FISHING FOR PEOPLE

(Preached on Sunday, January 25, 2009)

And Jesus said to them, AFollow me and I will make you become fishers of men.@                                                                                                -Mark 1:17

 

Sound familiar?  Did that story about Jesus walking on the beach and calling Peter, Andrew, James and John to follow him feel at all like deja vu?  I don=t mean because you have heard it before.  I mean does it resonate in your own life?  Because it should.  After all, it is your story C and my story.  It is the story of how we each got here this morning.  It is the story of how we got it in our heads that we ought to be disciples, followers of Jesus.  We are here because we were called to be here.

 

Now I know, Americans are big on their decisions, the sum of their choices.  They construe their lives as their self-creations, their shrewd concoctions.  But today=s story invites us all to consider our lives as the sum of God=s decisions, a project of the living Christ, something that Jesus makes and molds through his relentless reach toward us.

 

You are here because you were put here.  People decide to go to the theater.  People thumb through the Saturday newspaper.  People see some concert being presented that night and say to themselves, AThat looks interesting, let=s go.@  But that=s not how you get to church.  You move toward the presence of God by being summoned, invited, addressed, and called.  This thing is by invitation only.  You have to be called.  This is your story.  This is why most of you are here this morning.

 

Every time we baptize, no matter the age of the person being baptized, as we initiate this one into the Christian life, in effect we say to that person, AThe life you live is not your own.  You are named, claimed, and commandeered.  God has plans for you.  God has a job for you.  This is good news because the saddest of all sad things, in this world, is an uncalled, and unclaimed life.  Now, go live out your calling.@  That=s what we say. 

 

Theologian Barbara Brown Taylor suggests in her sermon on this passage, AMiracle on the Beach,@ that this is a story about God more than it is about the disciples or us.  To focus on what the disciples gave up (and whether we could do the same) is Ato put the accent on the wrong syllable.@  This Amiracle story,@ as she calls it, is really about the Apower of God C to walk right up to a quartet of fishermen and work a miracle, faith where there was no faith, creating disciples where there were none just a moment before.@ 

 

Now we don=t like to approach the story in this way.  Not as preachers, not as listeners.  It actually makes us uncomfortable and you probably have not heard this part of the story emphasized very often when you have heard it in the past.  After all, we live in a culture that emphasizes our choices and independence, our ability to shape our lives and determine our destinies.  We can do it; it=s within our power; we can fix and improve everything; we can take hold of the future and make it what we want it to be.  In fact, we have to do it, in order to please God and get to heaven.  The better we are, the more saintly and sacrificing we are, the more likely we are to earn our salvation.  Taylor rightly calls this Aworks-righteousness@: AWhat we may have lost along the way is a full sense of the power of God C to recruit people who have made terrible choices; to invade the most hapless lives and fill them with light; to sneak up on people who are thinking about lunch, not God, and smack them upside the head with glory.@  Whether we=re ready or not, God acts.

 

It is sort of like the Tango.  In learning that dance, it was stressed to me that the man is in control and in charge.  He is clearly the leader, the initiator, the guide for the couple.  He signals to his partner what they are going to do, what she is to do, where they are going, etc.  The woman has her role in the dance, her own steps, but she follows the guidance and direction of the man.  She follows his lead, his initiative.  Now, she actually often has much more complicated steps.  If you watch a couple dancing the tango, the woman is often the more interesting part of the pair to watch, more flourishes, more style, more entertaining.  But everything is begun by the man.  In our Tango with God, God is the initiator and leader.  Everything begins with God=s action.

 

And yet we do have a role to play.  We do have the freedom to respond to God=s grace and God=s call.  It is important for us to respond.  And we really want to respond.  But, in truth, it scares us to death.  It scares us because we don=t know if we will be up to the call, if we will be able to do what God asks us to do.  We might not even be sure what it is God wants us to do. 

 

And what is it God asks of us?  Jesus said, AFollow me and I will make you become fishers of men.@  Obviously Jesus is speaking in metaphor when he calls fishermen and says they will not fish for people.  Today he might call insurance salesmen to become sellers of good news; or bankers to become savers of souls; or librarians to become searchers of the lost; or brokers to become investors in the future; or nurses to become healers of the sin-sick. The point is that Jesus doesn=t ask the fishermen to add one more task to their busy lives.  He calls them into new ways of being.  So he doesn=t give them a new list of things to do but a new identity, a whole new life. The call is not to do different things than we already do, but to do them for a new purpose, in a new way.  To turn our lives, like those first fishermen did, in the same direction as Jesus= life: a life of love for the world.

 

The metaphor gives expression to the qualities that are needed for the work of extending the gospel of love.  Patience, perseverance, and hard work will be required of those who choose the path of following Jesus.  These are the very same skills and attributes which the fishermen needed to be fishermen: if you do not work hard, persevere and have tremendous patience, then you are not going to catch many fish!  Every fisherman has had days of casting that line or that net for hours with nothing to show for your effort.  They are called not to become different people or to acquire new skills, but to employ their existing personalities and skills for a new purpose: the purpose of spreading the good news of God=s love for the world.

 

For as long as anyone could remember Janet and Mary were the best of friends.  They were neighbors and attended the same church.  At church social events these two friends along with their families would always sit together.  Janet remembers the day she and her husband moved into the neighborhood and Mary came to welcome them.  Later with the birth of their son, Janet looked to Mary for advice on raising her son.  Mary told her of a young mother=s group at her church.  Janet began attending the mother=s group and making friends with the other young mothers.  Being in churc among other believers began to spark Janet=s faith.  Janet would ask Mary questions about faith, the Bible, and church.  Soon she began attending worship, sitting in the same pew as Mary and her family.  A Sunday school class would form from the mother=s group that Janet would help lead.  Years later these two women remain the best of friends.  Today these women compare notes on their grandchildren.  Janet credits Mary for leading her to faith in Jesus.  If it wasn=t for Mary she might not have become a believer, a follower of Jesus, and joined the church.