Sermon: February 7, 2010

Last August, when John and I were vacationing on the coast, it was a great time to go salmon fishing. We watched eagerly as the fishing boats came in with almost every boat catching their limit. It had been almost 30 years since we had gone out fishing on the ocean but this seemed too good to be true so on the last day of our vacation we got up before dawn, boarded a boat out of Depoe Bay, and headed out dreaming of big fish.

John was nervous. What if the salmon run suddenly ended the day before? What if this fishing trip ended up like the one 30 years ago, without a single person catching a single fish? As soon as we crossed the bar and were out past the channel buoy, the young deckhand started baiting the hooks and letting out the lines and giving us some basic instruction… like yelling “fish on!” Within just a few minutes we were fishing. And then, just a few minutes later, I was the first to yell “fish on” and the first to land a “keeper” – a fin-clipped hatchery salmon – and within just forty-five minutes, the first to catch my limit. At one point, every person on the boat had a “fish on” all at the same time. Fishing was great!

But fishing isn’t always great. According to the story from Luke’s Gospel, the day Jesus called his first disciples fishing wasn’t great. In fact, fishing was lousy. After a long night of hard work, the local fishermen had nothing to show for it. Simon Peter and his coworkers, James and John were cleaning their nets and putting their boats in order for the next night when Jesus happened by and borrowed Simon Peter’s boat to use as a pulpit. When Jesus had finished preaching, he wanted to go fishing. Simon Peter tried to tell him that on the Sea of Galilee… on Lake Gennesaret… you don’t go fishing during the heat of the day because the fish go down real deep, beyond the reach of the nets. He tried to tell him that he had been up all night and it was time to go home and get some sleep but then I guess he realized who he was talking to… so they went fishing. And according to the story, it didn’t take too long before Simon Peter was yelling “fish on!” That’s all it took to make a believer out of him. Luke tells us Simon Peter and James and John left everything behind to follow Jesus. From then on they would be fishing for people!

But couldn’t I just fish for fish? Couldn’t we all just fish for fish? You see, in the big scheme of things, catching fish is easy. Unless you make your living at it, catching fish takes no real commitment. For most of us, catching fish is vacation… it is time away… it is time to relax. Catching fish is just catching fish and since I don’t even like to eat fish, if I don’t catch anything, I don’t even feel like I wasted my time, especially if I brought a book!

Catching people is a whole different experience. I like people. I care about people. I have compassion for people. I want to help people. Catching people can be hard, spirit-testing work. I am not talking about making converts for Christ or gaining new church members. I know that this is one way we have often understood this passage from Luke’s Gospel. I am talking about caring for people. I am talking about offering genuine compassion to people. The power of the original Greek is lost in translation when understood only as a rallying cry for church growth. In the original Greek, Jesus was telling the first disciples that they would be “saving men and women alive.” As Peter Eaton of St. John Cathedral in Denver says, “the kingdom requires not dead fish, but human beings fully alive – not creatures writhing in the last gasps before death, but people living the life of the good news in all its fullness.”*

Couldn’t we just catch fish? Catching fish is fun. Catching fish is easy. Catching fish doesn’t require us to love or show concern or even care. Catch a fish… marvel at how big it is… pose for a photograph… put the fish in the cooler… bait the hook and wait to catch another fish. Couldn’t we just fish for fish?

Well, not if we choose to follow Jesus. Following Jesus means fishing for people… saving men and women alive. Fishing for people means giving ourselves to others as together we find ways to live the good news… live full of hope and joy. Sometimes fishing for people is hard spirit-testing work. It’s hard spirit-testing work because we are surrounded by people who need to be saved. Not saved from hell or saved for heaven but saved from the trials and pain of living. Sometimes stuff happens… bad stuff happens… really bad, painful stuff happens in our lives. Hook, line, and sinker… there is no getting loose from the some of the difficult realities of life. As followers of Jesus who are “saving men and women alive” we are called to offer compassion. People come to us gasping for breath and we are called to genuinely care… to love these persons back to life. And in the process, we will be asked to give everything we have. We will be asked to give our lives.

Once, while living in Alaska, we had the opportunity of camping down on the Kenai Peninsula during salmon season. I remember watching as one fisherman hooked a huge salmon and then held on for dear life. He ran up and down and up and down the riverbank for what seemed like an eternity before he finally landed that six-foot long fish. He put everything he had into catching that salmon and once it was safely out of the water and on the shore, he fell over in exhaustion… totally spent. I’m not sure that I am that committed to catching fish.

But following Jesus means we must be that committed to catching people. We must give it everything we’ve got. Jesus says to us…“Hold on for dear life. From now on you’ll be fishing for men and women!” And he doesn’t show up after a good night’s sleep and a hearty breakfast. He sometimes comes to find us at the end of a long working day, after heartbreaking labor, and tells us to keep on working … to keep on working even when the work may seem pointless. But he does not ask us to do this alone. He asks us to go with him.

So we come to this table this morning because this is one of those places where we meet the living Christ. We come hoping for strength. We come looking for understanding and forgiveness. We come to find love’s nourishment. We come to this table, choosing to hold on for dear life.

*Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume 1, page 335 & 337.