Thanks for all the fish

Scripture Luke 5:1-11

5 Once while Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, 2 he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. 3 He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. 4 When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” 5 Simon answered, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.” 6 When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. 7 So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink. 8 But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” 9 For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken; 10 and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” 11 When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.

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In the 4th chapter of Luke’s Gospel, Jesus was tempted by the devil, almost thrown off a cliff by his neighbors in Nazareth, and then went around teaching, casting out demons and healing the sick, including Simon Peter’s mother in law, and preaching in Judean synagogues.    Already he had become so famous that the crowds were a problem.  Luke tells us in 4:43 “The crowds were looking for him. When they found him, they tried to keep him from leaving them.”  He was a 1st century superstar, really.  Everywhere he went, people wanted to be near him, crying out for his attention, asking to be healed, begging for him to cast out their demons, to change their lives.  

So one day he had some fishermen take him out a little way from shore so he could preach without being overwhelmed by the crowds.  Now, the boats were sitting by the lake because fisherman in Capernaum typically went out at night.  Their years of experience had taught them that night is the best time to catch fish.  Jesus told the fishermen, including Simon Peter, to let their nets down even though it was the middle of the day and they hadn’t caught anything all night long.  I can almost hear Simon Peter thinking, “You are a preacher and a carpenter, not a fisherman.  This is my area of expertise and I happen to know that the fish here are most likely to be caught at night, but we will humor you and do as you ask.”   Surprise, surprise, surprise.  The nets were filled with fish, so full that it took two boats to bring the nets in and even with two boats the catch nearly capsized them!  All they had to do was follow Jesus’ instructions and the fish practically jumped into the nets.    

According to Luke, this is when Simon Peter and the sons of Zebedee became Jesus’ disciples.  As you may remember, John’s gospel has a different account of how the disciples were called.  But this is the way Luke tells it, that after causing the fisherman to catch more fish than they knew what to do with, Jesus said to them, “From now on, you will be fishing for people.” and “As soon as they brought the boats to the shore, they left everything and followed Jesus.”

Wait, they dd what?  They left everything right then and there?  What about their families?  What about their jobs and responsibilities?  What about all those fish?   Did they just leave them on the shore?    The very idea of dropping everything like that kind of freaks us out a bit.   It’s pretty much the opposite of what we are taught to do as adults.  I mean, adulting is hard mostly because we can’t just up and do whatever, whenever.  We have responsibilities that come first, to our families, to our jobs, to our community.   Imagine James and John saying, “We’ll catch up with you, Jesus.  Right after we deal with the fish, tell our Dad we’re leaving the family business, kiss our wives and kids goodbye, and pack a few things.   Probably take a day or two.”   Not.  They left everything and followed Jesus as soon as they brought the boats to shore.  

Most of us aren’t asked to leave our families and jobs and places in our community to follow Jesus.  Mind you, some are.  More than half of my seminary classmates were people who left behind successful careers to become ministers of the Gospel.  There were nurses, accountants, an attorney, several teachers, corporate officers, a high school principal.  Some of them lost spouses because of their call . . . their spouse couldn’t understand what would make anyone give up a successful, stable, and well-paid career for the ministry. They didn’t understand how strong Jesus’ call on us was, and is.   But for most people, following Jesus doesn’t require that kind of sacrifice.  

But we are all called to leave behind anything which holds us back from fully following Jesus.  That requires hard work.  That requires much more than being able to quote Scripture, or show up on Sundays.  It requires being the kind of person who attracts others to whatever it is that makes us the way we are - a caring, loving, giving person, a non-judgmental person, a person about whom others say things like, “I want to be like her when I grow up!”  If we are to be fishers for people, we have to have the right bait.   We can have all the evangelism tools in the world.  We can have the best preaching and the best website and the best post cards and the best worship experiences and the best Bible Studies and the best small groups and the best music in town, but if we have not love, we have no bait.  If we have not love, we will be like the fishermen in the story, who said “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing.”   In his first letter to the church in Corinth Paul makes it clear to us just how important it is to have love, for he said “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.”  (1 Corinthians 13:1-3)  

If we would follow Jesus, we have to leave behind all of those things that hold us back - our worries, our fears, our favorite sins (yes, we have favorite sins, like maybe over-dosing on Girl Scout cookies).  You may be saying to yourself, “Well, I’m certainly not good enough.  I can’t fish for people when I have so many things I need to change about myself.”  But here’s the thing . . . you are good enough to fish for people just the way you are.  It is our very imperfections that makes us so good at attracting others.  As Nadia Bolz-Weber said in "Accidental Saints: Finding God in All the Wrong People,”  “Never once did Jesus scan the room for the best example of holy living and send that person out to tell others about him. He always sent stumblers and sinners. I find that comforting.”  

Look at who Jesus chose to be his disciples!  Look at his followers in the early days of the church - Paul comes to mind.  And when they went fishing, they fished for all people, not just particular sorts of people. They were’t targeting a particular demographic.   They didn’t care about filling the pews with folks who could afford to help support the ministry.  They fished for men and women, rich people and poor, young people and old, healthy and sick, housed and homeless, free and slaves, law abiding people and criminals, people everyone despised and people everyone admired.  In the early days of the church, their very ordinariness helped to attract others, to see what it was that made these very diverse groups of people go out to help others for no payment, no benefit to themselves - even people who weren’t part of their church.  They didn’t worry about whether someone deserved to be helped - they tried to help everyone.  They went out telling others that God loves them, no matter who they are or what they do for a living or what they have done in their lives.   And the more they spoke of living in God’s kingdom on earth, and following the commandments Jesus had given his disciples,  and showed others what that meant by the way they lived their lives, loving and caring for everyone they encountered, bar none, the more people were attracted to this new way of living.  Their neighbors came to see what it was that had changed people they had known for years.  Strangers came to find out what why these people cared about them.   Everyone was welcome - everyone, even the worst sinners - and the church grew and grew as they continued to carry the Good News of God’s love for all the world.  Any fisherman will tell you, the better the bait, the better the catch, and for Christians, the bait is love.  

When we go from this place today, let us consider the world our fishing hole.  Let us use the bait of our love for others to attract people, all people, into Christ’s family.  All we have to do is follow Jesus’ instructions to love one another and the fish will jump into our nets.