Sunday, January 27, 2008 - Catching for Jesus

One bumper sticker said, “A bad day fishing is far better than a good day at work!” It rings true for those who fish for recreation and fun. However, for Jesus’ first disciples, they were fishing for a living! Jesus said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” --Or, fisher of men in the older translations, to play on the word fishermen. (Matthew 4: 12-23)

Last week, Jesus issued an invitation in the Gospel of John: “Come and see!” This week, in Matthew, it is a simple “Follow me!” The suddenness and abruptness of this call to discipleship led many theologians to call this an epiphany story. It does not offer any insights to the conversion experience nor the immediate response of the fishermen brothers.

Usually, rabbinical students sought out their teachers and attached themselves to them. However, this rabbi Jesus took the initiative and called fishermen to be his followers. In fact these were less than ideal candidates to be his students. Fishing as an occupation at that time came in very low in the social and economic ranking. To modern scholars, it remains a puzzle as to why Jesus would choose these illiterate fishermen to be his first followers. Perhaps, Jesus called them not to study as scholars, but to follow a new way of life.

It is worth noting that they left everything to follow Jesus not because Jesus has promised to give them something, like going to heaven when they die or have a good life on earth or even the forgiveness of sins, but Jesus called them to do a job, that is, to fish for people. Perhaps, we in the church have a misguided notion of following Jesus. We make a decision to follow Jesus for what we may get from him, rather than being called to a task. Calling has little to do with rewards, but it has everything to do with a vocation!

One commentator, Thomas G. Long (Matthew), writes:
In these stories of the calling of the disciples, then, Jesus disrupts family structures and disturbs patterns of working and living. He does so, however, not to destroy but to renew. Peter and Andrew do not cease being brothers; they are now brothers who do the will of God (Matt. 12:50). James and John do not cease being sons; they are now not only the children of Zebedee but also the children of God. All four of these disciples leave their fishing nets, but they do not stop fishing. They are now, in the nearness of the kingdom of heaven, fishers for people. Their past has not been obliterated; it has been transformed by Jesus’ call to follow. [p. 43]

Another commentator (Hare) on Matthew suggests that the fishermen “represent all future believers whom Jesus irresistibly summons to follow him. It may not be necessary for all to leave professions and possessions behind, but all must leave their world behind and enter the new world into which Jesus invites them… At a certain level of reality it is undoubtedly true that we choose Jesus as our master. We choose to be present where he is proclaimed and his words studied. We choose to read the Gospels and ponder their significance. At a deeper level of our being, however, we acknowledge, if only in retrospect, that the reverse has been true. In all our searching we were being sought. The one whom we choose is the one who first chose us.” [pp. 30-31] -- like the way our kitten picked us at the animal shelter more than we knew at the time!

Jesus first calls us to follow him. How? People become believers by the power of Jesus’ word; they follow him because he has spoken to them, and his word generates faith. For Matthew, Jesus’ call to discipleship was spoken not only to a few disciples in first-century Galilee but to the whole church throughout history. We hear the same words today, “Follow me!” Those are not my words. Those words of Jesus call you personally the same way they called the fishermen to be fisher of men! Each one of us, along with Peter, Andrew, James and John, becomes disciple of Jesus Christ, because of the power of the Word to call us out of our old lives and into the new. It is a call we need to hear every day of our lives.

To explore the imagery further, we need to ask, “How do we fish for people?” For recreational and sport fishing, people use hooks and baits, depending on what kind of fish they are after. If we look realistically at our own effort of evangelism, what are our targets? How likely will we be successful in recruiting outsiders and non-Christians? Do we know how to reach out to people with no religious memories or heritage? Do we know how to talk without using our religious jargons? Are we too shy to knock on doors or stand in shopping malls to talk to others about our faith? Or, should we concentrate on re-connecting with inactive or lapsed Anglicans in our community? Certainly, evangelism does not mean snatching Christians from other churches and switching them into ours! Last week, we were asked the question, “Are we confident enough to invite others to come and see what is happening in our church?” Would we recommend ourselves to others in the first place? Would they find us boring or attractive?

Speaking of “boring” -- that is what we are usually accused of by our older children. It could mean a number of things: that we are doing something beyond their level of comprehension, something not interesting or relevant to them, singing songs and playing music that are foreign to them. Perhaps our church culture is very alien to their everyday culture. Perhaps we need to ask them to help us define excitement. We need more than a once a year “youth service” to pay lip service to youth participation in worship. We need a strong strategy to help them grow up to be Disciples of Christ and regular adult worshippers. After all, they are already inside our doors; except that they stay downstairs until they graduate and never come back. When and how do we fail them? How can we catch their imagination? What are we not doing now?

In fact, the imagery of fishing is not very attractive, because these fishermen were not using hooks and baits, they used nets! The fish did not have a choice of “to bite or not to bite”, or “to eat or not to eat”. They were dragged ashore or into a boat, from being alive to their deaths! Are we to suggest that parents should drag their (grand)children to church? Or should we coerce more people into church, whether they want to come or not? I do not believe in force or coercion. I am not a pushy salesman with strong arm tactics. Perhaps there lies our problem; we are too polite to do real work of evangelism?

In this case and others, to be caught is not a good thing, like being captured by police, or by the enemies or terrorists. We lose control, our freedom and choice in those instances. The coming of the kingdom of heaven is also out of our control. We are not in charge of that process. The Spirit of God is. Yet, in a positive sense of the word, we are captured or captivated by love! Indeed, the relationship of love is often something out of our control. “We fall in love!” It happens to us. When its power takes over fully, it means a change in life; for marriage is as much a dying to the old life as it is the beginning of a new one. That new life brings with it a group of new relatives, whether we like them or not. Being captured by Jesus’ irresistible call meant an end to the old life and relations for the fishermen, but they were given a new life as followers of Jesus.

Perhaps we need to understand that we too are fish dragged out of the water in the nets to die. Yet, God promises us resurrection and a new life, a new family and a new future. It is all under God’s control in Jesus. That’s why we are called to follow Jesus and put our trust in him. It is okay to be caught by God's net of love.

It is easy to say that our task is to share a faith that is exciting enough to be contagious! It is like recommending your favorite restaurants, the best place to shop or talking about your favorite books, movies or sports team. However, we are used to separating our faith and religion into different compartments. We are reluctant to discuss them unless it is with the already converted. We are afraid to be seen as a fanatic!

Perhaps we seldom talk about evangelism, because it is not in our vocabulary -- it belongs to other churches. Anglican clergy are usually trained to be nurturers of the faith and good at preaching to the converted. We are not equipped to bring outsiders to active faith in Christ through a transformation process of conversion. We are more interested in institutional survival and financial stability than taking risks in looking into the spiritual needs of those who are not part of the insiders’ group. We often work under the assumption that: “If we serve our own people well, outsiders will see this and want to become one of us”. But how will they know? Who will tell them? What good reasons would compel them to be like us and join us? Will our children and grandchildren automatically grow up to be adult worshippers and disciples like us? What else need to happen?

Finally, our mission is more than just catching people for Jesus. The activities of Jesus’ ministry are summarized in the last verse of our text: “teaching, preaching, and healing”. We are called to share in the same ministry in words and deeds. We, not just the priests and clergy, but all who are called to share in the ministry of Christ as his followers, certainly including all you lay people.
In order for us to be "50 and growing" as a parish, we need to examine ourselves by asking some of these tough questions now. We need to understand what draws people to the church in the first place is their spiritual hunger for an authentic encounter with God. Through the ministry of teaching, preaching and healing, we will bring Christ to people’s lives and honestly ask them to follow Christ! Thanks be to God. Amen.

Fr Victor + (www.stjd.ca)