Sermon 3rd Sunday after Epiphany - Fishers of People

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Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ who asks us to cast and cast again.

            I went on a fishing trip about a year and a half ago now with from friends from seminary. We were able to charter a boat to go out onto Lake Michigan fishing for Lake Salmon and Trout. It was an incredible experience, well, except the getting up at 3 thing so we could drive the hour to the dock and get out on the water by 4:30. But, once we were out there and had a whole bunch of coffee in us it was great. It wasn’t a huge boat, but rather large, it could hold 5-6 rods at a time all trolling through the water. Trolling if you didn’t know is when you hang the rods out over the water and slowly move through the water and the movement of the hook and bait would look and smell like a small swimming fish to the bigger fish we wanted to catch. We took turns waiting for a rod to be bit, and then the crew person would get it set for us and then hand us the rod and we would work to bring in the fish. It was a remarkably successful trip, we each caught 3-4 fish and had multiple fish on lines two or three times.

            I also watched the show Deadliest Catch quite often, and the crab fishing in that show has always intrigued me. You load up this huge contraption called a crab pot, but it’s more of a big square metal frame covered in metal netting with one opening in the side where the crab can get in, but once in they can’t get back out. Inside this pot you load up a bunch of bait and set it out on the ocean floor for a while before picking it back up when it’s full.

            All of these fishing methods are interesting, but they are rather different than the fishing methods that the disciples would have used. The disciple’s methods would have been fishing with a net, but not as we think of a net being pulled through the water, but instead they would have hand thrown nets. The nets would be maybe 10 feet across with a rope attached to them, the disciples would throw them out so they land in a flat circle on top of the water then pulling the rope would make the circle enclose on itself creating a sphere where you hoped that fish would be trapped.

            There are many differences that I see, one, you’re doing all the work yourself, there’s not some boat pulling the rods as you wait, there’s not pot’s sitting on the floor of the sea, it’s you casting, pulling in, seeing if you’ve caught anything, and then casting again. You wouldn’t have sonar to tell you if there were any fish in the area, you would have to trust your knowledge and instincts. Two, there isn’t any bait. You aren’t trying to trick the fish into getting in the net, but trying to cast out to reach them where they are.

            When you use this method of fishing it also requires a lot of maintenance. Your net sinks to the bottom of the lake and catches on things, you then have to repair them, and they aren’t made out of the newest and strongest of nylon cord, it’s hand woven string you are using.

            That’s what’s going on when Jesus reaches the shore in our gospel lesson for today. Simon Peter and Andrew are standing near the edge of the sea, maybe in a boat, but not necessarily in this scene. They are casting, pulling in, hoping there’s something there, and then casting out again. And Jesus sees them and calls to them. “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” He goes on and finds James and John mending their nets after having spent the day casting, pulling in, hoping there’s something, and then casting out again.

            And as I read this I think how have we thought about fishing for people? And I think we do it all wrong. We have been doing it in the bait method, let’s put some bait out there and see if anyone takes it. I’m talking here about the whole church, not Immanuel specifically. I think we’ve said, look at this program, wouldn’t you like to be involved with that. Hey! Doesn’t this book study seem fun. We have a gym here! Come play games with us! Look at our new coffee bar! We’ve got a neato projection system!

            Now there’s nothing wrong with having these things, and maybe it’s one of those or something like it that brought you to church, but I don’t think Jesus had that in mind when he said fish for people. We don’t fish with bait, but with nets, that we have to throw, pull in, hope there’s something there and cast out again.

            The other thought I then have when I think of this text is, what are our nets? Is it a forcible extraction from the sea like a real net? Should we go back to methods of the middle ages forcing people to convert? Again, I don’t think so.

            What does Jesus do after calling Peter, Andrew, James and John. He goes out among the people, throughout Galilee, teaching, proclaiming the good news, and curing every disease and sickness among the people. That is what it means to fish for people.

            The nets that Jesus uses are the good news that He walks amongst us. The good news that in Jesus we are freed from our sins. The good news that in that freedom we can work to help lift others out of the dark places they find themselves stuck in.

            The nets we have are providing a meal to someone in need, giving a quilt to someone who is cold or needs a way to transport their belongings, in smiling at a stranger or neighbor letting them know that everything is not falling apart.

            It’s working through ELCA world hunger to provide farm animals for people in underprivileged countries. In the last year January to January the Sunday School has been collecting money for that Good Gifts program, they raised between offerings and the offering at the Christmas Program over $400 to purchase animals for those in need. That is a net that they have thrown out. And it will be pulled in, and maybe someone will have caught it, maybe we will have changed someone’s life so much that they pick up a book a read about who this Jesus person is. But, maybe it won’t catch anyone. And that’s ok, we pull it in and we cast it out again.

            We cast out not thinking about how if it doesn’t work we are failing and we will give up, but we cast it out again and again and again, trusting that God is at work.

            We cast out, again and again, showing forth the light of Christ, hoping that others will see and in their own way begin to cast on their own, spreading that light until all the world is full.

            We cast out, again and again, because as a people of God caught in Christ’s net of love, grace, and mercy, we know there is no other net we would want to be in and no other net we would want to share.