“Fishing Together” (Mark 1:14-20)
Intro: In our New Testament lesson today we hear of Jesus by the lakeshore calling the first disciples. Simon, Andrew, James and John will become Jesus’ closest friends and disciples. Their ministry is about to begin. Let us listen for God’s calling word to us. //
(Hang pole over pulpit….wait) Someone once said about fishing: “There’s a fine line between fishing and standing on the shore looking like a fool.” I must admit I’ve never been much of a fisherman. I feel some guilt about that. There are great movies like “A River Runs Through It” where fishing, faith and life all seem to go together in some incredible way and yet for all my efforts, fish don’t fear me. I’ve sat on the ice staring down a hole; I’ve cast off a dock or two. Never much to show – when I want fish -I’m told Huntsbury Seafood is the best? . (Put pole away)
However, I love fish stories and I can’t resist sharing one. (If you know how this story ends, I’ll ask you to share it.) Once upon a time Young Eddie came several minutes late to Sunday school, and the teacher asked him why he was late. Eddie said, “I wanted to go fishing, but my dad wouldn’t let me, so we argued, and that’s why I’m late.” The teacher said, “Good for your father! Eddie, did he explain to you WHY you needed to come to church instead of going fishing on Sunday morning?” “Yes ma’am,” replied the boy. (Anyone know it?) —“He said there weren’t enough worms for both of us.”
Eddie’s father would fish alone. As some fishermen describe it, there is a real appeal in the solitary nature of fishing. One pole, one person, one fish.
Today’s Gospel text is about fishing and so much more. Jesus begins his ministry along the shores of the Sea of Galilee, where he calls out to the fishermen: “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people!” For most of my life whenever I heard this account of Jesus calling Simon and Andrew, James and John, I thought of worms and hooks and bamboo poles and waiting in quiet solitude. If I thought about it too literally, “Fishing for people” had a certain strange sound to it, and I have shied away from the image. Who knows what the first disciples thought Jesus was asking of them?
In the Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament, fishing with hooks is a negative image used by Israel’s prophets, to talk about trapping and destroying. (Don’t get “hooked” by something.) Yet Jesus calls the disciples to a ministry of preaching and healing. Theirs is not a word of judgment for the world; rather it is of the fulfillment of ancient hope. Jesus is speaking of another kind of fishing. From the biblical perspective, hooks destroy, but nets save. (Put up long net with help) Fishing with a hook is a one-person job; nets take many hands. Fishing together is a different kind of fishing. Those who would follow Jesus are to fish together, using nets.
The invitation by Jesus to the disciples on the shore of the Sea of Galilee is not to abandon fishing altogether, or to start fishing alone, but to use the Good News as they would a fishing net, to draw people together, into discipleship. They will help to create a community of individuals whose lives are committed to Christ and to living the love of God in concrete fashion, but not in a private way. What Jesus is proposing here is a different kind of fishing entirely. When you fish with a net, you get what you get, whatever’s out there, and sometimes a whole lot of it. Jesus says follow me and “I will make you fishers of people.” As we see in Jesus’ ministry all kinds of people found a place along side him.
The use and interpretation of this text points to a clash of ecclesiologies found among Christians today. Ecclesiology has to do with the doctrine of the church, how we think about this collection of people called the “body of Christ.” Ecclesiology is a fancy word for what we are demonstrating every time we gather for worship, when we go out to serve in the community, when we sit down to work in committees or enjoy the fellowship of others in the church, or when we invite people to join us. Whenever we live out what it means to us to “be” the body of Christ.
Some today would say the primary role of the church is to ensure the salvation of individuals. Go catch ‘em one at a time for Jesus. Others of us would argue that the church is fundamentally about forming communities of believers wanting to worship and serve God.
The Presbyterian Church has historically chosen the latter: saying that the church, is primarily charged with building up the body of Christ, in order to worship and serve God together, and in so doing, find hope and salvation. As John Calvin put it five hundred years ago church members “are gathered into the society of God on the principle that whatever benefits God confers upon them, they should in turn share with one another.” Our faith may be personal, but it is not a private matter. We seek the common good in our life together. It is in community that we discover how to be the people of God.
In another biblical fish story, Jonah is sent into the city. Nineveh was a vast urban center of ancient times. Jonah was sent by God to go to the city and call it to repentance. The story of Jonah is not merely a big fish tale. It is the account of God’s desire to redeem the city. After riding around inside the big one he wished had gotten away, Jonah arrives in Nineveh, delivers the call to repentance, and to his surprise the people hear, they change their ways, and to his dismay, God spares them. God’s primary interest in the story is not in the one man Jonah, but in the redemption of the city itself. In fact, at the end of the story, it is Jonah’s fate that seems the most uncertain. Nineveh is on a new path and Jonah has a long walk home. He feels alone.
In many parts of America there is a growing sense that we are losing our sense of community. And we are hearing about strange enclaves that are supposed to be desirable places called “gated communities”. Feelings of isolation are on the increase. People can feel separated by race, economics, religious beliefs or anything else that people use to draw lines.
If the church is committed to the kind of “new fishing” Jesus calls his disciples to undertake, then we must be about the business of creating community among strangers, extending care and concern for our community as mission statement says. St Martins is an inclusive Christian Congregation, sharing in the love of Christ, building one another up in joyful faith, reaching out in love to people around and beyond us and encouraging care for God’s creation.
How to do it? We express concern for homelessness by getting involved with Waltham cottage. We are concerned with feeding the hungry, so we collect food week. We care about conditions around the world and we support the efforts of the Christian World Service and Your Sisters Mission.. That is some of how it looks today. And here is one more idea
Someone once defined community as “people who sing together regularly.” I think of that definition often in worship. Where else today do we get together each week with people of differing ages, races, educational backgrounds, and sing? We sing in worship to express our shared desire to praise God. When we sing, the bonds that hold us together are strengthened. Singing in a congregation is like fishing with a net. Everybody can join in—monotones, and trained voices, young and old alike. As we sing together in the rest of worship, think about what a wonderfully diverse community we are, then think of how we can add more voices.
God is stirring us up once again, not that we might repeat some golden past, but to reinvent our future, as each succeeding generation must do. And it begins with an invitation to come and follow the One who lives and dies and lives again, that we might have life abundant, in community with one another and with the risen Christ. Amen