We get to hear as our old testament lesson today part of the story of Jonah. I love the story of Jonah. I love how ornery he is. How he refuses to do what God asks him to do and how God gets him to do it anyway. The story itself takes a little suspension of doubt but if you can get there then it is wonderful to picture. God asks Jonah to go and take a message to the people of Nineveh and Jonah doesn't want to. He says no. So...God appoints a fish to scoop Jonah up, to sweep him away and to spit him out on the shore of the land that he refused to go to in the first place. The best part of that little story is that God makes a fish, a fisher of men, a phrase from our New Testament lesson today. Really a fisher of one man. And leads Jonah to Niveveh where he gets to try his hand at fishing for people too.
And really for both Jonah and the big fish, it is easy fishing. Native Americans in the Northwest where I come from have stories of water so full of salmon during their runs up the rivers that you could practically just reach in and grab one. Easy as anything, not really even fishing so much as just kind of...being there. That is what it is like for Jonah.
He hates the people of Nineveh. He is mad at God for making him go there but he knows enough, after the fish incident, to just cast his net. Like God told him to. So he goes into the city and halfheartedly he says "repent folks or bad things will happen here" and like salmon jumping right up into the picnic basket the people of Nineveh say ok, you're sent from God, you must know best and they go above and beyond what is expected. They repent, they change their ways, they honor God and Jonah must have just looked around and thought this is like shooting fish in a barrel. It was so easy to get those folks on board, to get them swept up in the message of God. But the text doesn't say that the people of Nineveh believed Jonah and were caught up by Jonah, it says that they believed God. They were swept up by God, it just took Jonah to make it happen.
There are other stories in the bible like this too. A great one is where the disciples were fishing, at least they had been fishing all night, which was common practice, fishing worked better at night or in the very early hours of the morning. But they had been fishing all night and well into the morning and they had caught nothing. Fishing for the day was over, all the boats were in, everyone knew it wasn't the time of day to cast your net but Jesus hollered at the boat and told Simon Peter to cast his net off the other side of the boat. So halfheartedly because he was tired, done working for the day, hungry and didn't want to, Simon Peter cast his net back into the water. And quickly it was so full of fish that they couldn't pull it abroad the boat because it was too heavy. Again the fishing was easy, the fish were swept up by God and all it took was Simon Peter casting a net.
In our gospel lesson today Jesus tells Simon Peter and Andrew to go with him, to follow him and if they do, he will make them fishers of people.
I have never loved the image evoked by fishing for people. Maybe I am a little more squeamish than the average pastor but something about it bothers me. I think of hooks and poles, cleaning tables, coolers. It is unpleasant.
But that isn't how everyone fishes now or how they did back in Jesus' time and it wasn't how the people that Jesus was talking to fished. Really fishing practice since Jesus' time hasn't changed wildly. Like in the story about the disciples above, they used big nets to catch fish then just like many fisherpeople do now. There were huge nets that would be lowered by fishermen and after fish had had opportunity to swim into the range of the net the ends would be gathered up and the fish swept through the water with the boats and eventually swept up into the boats.
In this context then, fish are swept up like that huge school that Simon Peter caught on Jesus' instruction and fish are swept up like Jonah was swept up and taken to Nineveh and fish are even swept up like the people of Nineveh by hearing an inspiring word and following. Fishing for people then isn't so bad, it is more like getting them swept up in who you are and what you are doing than reeling them in, hook line and sinker. They get caught up by God it just takes us to make it happen.
There are so many sermons on this text that go from where we are right now to bait. We have established that our job is to be fishers of people because we carry with us the great message of salvation that Jonah carried and we have to offer the great abundance of love and blessings that Jesus offered Peter, so now...how do we trick people into following us so that we can foist these gifts upon them? How do we hook them? What bait do we use?!
The great news really of today's gospel lesson is that there is no bait. We aren't meant to lure people in, there is no tricking folks into God's fishing nets. Jonah never schemed to get the people of Nineveh on board, he just showed up and spoke the truth. There was only Jonah. And now there is only us. Only our lives. Only our willingness and excitement to be here. To listen to the word of God to walk with the people of the church. To bring people to the font to be baptized and to the table to be fed. There is only us.
I have a cousin...this is kind of a gross story, please brace yourselves. I have a cousin who lives on the San Gabriel river in Texas and he is a big fisherman. Sure, he has a fishing boat and spends some time on lakes but what he loves most is being in a little rowboat, or better yet just in waders in the muddy San Gabriel, fishing for catfish. I remember being a little girl and being faced with one of the mighty catfish that he had caught. Seeing the gaping mouth of one of these huge fish and wondering how a hook would ever work to catch one. How a tiny hook could wrangle such a big fish. So I asked...and the answer is both the gross part of this story and something that still seems a little bit magical to me today. He told me that that wasn't the kind of fishing he did to catch those fish. He said all he needed for catfishing was himself. No pole, no hook, no net and certainly no bait. Just himself.
Catfish, I learned, if you put yourself in their midst and make yourself available to them, will come along and grab right on to your arm, then you just pull them up into the boat. All you need is you! Now the metaphor has to stop there, for a few reasons, but it is a good one up to that point and very true to what Jesus was telling Simon, Andrew, James and John. They didn't bring anything with them. The text says he spoke to them and immediately they dropped their nets and left
their boat and they followed him. Or immediately they left their
father in the boat with the hired men and they followed him.
Immediately. Without delay. Swiftly, quickly, without hesitation, without packing, without lengthy goodbyes, immediately. They saw Jesus, they heard Jesus, they were introduced to what Jesus was doing and they were so
swept up that immediately they followed.
All Jesus needed to sweep them up was him. And he tells them that all they need to become fishers of people is themselves. Their hearts and minds, their gifts and talents, their hopes and fears and honesty and faith. That walking through town with just these things they will gather followers in their midst. And they did, and in so doing a church was born, people were fed and healed, children were loved, widows were helped and communities were strengthened. People were swept up by the disciples being people, just like them, who had a story to share, who had good news, who knew something wonderful. They were swept up by God but it took the everyday disciples to make it happen.
That is what it means and that is what it takes be fishers of people. To walk down the streets with our everyday lives good and bad; with ours fears, hopes, dreams, pains and joys and a story about who God is or what God has done so that others can experience the great gift of being swept up by God. Amen
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