FISHING

Jesus said to Peter and Andrew: follow me and I will make you to fish for people.

In the ancient world as today, there are three ways to fish. There is the hook and line---one on one, the struggle to see if the fisher or the fish is smarter, stronger, more enduring.

There is individual net fishing—throwing a weighted net, catching a single fish or maybe part of a school of fish. (Notice that we have schools of fish. Prides of lions. Bevies of quails. Broods of vipers. But schools of fish—we must think they are smart, or at least teachable.) And then there is the drag net, coordinated by several boots, scrapping the bottom of the lake, bringing up mud and muck and all manner of marine life, desirable and undesirable. Then comes the sorting.

In the New Testament all three methods are mentioned. In today’s Gospel lesson, it was the latter method employed by the professionals on the Sea of Galilee.

Peter and Andrew, James and John. Two sets of brothers in the family business. It would be a good guess to imagine that they had grown up in a fishing family. They would rise before the dawn and head out into the Sea of Galilee. Under the light of stars they would position themselves in boats and heave the nets overboard. They would pull up the nets, drawing the boats closer and loser together, and sort the fish, more by touch than by sight. Their hands would be rough from the ropes and rough from the muck and the slime. And cold.

By the light of dawn they would then row back to shore, where family members would meet them and take away the catch to sell at market, while they scraped the muck off the nets and made repairs. Then breakfast. Then some conversation. Then sleep. Out of sync with the rest of the world.

They were probably competitors: Peter and Andrew in one family business, James and John in another. Maybe they liked and respected each other. Maybe they didn’t.

We call the body of water where they worked a sea. But the Gospel of Luke downgraded it to a lake: Lake Gehenesseret. It doesn’t connect with an ocean or a larger body of water. It’s smaller than the American Great Lakes. On a clear day you can always see a shore line.

People felt sorry for fishermen. They didn’t own any farm land. Probably some time generations back their families had gotten into debt and lost the farm and they had turned to fishing for survival. They had no equity. They were just one step up from begging. Peter and Andrew, James and John.

“Follow me.” There were plenty of mavericks and healers and magicians and tricksters and roving rabbis during that day. Sometimes when a new person would come to town, you wouldn’t know which category in which to put them. You think you’re listening to a rabbi and then you realize he was a magician. “Hey, I can make coins disappear. Anybody got a coin?”

So it was hard to think about following someone like that. Maybe it was: I’ll be an apprentice to the rabbi/healer/magician/fortune teller, and then I’ll have my own shtick. Or maybe something about the way Jesus spoke caught the imagination of these hardscrabble guys.

But often the people with the least to lose hold on to what they have the most fiercely. You read of homeless people who fight over which spot in some doorway it theirs.

But somehow Peter and Andrew, James and John, were ready to let go of the life they had. We may not understand how they could just up and do that, but let’s give the Son of God, the Savior of the World a little credit. This wasn’t just anybody saying follow me, it was Jesus. And they followed.

And they fished. For people. Perhaps the one who got that fishing-for-people thing the best was Andrew. Just about every time we encounter him in the Bible, he was bringing someone to Jesus. Last week we heard the story of Philip. And the boy with the loaves and the fishes? Andrew. And the Greeks who wanted to meet Jesus at the turning point in the Gospel of John? Andrew.

From time to time the church has called that being an evangelist. Bringing the good news. In today’s world calling someone an evangelist is just about the kiss of death. Check next week and see how many evangelists you have invited to your Super Bowl party. “Dear, I know we have more people than can fit around our TV, but don’t you think we should invite at least one evangelist?”

Some of us over the last year have been looking at a process called Natural Congregational Development. The folks that put that together believe than only about eight percent of Christians have the gift of evangelism, of bringing people to Christ. The problem is that churches are so busy doing all of their organizational stuff that they put the natural evangelists on the trustees, or the kitchen committee when they should be left free to do their God given thing.

Over the years I’ve been privileged to know some evangelists. One was a church organist. It seemed that almost every week she had some of her friends with her in church. Another as a teenager named Mitch. Sometimes he had his head on straight and sometimes he didn’t, but he could go out and get you a bass player just like than. And the bass player brought his family.

And there is an even more subtle kind of evangelist. Because some of the people already in the doors of the church haven’t been getting closer to Jesus. Haven’t been trying to pray more deeply. Haven’t been loving their neighbor more intensely. Haven’t been forgiving their enemy more completely. But there are evangelists at work within the church whose interactions call us to follow on a deeper level.

So the question for us today is: are you one of those? Now I’ve already let you off the hook. (Remember we’re talking about fishing today.) Only about eight percent of Christians have the gift of evangelism, but one of those may be you. You may be wishing that more neighborhood people would be among us. You may be wishing that more of a different age bracket would be among us. You may be wondering why some folks come to church year after year but it doesn’t seem to change their lives.

Gotshya! It may be that you need to learn how to fish for people. It may be that you need some tackle. It may be that you need some place to drop anchor. But you may be one with the call to bring others to Christ. If you don’t like it, it’s not my fault. Christ is the one who calls you, not me. I’m just here to help get you equipped.

This is not about handing out tracts and alienating more people than you draw. This is not about being the office goody-goody. It’s first of all knowing that God is giving you a gift.

If this is your yearning, if this is your calling, the first step is to acknowledge it before God: to say to the Almighty, I will do this if you will show me how. I will do this if you will be with me. I will follow you and make it my quest to bring more people into you presence. After you do that, it gets easier.