flee and they forget.
The 4 apostles in our story were all dedicated fishers of men. Still, there were times that they neglected that mission. The gospels tell us what happened.
Sometimes they fight. Do you remember James and John arguing over who would sit at Jesus’ right hand and at his left. Were they thinking about those whom they needed to reach. For that moment they lost sight of their mission. When we as the church loose sight of our mission, we face the same peril. Soon the unimportant things occupy our attention. “What color carpet should we buy?” “What sort of music should we play?” We major on the minors as we try to satisfy ourselves, forgetting that our job here is to fish.
Sometimes they flee. We see these fishermen running when Jesus is arrested. The church is no stranger to persecution. When the church is filled with an overwhelming concern for a world that is lost, they go right on fishing. When they have forgotten their purpose the run or they cower. They play it safe for the moment while they risks sols for eternity.
Sometimes they forget. There is a very troubling story at the end of the Gospel of John. Peter, our hero Peter, is back to fishing for fish again. He has been beaten down by the guilt of his own. It is after the crucifixion. It is even after some of the resurrection appearances. Where do we find Peter – Peter who is one of the great fishers of men? We find him back on the lake fishing again just like nothing had happened – just like the world had never changed.
What does it take to fish?
It may seem obvious, but you have to want fish. When the church get complacent, when we cease caring about our friends and our neighbors, when we rationalize that they will be fine anyway – that is when we no longer want to deal with fish. They are too smelly. They’re a lot of work. Someone has to clean them and scrape of the scales. That is too much to go through. Can’t we just buy some cans of tuna and forget this whole business.
Sometimes we don’t fish because we are not sure that the fish matter. A fishing boat is a working boat. It may not be all that comfortable, but it gets the job done. Maybe we get too focused on what makes us comfortable instead of what we need to do to catch fish. That can be a hard difference to discern. We are in the midst of an effort to revitalize our classroom space. I think that we are doing that as bait, as part of an effort to attract and keep fish, but you can see the dilemma that can arise.
Sometimes we don’t fish because we don’t know what kind of bait to use. Sometimes we think back to when we were fish and try to use the same sort of bait that was used on us. One problem with that is that most of us were not swimming in the open ocean. Most of us were raised in the church and in a church culture. We are like farm raised catfish and were not that hard to catch. We have got to start thinking from the perspective of those fish out there. They generally have had some back ground in church, but if they were just going to jump in the boat they probably would have done that by know. We need to find ways to take the church outside of these walls. We have to put the nets in the water.
Often we are not sure what to do. There is a story about a couple and their three kids who were vacationing in New England. They spent a day visiting the antique shops in the area. It was her idea, not his. At each shop it would be the same routine. He would admonish the kids to look with their eyes and not with their hands, and then he would find a place to sit and wait.
In this particular store he found a big overstuffed chair and set down. Next to the chair was an old Life magazine from the fifties, so he was thumbing through that looking at the pictures while he waited. Just then, he heard a beautiful Chopin piano concerto coming from somewhere over his left shoulder. He turned to look and to his surprise there was his own 7 year old daughter sitting at the keys playing flawlessly. Was this some long recessive prodigy gene, his side of course, that was finally asserting itself. No, she had set down at a player piano to play chopsticks and just kept playing along as Chopin came out.
A small crowd gathered (mostly his family), and when the piece ended his daughter took an exaggerated concert style bow as the group applauded and shouted “Bravo.” Of course, everybody knew, especially the little girl, that it was the piano that deserved the credit, but that didn’t seem to matter much. It had been a magical transformation.
Often we know that God is leading us in some particular direction. If we try to play God’s music with our own skills, all the world will hear is chopsticks. But when we surrender to God’s mission and rely on His purpose His planning and His perfect direction, the world will hear Chopin and think that it is coming from us.
Responding to God’s call can be a scary thing. These fishermen didn’t know where their next meal was coming from. The were times of doubt of despair and of dispute. But through all of that, they stayed true to the mission that Jesus gave them that day. We are hear because they became fishers of men.
What is the legacy that you and I will leave?
