Spiritual Fishing

"Spiritual Fishing"

Mark 1:16-20
January 25, 2009

After John was arrested, Jesus went to Galilee preaching the Message of God: "Time's
up! God's kingdom is here. Change your life and believe the Message
Passing along the beach of Lake Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew net-
fishing. Fishing was their regular work. Jesus said to them, "Come with me. I'll make a
new kind of fisherman out of you. I'll show you how to catch men and women instead of
perch and bass." They didn't ask questions. They dropped their nets and followed.
A dozen yards or so down the beach, he saw the brothers James and John, Zebedee's
sons. They were in the boat, mending their fishnets. Right off, he made the same offer.
Immediately, they left their father Zebedee, the boat, and the hired hands, and followed.

I’ve looked over my past sermons to see if I had ever preached on this passage, and,
oddly enough I hadn’t, in some ten years in the ministry. I kind of wondered why, but
the more I thought of it, the more I realized that it probably had to do with the fishing
metaphor that Jesus uses here—the truth of the matter is that I just don’t get the sport
of fishing. And let me just tell you, I tried, or at least my father tried to get me to get it,
and I never did. My family used to own a home in East Texas on one of the best bass
fishing lakes in the country, and every once in a while, Dad would prod me to go out
fishing with him…and I just couldn’t get into it. It just bored me to tears. Now, I feel
sorry for my Dad, trying to get to me connect that way, though we certainly connected
in other ways—he just wanted to share something he loved with me, but I just didn’t get
it. Some of that is youth, and some of that is just me—I still don’t get it, though I know
others have a great passion for fishing. I just never have, and that is OK, I think.

And to be honest, I’m not even sure I have the kind of passion for spiritual fishing that
Jesus wants out of his disciples, the kind that he asks of Simon and Andrew in this text.
Maybe that is reason why I’ve chosen not to preach on this text—maybe it wasn’t the
literal fishing, but the spiritual fishing that turned me off so much, to the point of
avoiding preaching on this text. I grew in a very secular, non-religious home, with my
parents not being particularly interested in religion or faith—I always tell the story that
when I “got religion” at 13, I had to ask my parents what denomination we belonged to,
and I remember, my mother saying something like “Baptist, I guess.” And I grew up
overseas in a country that was 90% Muslim and 10% Christian, and the woman who
took care of me was a faithful Muslim woman who prayed towards Mecca five times a
day. And some of my family and friends have no faith, or a different faith than mine,
and so I’ve done some unusual things, like a Jewish wedding for some Jewish friends of
mine, because they didn’t know of any rabbis they wanted to actually do the ceremony.
And so when I hear Jesus telling me to fish for people, to throw out spiritual nets to
capture my friends, family, and fellow persons of faith, though not of the Christian faith,
its awkward to me, at the very least.

And then there is other thing, the other truth for me that I was sharing with the book
study group last Wednesday, and that is I have to name the reality that there are few
folks I know who I think faith, and especially the Christian faith, the faith that gives me
such strength and joy, as much as it challenges me, that for some folks the gift I
treasure so much is actually a terrible, terrible burden for them. Most of the folks I’m
thinking of are those for whom Christianity has become toxic brew of self-hatred or
intolerance, or self-righteousness. For some people, for reasons that go back to family
history, or a particular brand of negative Christianity they grew up with, or whatever, for
some, faith seems to make them meaner to others, and worse, makes them hate
themselves because they believe they aren’t what they are supposed to be, or they
seem so intolerant of others, always sure of the truth that they possess, and quick to
make the circle of God’s welcome and love, smaller and smaller. I can’t tell you how
many times I’ve sat with others who have experienced the toxic side of faith, especially
from gay and lesbian community, who are trying to find peace with themselves, and for
whom religion was the poison that they can’t seem to get out of their system, leading to
a lot of personal dysfunction. What has given me so much life seems to have been
such a death dealing thing for them…it sometimes stuns me. There have been
moments when I thought maybe it would be best for them to move on, because their
struggle with their faith is so all encompassing, so negative, that leaving it behind would
ease their emotional and spiritual burden. The net that had trapped them was leading
to their death, not their life, and so maybe it was best to release them back into the
water so that they could live again.

In a second, I’ll share with you why I feel like that is something God would want for some
people, but I want to get back to our text today, so we can maybe sketch out a way for
us to be faithful to Christ, while honoring those for whom our faith will never be their
faith. In our text today, Jesus is all about doing what the prophets of old did in the
Jewish tradition—calling the people to repent, to turn around now, to do the good that
God requires, but he adds something different, a new element, this idea that the
kingdom of God is near, right at hand, on the very tip of the tongue, so to speak. Jesus
wants to remind his earliest listeners that though King Herod and the Romans have
their kingdoms, their empires, in reality, the only kingdom that really matters is right at
hand, right in the life and words of this itinerant preacher from Galilee. It’s quite a
moment, the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, according to the Gospel of Mark, and it marks
the whole of Jesus’ ministry crystallized in a phrase or two, connecting the traditional
Jewish call to repent, to go another direction towards wholeness and justice, and the
new call to pay attention to the in breaking of God’s world into our own, mundane,
human world.

It’s the repent part of this call that has always fascinated me, and moved me the most,
because I know he speaks to me, and to most of us—there is so much that we do need
to walk away from in our lives, moments of greed, hatred, envy, lust, meanness, and
unkindness, cynicism, so much that draws us away from God and from each other. We
often have such negative associations with the word “repent:” I have an image of a long
haired, bearded man carrying a sign board at Mardi Gras, or some city, or maybe one
of those country preachers that used to visit the free-speech area at my college—
screaming at us to repent, repent, repent, threatening us with hell if we didn’t repent.
And yet, that preacher is right—we all need to repent, we all need to turn around, go
another direction, and we spend our whole lives turning ourselves around when we get
off track. And the root of Jesus’ call to repent is in the deep soil of justice, this belief,
this core principle of Jesus that our relationship with God is only as good as our
relationship with other people. It isn’t a call to be self-righteous, or intolerant, or, worse,
a call to hate oneself, or to feel oneself to be eternally unworthy of God’s love, as if
God loved us because we are worthy, when, in fact, we are loved by God because God
is love, period—as if God could do any different. More than anything, it’s just a reality
check—we do need to take care of our lives and our relationships because what God is
doing in this world is not somewhere out there in the future—its right now, and it was
right then, the moment Jesus uttered those words. The kingdom of God is near, and its
as a near as the Jesus that walked among the disciples thousands of years ago, and
that realm, that kingdom is as near to us as the person right next to you. I get that we
sometimes talk as if the kingdom of God was some sort of wooly-wooly idea that we can’
t really get our heads around, but ultimately what Jesus means by that term is that God
is here, right here, present at this moment, working in this world, in this moment, doing
justice in this moment, right now, and right here.

What that kingdom, that realm that is both here, and almost here, what that realm asks
us of is to take it seriously, and to consider the real actual ways that God really is
moving in this world. And we are asked to tell the good news that the world has not
been abandoned, that we are not alone in this world, that none of us are alone,
because the Spirit of God, the one who has given birth to this kingdom, is as close to
us as the air we breathe. We are asked to give away that good news, to tell the world
that it is loved, that God is love, and that we are given the beautiful task of loving as
God has loved us. But the other piece of this metaphor, this casting out the nets, is
that I think the other side of that is, is that this catch and release program, because, of
course, when we take fish out of water, and not return them back, they die. That’s not
what the Gospel is about—it’s not about killing us, of course—it’s about giving us life so
that we can really swim, so that we can really be free.

Now, having said that, I do think we need to really think about what it means to give
away the good news in ways that respect others, that honors, that names the reality
that we Christians are not only ones with glimpses of the kingdom of God in this world.
All of you who were at the annual meeting a few weeks ago know that I am asking us to
reach out to others this year, to share the good news of the Gospel as manifested in
our little congregation, in deeds, as we have always done, but also in words. It’s an
important moment in the life of our congregation but what I don’t want us to do is to
think that we are being asked to do is tell others that we—and we only—have the truth
about who God is and how God works in this world. I believe that Christ is the savior of
the world—and I really do mean the whole world. I think there is a way of asking people
to be on the journey with us, without having to question or demean all the other
journeys out there.

So, I would say this, as people who are asked to fish for the sake of the realm of God,
as people who struggle with fishing itself, I would say this:

First, we really do need to remember that this is God’s world, and that everyone is God’
s child, each and every one of us, whether we are Christians, or Jews, or Hindus, or
Muslims, and even those who don’t believe that their Creator exists. All of them are to
be respected, to be heard, to not be dismissed as people who are deluded or demonic,
or deceptive. Just like us, they have come to their faith and spiritual journeys through a
combination of location, and family history, and tradition, and maybe even just plain old
chance. Maybe, if we did more listening than talking to those whom we do not share a
common spiritual journey with us, maybe we could touch and taste God in a whole
different way, and see how God has reached out to others in different places, through
different prophets, and different circumstances. The hardest thing in the world is to
simply listen to another human being, and to allow them to share their own truth, their
understanding, without preparing a response, or a rebuttal. If our assumption is that
God is with this person too, then maybe we can hear and honor the Spirit within that
person, and see how God might meet each of us in the hearing of their sacred story.

But the second thing I think we need to remember is that there are really people in this
world who do need to hear the good news that we believe God has shared with us in
this place—that God is love, that Christ is that love made flesh and bone, and that
really, all of us, are included in the invitation to be part of that divine love, an invitation
being made to all of us in this moment. There are people in my life that I know need
this church, that their spiritual and emotional lives would benefit from being here,
because of what God is doing in this place and what they seem to be searching for.
You know, the church has done so much damage to kingdom of God, which are two
different things, the church and the kingdom of God, mind you, with some overlap,
thank goodness, that maybe our work is to do some of repair work alongside the
Christ. I’m tired of telling people that maybe they should go on from the Christian faith
so that they can rescue some semblance of dignity and self-worth and thoughtfulness,
and a million other things—it’s time to help God bind up the wounds made by those well-
meaning souls who think faith and a love for science don’t go together, and that faith
and real inclusivity are not really compatible with each other. We do have good news
here, and yet, so do others, in different ways, but what I think God wants us to do is to
share that good news with those in our community who need us, us, in particular.

When I was about 15 or so, my Baptist minister at Bethany Baptist Church in Milam,
Texas, received an invitation from my father to go bass fishing with him. John, as I will
call him, accepted the invitation, and I remember the day they went out in the bass boat
together. John was a great young man, fresh out of seminary with a wonderful wife and
a new child, and they took me under their wing at the church. John wasn’t the best
preacher I have ever heard, nor particularly charismatic or very much at ease with
people, but he was authentic and smart, and there wasn’t a fake bone in his body. After
they arrived back from an afternoon of fishing at Toledo Bend Reservoir, there was no
conversions to report, no epiphanies had by John or my father.   I don’t know how deep
the conversation got between those two men, but I do know this: my father, who didn’t
have much use for religion or preachers, my father came out of that experience
different--I certainly sensed that. He still wasn’t interested in matters of faith, or my
preacher’s brand of Christianity, and years later, I would have my own trouble with what
John was selling, so to speak, but I did notice something different: I noticed that just
being out there on the lake with this good man and his authentic faith and personality, I
think it did my father a world of good, and I think it cracked open the door for my father
to eventually accept my own journey into ministry.   All John had to do was be who he
was, to be honest and authentic, and unpretentious, and open about what mattered
most to him, which was his faith. I think that was a huge gift to my father, and to me,
because John brought us both closer to the kingdom of God, just by being himself, and
being open to my father’s experience of having lost his faith in God and honoring that
real and true story.   That did more than anything to gain my father’s respect, and
challenge his negative assumptions about us Christians, most of which were probably
true, sadly. I am thankful for these two fishermen, my father and John, who both taught
me a lot about God, though in such different but good ways. To become a good fisher
of women and men, we might have to learn something from the fish, maybe more then
they could ever learn from us. But first, of course, we have to get into the boat and get
fishin’. Amen.