Gone Fishing: Cast Your Nets

Gone Fishing: Cast Your Nets

Luke 5:1-11

August 3, 2014

 

Mark S. Bollwinkel

One rarely fishes with a net by oneself.  There are individual nets, of course.  You may have seen small, circular nets used by one person in the movies or while vacationing in the tropics. 

 

Dick Mackey my pottery partner and the full time manager of his family’s ranch in Northern California has found over the years that his fish ponds are more profitable than his cattle.   Canyon Creek Ranch has a beautiful source of geothermic water that comes out of the ground at 78 degrees year round.  Years ago Dick and his family fashioned a series of large outdoor ponds and indoor breeding tanks where they raise and market catfish, sturgeon and tilapia.   There will be the occasion when an individual family or buyer comes to purchase a small amount of fresh fish.   Dick will use an individual casting net; lined with lead weights around the outer circle of the net.   It is heavy, unwieldy and takes a lot of practice to master.  If the caster is able to throw the net successfully it is quite effective in catching a bunch of fish, but it’s not easy.  After all of these years my friend still fills the air with expletives as it usually takes him a few tries to get it right.

 

Even around land based fish ponds a more effective tool for fishing is the large, long net.  But you can't use it by yourself.  It takes a team to stretch, place and pull such a net.  When it comes time to harvest a pond, my friend will gather three to four helpers working in coordination along the sides of the pond and one or two helpers in the pond.   This is the same in open ocean fishing with huge, industrial nets; you can't do it by yourself it takes a team.

 

Consider our gospel lesson this morning from Luke.  Each gospel has its own version of Jesus calling the disciples.  Here in Luke, Jesus takes a break from teaching the crowds about God.  The crowds have grown so large that he has to put out from shore in a small boat.  He has borrowed one of Simon Peter's boats and challenges the fishermen to put out again and cast his nets.  Peter explains that he and his men have been fishing all night, catching nothing but he goes along with the Master's suggestion.  Once the nets are down the catch is so great Peter and his partners haul in a huge catch to the breaking point of the net's capacity.

 

The writer is illustrating the divinity of Jesus with such a miraculous catch (also note John 21:1-11).  Consider that even divine, the incarnation of God dwelling in the flesh, as the gospel of John puts it (1:14), Jesus cannot fulfill his destiny alone.  Even the Son of God needs somebody.  Even the Son of God needs a community.  And as we will find after his death and resurrection it will be that community of Jesus' disciples that will change the world.

 

In the United Methodist church when we serve the sacrament of Holy Communion it is offered to all gathered; regardless of church membership, regardless of age.  For a moment we become community with a shared common purpose.  However we understand the sacrament, we are a community about to receive the symbols of a love we could never earn, of a grace freely given, of a spirit available to us in each and every moment.   In Holy Communion we touch, even if symbolically, even if only for a moment, the potential for each of us in a community dedicated to a meaning and purpose that is larger than ourselves, which can transform the world; can transform our lives.  

 

Albert Einstein once defined “Insanity” as “….doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

 

The first disciples had been fisherman in the same place, with the same techniques for generations.  They knew the seasons.  They knew the species they sought to harvest.  They were masters of the nets and their boats.   Yet in our gospel lesson this morning Jesus…an in-land carpenter who probably knew nothing about fishing…..urges them to cast their nets on the other side.  After a long night of labor with nothing to show for it Peter and his crew must have thought Jesus crazy!  Yet with nothing to lose, they harvest more than fish on the other side, they catch a miracle.   Peter immediately recognizes that God must be at work in this carpenter from Nazareth and confesses his shame.  Yet Jesus isn’t interested in Peter’s self-doubt but calls him and his crew to become “fishers of people”.   After Jesus’ death and resurrection they will become that and more, beginning a movement that in three centuries will turn the Roman Empire upside down.

 

Much is being written and studied today about the decline in churches in North America.  Like Northern Europe, fewer and fewer people affiliate themselves with churches. According to the Pew Religious Survey the fastest growing segment in North American are those identifying themselves as “spiritual not religious”, this is especially true for those under 50 years old.  While over 90% of Americans still “believe in God”, fewer and fewer of them find a church to be a relevant part of their spiritual journey.

 

We who do find the community of church relevant for our lives can bemoan that fact, and many do.   We can insist on finding ways to do what we have always done, better; we know the seasons, we know the species we want to harvest, we’ve tended our nets and boats for generations!

 

Or, maybe like back then, Jesus is calling even us today to cast our nets to the other side; try something different, something unexpected.

 

A United Methodist young adult ministry in Northern California holds a weekly Thursday night worship and meditation service at 9:00pm near the Stanford campus; in Oakland a church holds a weekly service in a bar and restaurant; in Sacramento one of our churches is lead in worship by the music of a jazz quartet. (Don’t worry, I am not suggesting any of these ideas for Wayfarer, Bonnie and I love it here and we don’t want to get fired yet!)

 

Now I am not suggesting that Church of the Wayfarer needs to try any of those ideas!  But I am suggesting that we cultivate the faith to cast our nets to the other side and consider what new thing God might be dreaming for us next in our unique place and time.   

 

Such faith can begin with Holy Communion, a moment when we can imagine what it would be like to be a community with the common purpose to love God with everything we have and to love our neighbors as ourselves (Matthew 22:34-40).

 

If Jesus, the Son of God, needs a community to become all God intends him to be, who are we to think we can maneuver through life alone?  We need each other.  Every one of us has something to contribute to the other.  And in so doing we are stronger and more alive than we could have ever been alone.  That’s especially true if we are going to cast our nets on the other side.

 

Amen.