Learning to Fish – The Jesus Way

Luke 5: 1 – 11

 

On my “God time” playlist – the music I listen to as I am preparing to lead worship each Sunday – there is a track by Rhonda Vincent, “Fishers of Men.”  It’s a capella in four-part harmony and reminds me a little bit of classic barbershop quartet music crashing into bluegrass.

 

The refrain goes like this:
Rise and follow me, 

I’ll make you worthy.

Rise and follow me,

I’ll make you fishers of men.

 

The verses retell a story that may be familiar to you – Jesus calling the first disciples, Simon who would eventually be known as Peter, and James and John, the sons of Zebedee.

 

In Luke’s gospel, the story of this call is combined with a story about teaching the crowds and about fishing.  And maybe that is how you remember it – but across all four gospels, this story about calling Simon, James and John varies. In Mark and Matthew, Jesus is teaching in the area of the Sea of Galilee and comes upon the men and calls them, and they follow. He tells them that they will fish for people. It’s a pretty short story.

 

In John’s gospel, James and John are followers of John the Baptist, and upon meeting Jesus, they go find Simon and all three follow Jesus from that point forward. 

 

And here in Luke’s gospel, the calling of the first disciples is accompanied by the story of an amazing catch of fish – a parallel story about an amazing catch of fish is found at the END of John’s gospel, after Jesus has been resurrected and appears to the disciples.

 

I think it is helpful to challenge the way stories have “lodged” in our memory – it is helpful to reconstruct the differences between the gospel accounts. It’s helpful to remember that lyrics or teaching often relies on a composite of the whole story rather than the specifics of different accounts. Living with scripture means continued study, with deep dives for clarity, preferably with others who will support and challenge our reading and remembering. This is how scripture functions as a part of that four-legged stool of Methodism known as the Wesleyan quadrilateral.

 

Ask why about the differences. When we dig deep like that, stories reveal more to us. And we learn to seek answers. This is part of our shared work as disciples following Jesus. 

 

In this week’s text, as I have read it with others, digging deeply, I think this story about fishing further establishes Jesus’ ministry as one that will seek to liberate the captive and give sight to the blind. This story about fish is about faith and power. And it is about justice, too.

 

Last week, Jesus was in Nazareth causing discomfort as he disrupted expectations in his hometown. From there he moved to Capernaum, where he cast out a demon in the local synagogue while teaching on the Sabbath. While in Capernaum, he went to Simon’s house where he healed Simon’s mother-in-law. The text actually says he “rebuked” her fever – as if scolding it right out of her.  This healing is probably an important backdrop to Jesus’ interaction with Simon in today’s text.

 

Simon and James and John are fishermen in the business of fishing. This is not their hobby.  It is their livelihood. And in first century Palestine, fishing was hard work. It was “bottom of the social ladder” work.  Fishermen would have been taxed to go out onto the lake before they ever cast a net.  And then they would have been taxed on their catch. So it isn’t a revenue neutral endeavor to fish for a living – there is an investment made just to get out on the water.

 

The men have had a bad night – as morning light grows, they are on the shore cleaning their nets.  They would probably have fished at night with nets that were not visible to the fish in the darkness. No point fishing in the daytime if the fish can see the nets.  So they are packing up their operation, going home that day not just empty – handed, but probably a little more financially strapped than they had arrived the evening before.

 

Jesus has a crowd gathering around him as he prepares to teach – locals have seen healings and the exorcising of demons happening nearby. 

 

As the crowd builds, Jesus commandeers one of the boats on the lakeshore, putting out a little way – perhaps to improve his ability to project his voice to the gathered.  We might assume that the boat he has commandeered is Simon’s, and that Simon is actually in the boat, maybe “piloting” because when Jesus is finishes teaching, he tells Simon to take the boat out a little further.

 

Remember that Simon is a fisherman. He knows how to fish. He knows that the best net fishing happens at night. And Jesus, who is not a fisherman, is telling Simon to give it another go. Put your nets out in deep water.

 

What do you think Simon might be thinking here?

 

So…Jesus. I know you healed my mother-in-law and all. 

I saw you do some powerful things back in town. 

But it’s daylight, and I fish for a living. This is not the time. 

But if you say so….

 

You heard the story - Simon drops the net and when he draws it back in, it is so full that another boat has to come out to retrieve the abundant catch. In fact, as the two boats draw near shore, they are sinking. Simon drops to his knees asking Jesus to leave, proclaiming himself unworthy. 

 

Jesus speaks some familiar words to Simon and to his friends James and John. 

Jesus says, Do not be afraid. 

 

These are words that proceed revelation, that proceed prophetic power time and time again in scripture.

 

Do not be afraid. From now on you will be catching people.

 

And they drop their nets and follow.

 

Perhaps they left behind the catch of a lifetime…I kind of assume they had others there to take care of that, but maybe not. From that moment forward, they were indeed fishers of people.

 

If you’re like me, that idea of being a fisher of men (a fisher of people) was taught as a form of evangelism.  We’re going to go “catch” people for Jesus! 

 

But there is a prophetic history in scripture around the language of fishing for people. 

 

Jeremiah 16: 16 – 17 reads:

¹⁶ I am now sending for many fishermen, says the Lord, and they shall catch them, and afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and every hill and out of the clefts of the rocks. ¹⁷ For my eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from my presence, nor is their iniquity concealed from my sight.

 

And Amos 4: 1 – 2 reads:

Hear this word, you cows of Bashan
    who are on Mount Samaria,
who oppress the poor, who crush the needy,
    who say to their husbands, “Bring something to drink!”
² The Lord God has sworn by his holiness:
    The time is surely coming upon you
when they shall take you away with hooks,
    even the last of you with fishhooks.

 

You see, in some of the prophetic tradition, “fishing” was the way that one referred to rooting out the unjust, the oppressors. 

 

All of my life, I’ve heard “fishers of men” and thought about winning souls for Jesus…I’ve never really thought about this as the work of finding those who are creating the unjust systems. 

 

But based on the big arc of the Jesus story, I recognize that Jesus was fishing among the unjust NOT to shame or criticize them but to invite them to growth and a change of perspective. And based on the arc of the big Jesus story, I know he wasn’t always successful, but along the way, he did change hearts and minds.

 

Jesus engaged in this kind of fishing for people for the purpose of helping them to hear about what it means to be salt and light.

 

Jesus engaged in this kind of fishing for people, inviting them to show mercy to those that they, by political position or religious position, had the power to oppress.

 

Jesus engaged in this kind of fishing for people for the purpose of changing the balance of love in the world.

 

I’ve thought about that a lot this week – this idea that the work of discipleship has something to do with fishing around for the oppressor. Seeking out those who are marring the Kin-dom of God in our midst.

 

Such fishing is the work of calling IN rather than calling OUT. 

In a world that has adopted a fondness for cancel culture and us/them, the work of fishing for people as in this text involves spending time with unexpected people. Not to condemn or shame them but to call them to something different, something better, something higher, something that changes the world. 

 

Last Sunday, Kris referenced an image of people drawing boxes around themselves to keep others out while Jesus moves his way through the world erasing those line.

Think about it.

Jesus sat down with the tax collectors. He didn’t avoid hard conversations about doing the right thing. He went to the least and the lost and the sinner and the orphan and the widow, yes. But he also went to the Centurion. He called Levi the tax collector to become one of his disciples. In Matthew’s gospel Jesus talked about coming NOT to hang out with the righteous but to root out the sinners. 

 

That work isn’t about casting these folks OUT.  Already in Luke’s gospel we are seeing that Jesus is going about the work of proclaiming a season of Jubilee for all. A time when debts would be cancelled, mortgages ended, land returned. Figuratively, at least. The work that Jesus is about calls people IN – into righteousness, away from injustice and oppression toward the good.

 

I’ve also had a perspective shift about the scale of this work this week. 

The social and political world we live in calls us to imagine the influence of the majority.

But we follow Jesus who talks about the small amount of yeast required to leaven a loaf of bread. We follow Jesus who talks about the tiny mustard seed that grows the wildly productive bush. We follow Jesus who talks about affecting the people around us – being salt and light right where we are.

 

And as I sat in a meeting this week, this quote by Shane Claiborne, author and religious community leader, caught my ear:

 

When I look at Jesus, I don’t just see a way of believing, but I see a way of living in the world. I don’t think Jesus just came to make believers, but to form disciples, and to shape us into people that live differently in the world.

 

Beloved, I know that for some right now the world seems like a very scary place.

 

And I want to encourage us not to live in a spirit of fear, but to listen for the ways we are called to sit with those we don’t fully understand in order to share a glimpse of a different way. I want to encourage us to be people who call others in and not out. 

 

I’ve not always done that well – I know I have work to do. But I’m going to do the work. Will you join me?

 

And I am going to remember that we also have permission to knock the dust off our feet in the places where that doesn’t work, but we’ll get to that text later.

 

May it be so.

Amen.