Atom“Fishing” Mark 1:14-21
"As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrewe casting a net into the sea - for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, 'Follow me,a nd I will make you fish for people.' And immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother, John, who were in their boat, mending their nets. Immediately he called them; and they left their father, Zebedee i the boat with the hired men, and followed him." Mark 1:16-20
It was a little chilly here on Thursday morning. My thermometer said 18 below. I’m sure we could spend a fair amount of time around coffee this morning comparing thermometer readings. Let’s just say, “It was chilly.” Enough so that my farming friend in Nebraska texted me: “Got your ear flaps down this morning?” When I lived there we did quite a bit of comparing of winter in Nebraska vs. winter in Minnesota. Believe me, it was warmer there. I remember noting on one particularly cold January week in Nebraska that it was significantly colder up in Minnesota, so I called my folks to see how they were doing. “It’s been cold,” they said. First words out of their mouths. “I wondered,” I said. “How cold?” “Three nights over 30 below,” they said. “One night might have been below 40 but we couldn’t tell because the mercury went below that little bracket that holds the thermometer and we couldn’t tell.” It makes me shiver just thinking about it. “And the electricity went off, too,” they said. “The ground heaved so bad that it broke one of the underground cables. So our furnace wouldn’t run. But we lit the gas oven and put on our snowmobile suits. It wasn’t too bad…never got below 50 in the house.” Funny thing though, they weren’t too concerned about that. What concerned them most was that it had been too cold to go ice-fishing.
And that was something that Nebraska folks never understood: ice-fishing. In Nebraska they did basketball tournaments on weekends. When I was growing up, we did ice-fishing tournaments on weekends, a time when the whole community would gather out on the ice and stomp their feet and tell stories and catch very few fish. One time I won a Coleman fish-house stove with the biggest fish – a pound and a half northern – and my brother won a side of beef in the raffle. We took family vacations to Canada, so we could stand out on a frozen lake all day and jig for lake trout. Nebraska people never understood that. They never understood the way Minnesotans do how much fun cold can be and the thrill of reaching into a bucket of ice water to capture minnows when the crappies were biting fast. I have to admit that there were times when I was a child that I prayed that the fish wouldn’t bite so I wouldn’t have to take mittens off. But I also learned as I grew older that careful stewardship of a minnow, meant you could catch six or seven crappies on the same dead minnow and avoid the minnow bucket. Ice-fishing…what fun.
And, I suppose, a way of life up here, but not in the same way that fishing is a way of life in today’s gospel. The men that Jesus called here fished not for pleasure, but by necessity. They used nets instead of ice-augers and jigging sticks. They threw the nets by hand – a great circular kind of net that one threw over the fish in shallow water – or used a longer, larger net that was extended between two boats in deeper water. And their job was more than the catching. They also sold their fish fresh or dried and salted them to preserve them. And there were nets and sails to mend and boats to keep in seaworthy shape. Fishing was hard, back-breaking work when it was one’s living.
The disciples were at this work, perhaps just cleaning up after a night on the lake, when Jesus approached. He called to Simon and Andrew as they bent over their catch, “Come with me…follow me and I will make you to fish for people.” And the truly amazing thing is that Simon and Andrew did. They pulled their boats up on the shore, dropped their nets, and left their former way of life behind…all at the call of Jesus’ voice. Astonishing! There must have been some power in that call!
“I will make you fish for people,” Jesus said. Whatever could that mean? Although it sounds rather folksy…it was in fact a call for a profound change of life. Jesus was not asking them to give up a pleasant weekend hobby, but rather to exchange an old way of life for a new way of life. He was saying to them, “For most of your life you have worked to gather fish from the depths of the wide, wide sea. Now I call you to gather people from the corners of the wide, wide earth. I want you to gather people not into nets but into God’s family.
I believe t is important to note that Jesus is calling James and John and Peter and Andrew to a specific action on God’s behalf. Jesus wasn’t calling them just to study and reflection. He wasn’t like other wandering philosophers who called disciples to sit at their feet and learn. Jesus did not call his followers to philosophize or think great thoughts but to act: to follow and then to spread out and tell the good news of God’s coming kingdom. Jesus called active, working people to an active working ministry to which they would eventually invite others.
And so we today are called to follow not only in Jesus’ footsteps, but those of these fishermen. We are the ones called to fish for people. What might that mean? First, a couple of things it doesn’t mean: Fishing for people is not about hooking folks on a flashy lure and displaying them on a stringer so we can show others how many we caught. I’m not thinking that Jesus was really worried about style and numbers when he called us to fish for people. There is no particular way of fishing and no quota to meet. On the other hand, I don’t believe Jesus was talking about fishing as sitting on the shore drinking coffee and hoping that some folks might just swim in and leap up on the bank. Fishing for people – “evangelism” – or telling good news – involves moving…like fishing…getting out in the boat, trudging out on the lake, cutting some holes, casting out a line of invitation. It is an active sharing of God’s kingdom, just as fishing was an active way of life.
At one level, a call to fish for people might mean a call to be a pastor or leader in the organized body of Christ – the church. The Church continues to need women and men to hear the call to serve Christ in a full or part-time occupation. The numbers of retiring pastors has slowed a bit with the economics of the past few years, but it is estimated that nearly 2000 Lutheran pastors will retire in the next three years or so. At the same time, our seminaries will only graduate about 1200 or so trained and ready pastors. And to that need, add many other specialized professionals leading the church, from youth directors to musicians to administrators and counselors. It’s all about fishing.
At another level, the call to “fish for people” is not just a call to choose a profession in the church. You know that. It’s the call of all baptized Christians. There is a wonderful phrase in the service of Affirmation of Baptism – what we call Confirmation – which captures the essence of what it is to share the in-breaking of God’s kingdom and God’s good news with others. In the service of Affirmation we invite those confirmed – and we who are already confirmed – to take on the task of fishing, of “Proclaiming the good news of God in Christ through word and deed.” We proclaim the good news of Christ through Word whenever we speak about God’s love….whenever we tell others about the hope that is within us…whether it is in talking with our children or grandchildren, or teaching a Sunday School class, or comforting a neighbor who is grieving an important loss in their life. We proclaim God’s word in Deed whenever we act out the love of God in our daily living. We are called to put our faith into words, to say what we believe, but also to act out God’s love and leading.
We act out God’s love by daily making our lives an offering to God. This might be in the care of our children or the careful handling of our finances. It might be the daily work we do in the community or work we do as volunteers. We act out God’s love in our enjoyment of friendships and in the reconciliation of brokenness. In all of life we ask God to help us care for one another and for all God’s people and all God’s creation.
How encouraging it is in times of loss to hear of people in the Body of Christ stepping up to care for those who have lost their own resources for survival. Floods and earthquakes and tornados call out the best gifts of God’s people. So does cold. How good to hear of Churches who open their doors in times of extreme cold to care for the homeless and hungry. Some of this happens more directly in Fargo-Moorhead…and the numbers sheltered there are sometimes staggering. Here in Detroit Lakes we are working on establishing shelters and indirectly our local churches put those needing shelter up in motels and hotels for short stays. This of course happens because you do the deed of proclaiming Christ’s kingdom in the offerings you share that are redirected to this purpose. We are not all able to do “hands on” care of the hungry and homeless,” but we are able to support others through our prayers and our dollars. In many simple but profound ways, then, we “proclaim the good news of God in Christ through word and deed.” We are take on the sacred fishing task that Jesus called his first disciples to on that Galilean shore. It is now our sacred task, our sacred calling.
There is an old story that you might have heard – of Jesus ascending to heaven after his time on earth and sitting down to chat with the angels. The archangel Gabriel notes the signs of the crucifixion still visible on Jesus’ body, and says earnestly, “Master, you have suffered so terribly! Do the people of earth know and appreciate how much you have loved them?”
“Some do,” Jesus replied, “a few people in Palestine know.”
“But what of the others?” Gabriel asked. “How will the rest of the world come to know?”
“I have asked Peter and John, Mary and Martha, and a few other friends to spread the word. They will tell the ones they know and those who are told will tell others and so it will go until everyone to the farthest reaches of the earth knows how I gave my life for theirs.”
“But what if they get tired?” asked Gabriel. “What if Peter and Martha and those who come after them forget or get too busy. Surely you have other plans…an ad campaign or automated calling?”
And Jesus answered, “No, Gabriel, I haven’t made any other plans. I’m counting on them.”
Our Lord is counting on us. If we don’t tell and live the good news in our community, our school, our workplace, who will? Perhaps you are the one God has called to reach that neighbor, that friend, that co-worker through the honest expression and the living of your faith. Perhaps you are the one God needs to cut a hole, drop a line, offer an invitation to come. “Follow me,” says Jesus – to everyone of us – “And I will make you to fish for others who are not yet with us.”
It is my prayer that the body of Christ we are a part of here at First Lutheran, that has somehow called and gathered us, might continue to respond to the call of Jesus…to pass on this tradition of fishing just as many of our families passed on their traditions of fishing…and to move into God’s world with a sense of adventure and wonder, relishing the opportunity to let God’s love shine through us that others might know. As good as ice-fishing can be, this kind of fishing is life-changing...for others and for us…and a whole lot warmer! Pray with me, please…
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