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Century Christian
Church 1301 Tamarack Road, Owensboro, KY 42301, (270) 684-0286, Pastor: Rev. Jim Westmoreland |
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Hooked on Fishing A young pastor from Zimbabwe once wrote: "I'm apart of the fellowship of the unashamed. I have the Holy Spirit power. The die has been cast. I have stepped over the line. I'm a disciple of his. I won't look back, let up, slow down, back away, or be still. My past is redeemed, my present makes sense, my future secure. I'm finished and done with low living, sight walking, smooth knees, colorless dreams, tamed visions, worldly talking, cheap giving and dwarfed goals. I no longer need preeminence, prosperity, position, promotions, plaudits or popularity. I don't have to be first, tops, recognized, praised, regarded or rewarded. I now live by faith, lean in his presence, walk in patience, am uplifted by prayer, and I labor with power." This young pastor was later martyred for his faith in Christ. Daniel Shaw, who tells this story writes, "Be careful around this place. It may look safe and comfortable, but it really is very dangerous, because behind everything here lurks that one who calls us to follow him and fish for people. And if you hang around here long enough he's going to call you!" --Daniel Shaw, "A Dangerous Encounter" Fishing seems like it ought to be a laid back, harmless activity. One of the early Christian symbols was the "sign of the fish." The fish was special for a couple of reasons. One is that Jesus used the image of "catching fish" as a metaphor for reaching people with the gospel message and leading them to be followers of Christ. The other is that the letters of the Greek word for fish, ixthus, make up an acrostic in which each of the letters stand for a word that is part of an early Christian confession of faith. Our bulletin this morning has this explanation of the "sign of the fish" on its cover. These five letters - iota, chi, theta, upsilon, sigma - stand for the words, ihsous, xristos, qeou, uios, swthr, which is the confession, "Jesus Christ God's Son Savior. The fish could be drawn in such a way as to incorporate the very letters of the word for fish in the picture, and this is illustrated on our bulletin cover. But the fish could be drawn in a simplified way that only took two arcing lines that crossed each other at the tail and met at the mouth. For many Christians who were persecuted and martyred for their faith in those early years, the drawing of this simplified fish was a coded way of identifying themselves to each other. One would make an innocent-looking arcing line in the dirt and the other would complete it to identify themselves to the other as believers and followers of Christ. Why such secrecy? Because being a Christian and telling other people about Christ was not politically correct! It wasn't then, and it still isn't today. That is why, when we look at this story that Luke tells us about Jesus beginning his ministry and calling Peter, James and John to follow him, we need to frame it, not in the perspective of convenient and casual commitment, but we need to frame it in the historical context of costly discipleship. In verse 10 Jesus says to Simon, "'Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.' When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him." Both Matthew and Mark have Jesus calling his disciples immediately after his baptism and temptation experience. But in 4:14 ff, Luke describes Jesus returning to Galilee, after he was tempted by the devil in the wilderness, and beginning an extensive preaching-teaching ministry in the synagogues in the Galilean towns in the vicinity of Lake Gennesaret. Luke reports that Jesus began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone. It is Luke that tells us that Jesus is about 30 years old when he began his ministry. Jesus is already actively engaged in a teaching ministry. In v. 38 he heals Simon's mother in law, and in v. 40 Luke tells us about other healings and casting out of demons. Jesus is busy teaching and healing. He is attracting crowds who press to get near him. He spots two boats that have come in from fishing and they are cleaning their nets. One belongs to Simon, and Jesus got into Simon's boat and asked him to push off a little way from shore. From there he sits and teaches the crowds. When he get through he turns to Simon and says, go out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch. It is then we learn that Simon and his partners, James and John, had been out all night and had caught nothing. That seems like it would be a hard time to take directions on how to fish from a carpenter who is sitting in my boat teaching the crowds on the shore about the Kingdom of God! Hoy ve! Simon didn't have a winch motor to lower and raise his nets. It was all done by hand, but he put out into the deep water and let down his nets as Jesus had directed. Then, he couldn't get the nets up by himself! He called for help and the other boat came out and the two boats were almost swamped from the quantity of the catch! Now, Simon, this man who lived to fish and is now knee deep in fish, is overwhelmed, not by fish, but by his creatureliness and sinfulness in the presence of Holy God in the person of Jesus. Moments before, they were tired and despairing because they had worked all night and caught nothing. One of the most beloved composers of all time was dogged with misfortune. He had debt upon debt, despair upon despair. He had a cerebral hemorrhage and was paralyzed on his right side. For four years he could neither walk nor write. The doctors gave up on him. He wrote several operas, but again he fell in debt. At age 60 he thought his life was finished. Then he was challenged by a friend to write a sacred oratorio. He read the Scriptures and decided to work on the oratorio. For 24 days, without eating a crumb, George Frederick Handel worked fanatically to produce the Messiah, which many today consider the greatest oratorio ever written. The prospects of something great happening can look grim. Simon had fished all night and caught nothing. Jesus asked him to let down his nets for a catch. It seemed foolish to do so, because Simon knew there were no fish to catch. "But at your word," he said, "I will let down the nets" (v. 5). --John R. Brokhoff, Preaching the Miracles, CSS Publishing Company, 1991. What does it take to get Hooked on Fishing? Have we ever felt tired, like we have been out fishing all night and caught nothing, or like we have worked hard all our lives and we just don't want to go out in that boat anymore? And Jesus comes to us and says, "put out into the deep water." What are we going to say? Are we going to say no, why don't you go down the beach and ask some other fishermen? We don't do that anymore. And Jesus says, "But you used to. What about Barton Stone and the revivals at Cane Ridge and the thousands of people who became believers and disciples through that ministry and through "Racoon" Smith. Most of the Disciples of Christ churches in Kentucky were started before 1850. What about the people that started all of those churches prior to 1850, that led thousands of people to Christ and baptized them as followers of Jesus? Can we say, We don't do that anymore when other churches are actively reaching out to people with the message and ministry of Christ. What it takes to get hooked on fishing is being obedient to the call of Christ. When we are sold out to him, he takes care of the details. Most of our witnessing is likely to happen in passing moments of conversation--those occasions when we show, in relatively minor ways, who we are and to whom we belong. J. Ellsworth Kalas tells the story of a suburban woman who was playing tennis with her good but quite secular friends. In a conversation break between sets she began referring to something she had read that morning. It would have been easy to say, "I read something this morning ." Instead, with no attempt at piosity, she simply introduced one word: "In my devotional reading this morning." It was not a major soul-winning engagement. It was, however, a true sowing of seed. By a word, she had opened the door for some further conversation. Perhaps our greatest problem in becoming Christ's fishermen is that we are not enough in earnest to grasp the opportunities that come to us; or we are so possessed of the idea that we must say something dramatic and far-reaching that we fail to say the small, immediate and potentially significant thing. To put it in the language of our lesson for the day, most of us really don't act as if we even have a call to "fish." We're out in the waters of human need every day, but we don't seem to know it. The issue is not that we should become more aggressive about sharing our faith. It is that we should be more sensitive to the needs of the world around us, and more sensitive to the subtle prodding of the Holy Spirit. The two sensitivities are wonderfully intertwined. To be sensitive to the Holy Spirit must mean that we will be more sensitive to people and their pain; to be more sensitive to people ought to make us more open to God and his purposes. --J. Ellsworth Kalas, Reading the Signs, "From Empty Nets to Full Lives," CSS, 1988, p. 81-82. We began our scripture readings this morning with the call of the prophet, Isaiah, who responded to God by saying, "Here am I Lord. Send me." Serving God is always about taking his message to others so that they may believe and live in the peace and fullness of God. Paul had responded to God's call to "put out into the deep" in his own life and ministry. He told the Corinthian church how he had preached that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures. He identifies with all of the other apostles and says, "so we preach and so you believed." Paul understood about being hooked on fishing. Jesus had told Simon, James and John that "from now on you will be catching people." What made the difference? Why did they become apostles and servants of God? The answer is what they did next. "They left everything and followed Him." I don't know what God may have you do specifically, but I do know that He wants all of us to say Yes to following Him, to make Him first place in our lives and to leave behind and discard all of the things that keep us from being his willing servant and faithful witness. So, let us not try to tame the Spirit of God in a straightjacket of low expectations. Rather, let the Spirit of God come in to fill us with boldness, courage and the obedience to push out into the deep and let down our nets. Then, and only then will we come to know what it means to be hooked on fishing! |
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