Gone Fishing: Fishing for
People
Matt 4:12-13, 17-22
July 20, 2014
Mark S. Bollwinkel
This is the
first sermon in a series especially designed for summertime, when we’d
all love to hang out the sign at home or office, “Gone
Fishing”. This is the time of year that many take
vacations or long weekends to break the routine and re-charge our emotional,
energy and at times spiritual batteries.
It’s time to
go fishing, take a picnic to the beach or see a blockbuster movie. Let’s
look at just a few of the Bible’s lessons
about the spiritual journey that use fish and/or fishing as an
illustration.
In our
gospel lesson this morning from Matthew we hear the author's version of Jesus
calling his first disciples. Jesus'
ministry is the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy that God's "good
news" is meant for the gentiles as well as the Hebrews. This is revolutionary as pious Hebrews considered
the gentiles profane and beyond redemption.
The “good news”
is that God's love is available to all people not just the chosen few.
In Matthew
as in the gospel of Mark (1:15) we hear Jesus' first proclamation,
"Repent, the kingdom of heaven has come near." In the original language "repent"
means "to turn your life around", "to go in an entirely
different direction that the one you’re
in".
Scholars
still debate the meaning of "kingdom of heaven has come near". "Kingdom of heaven" is Matthew's
preferred reference to divinity. The
term is only found in the Matthew, nowhere else in the Bible. The writer uses
the phrase 31 times. In our lesson this
morning it is set in a sentence with both present and future tense, as if to
say the "Kingdom of Heaven" ....all of the promises God has ever made
about the future for the world, a future of love, justice and peace...the
"Kingdom of Heaven" is not only about the future it is here right
now.
Luke picks
up this sense when the writer reports Jesus' first sermon, again in fulfillment
of the prophecy of Isaiah Jesus says....:
‘The
Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because
he has anointed me
to
bring good news to the poor.
He
has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and
recovery of sight to the blind,
to
let the oppressed go free,
to
proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’
And
he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes
of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, ‘Today
this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’
(Luke 4:18-21)
All the
promises of God for a future of love, peace and justice are here right now in
the teaching and example of Jesus. We
who follow Jesus live in the spirit of God's future here in the present. The Kingdom of Heaven has eternal implications
and is "at hand" or as Luke puts
it "is within you" (17:20-21).
Please note
that when Jesus calls his disciples he doesn't say, "Believe in me or you
will be punished in hell forever!" or "Join my church or you will go
to hell!" or "Be baptized in
my prescribed manner or you will suffer eternal damnation!" You may be able to patch those notions
together from bits and pieces in the New Testament but that's not the message
of Jesus. That's a message about Jesus that
churches have promoted for centuries.
But it’s not the
message of Jesus. (Thank you Professor
Dennis Watson!) The message of Jesus is "turn your life
around and follow me, all that God has ever promised and more is within your
grasp". And the invitation is
for all people, even the ones who didn't count, even those considered profane
outcasts and sinners by the holy people.
Even
fishermen.
Consider
the motley crew that Jesus put together as his first disciples; a clan of
fishermen, Peter, Andrew, James and John; Matthew and possibly James son of
Alphaeus, are tax collectors, considered traitorous collaborators with the
Roman occupation; Philip and Bartholomew aka Nathaniel are seminary drop-outs
(John 1:35-51); Simon the Cananaean and Judas Iscariot are zealous
revolutionaries looking for war against the Romans; doubting Thomas (John 20:24-29) will write his own gospel and
go off to India to start his own church; and nobody is really sure who
Thaddaeus is because the twelfth disciple is also called "Lebbeus"
and/or "Jude" and/or "Judas, son of James" in the other
gospels.
These
weren't saints although by tradition each would become one. These were very human people with strengths
and weaknesses, fears and hopes. People
kind of like us. It wasn't their
position in society, their wealth or education that qualified them to be
disciples. The one thing they all had in
common was their willingness to follow.
That path
would lead them to become "fishers of men" or "to fish for
people".
Consider
this wonderful story as an illustration.
Norman
Maclean's semi-autobiographical novella A River
Runs through It (Univ of Chicago Press, 1976) describes the family of a
Presbyterian minister in the Bitterroot Mountains of Montana. The pastor constantly refers to fly fishing
as a metaphor for life in his sermons and as he home schools his two sons
Norman and Paul. In this scene from the
movie adaptation directed by Robert Redford, the father is played by Tom
Skerritt, Norman by Craig Sheffer and Paul by a young Brad Pitt. In 1992 the movie was nominated for three
Academy Awards and won an Oscar for best cinematography:
[Scene
with the three men fishing, the unspoken competition and deep affection between
them as
a result....]
The two
brothers could not be more different.
They have lived with and been tutored by a brilliant and pious father
whose standards in life are extremely high; he describes “Methodists…as
Baptists that can read…” As a result the two brothers are well
educated in language, history and writing.
They both chaff under the weight of their father's orthodox morality and
yet in their own distinct ways, each will become disciples of their father's
faith and ethics.
Norman will
go back East for an Ivy League education, eventually becoming a college
professor in literature, dedicating his life to his students in higher
education; the author Norman Maclean taught at and was a Dean of the University
of Chicago until his retirement in 1973.
Paul will be the rebel in the family, hanging out with 'the wrong
crowd', drinking and gambling, falling in love with a beautiful Native American
woman. He will become an investigative
journalist, a "mud raker", publishing stories of the corruption
between big business and politics in Montana. His passion for justice and to give voice to
the oppressed will eventually cost him his life.
Although
neither men will adopt the piety of their father both in their own ways follow
his examples and teaching, dedicating their lives to service to others,
dedicating their lives to ideals much greater than themselves. Both men will
attract others to their causes, just as their father. All will be “fishers
of men” in their
own ways.
Yet the
bond they share as family can never be broken and for the Maclean family it
always goes back to fishing:
[Scene,
A Moment of Perfection....]
Three men are
entirely different yet so much the same.
In their own ways each man is a disciple of a higher calling, one a
parish priest, one a teacher and the other an advocate for justice.
Disciples
won't always look alike or agree on everything.
They won't always succeed; many will stumble along the journey. But what they have in common, a bond that can
never be broken, is the love of a Parent who calls them to follow and in so
doing find their true home.
Disciples
of Jesus follow him, to the best of their unique abilities. They live by Jesus' teachings and emulate
his example. They live out the message
of Jesus, "Turn your life around.
All that God has ever promised and more is within your grasp". More than a slogan it is a way of living
that continues to attract and empower.
The hope
and possibility of a new way of living can be contagious. It builds new communities. It reclaims broken lives with meaning and
purpose. It rattles the cage of the
entrenched status quo invested in the power and profit of the past. It insists that there is something more than
the conventional wisdom we've all grown to accept as the norm.
In Africa, Asia
and Latin America the church is thriving with new people inspired by the
message of Jesus. In North America and Europe the churches are
declining as they promote the message about
Jesus.
If we who
would aspire to be disciples want to fish for people they will not find Jesus
in the exclusivity of our institutional religions. Do we want more people to come to church? What will attract them is when we live as if
we mean it when we pray, “Our God in
heaven, holy is your name, thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is
in heaven....."
Amen.
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