Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Church Episcopal
January 21, 2018
3 Epiphany
B
When
I was a child, there was a lake just down the path from my grandparents’ house
in the mountains. My guess is that if I
went back now, that body of water would look more like a glorified pond. But to my 7 year old self, standing on the
dirt we thought of as a beach, the water was plenty adequate to count as a
lake.
Every
year, our grandfather would stock the lake with fish. Do not ask me what
kind. I haven’t a clue. My brother, sister and I would throw handfuls
of dry dog food into the water to make the fish jump, then we would use cheap,
plastic fishing poles to catch the fish.
Amazingly enough, the system worked and we were quite successful. Most of the fish were thrown back, but
occasionally we would get to keep the fish and our grandfather would clean and
cook them. We felt quite accomplished,
when actually our grandfather had insured a successful catch. All we had to do was show up with the dog
food and a fishing pole.
Then
there is the way my brother-in-law fishes.
Joe, Don’s younger brother, married into a family that takes their
fishing very seriously. They would never
use dog food for bait! For Joe’s
in-laws, fishing requires expensive equipment, high quality bait, and being in
the right place at the right time on the water.
The competition is fierce among family members as each person seeks to
outdo the other in size and number of fish caught. Fish that are not the right size or kind are
tossed back. At the end of the day, the
fish are brought in, counted and weighed so that a winner can be determined.
This
morning, Jesus calls Simon, Andrew, James and John away from their work fishing
and mending nets and says, “Follow me.”
Jesus tells the four men that he will make them fish for people. Exactly what kind of fishing does Jesus have
in mind? Does Jesus mean the kind of
fishing where you throw dog food into an over stocked pond and are guaranteed
to catch something? Or does Jesus mean the kind of fishing that is competitive
sport and where undesirable fish are thrown back? Given that Simon, Andrew, James, and John
were fishermen by profession, fishing was neither a childhood game for them,
nor a serious hobby. Fishing was their
life.
In
case you can’t tell, I am not very comfortable with this whole idea of fishing
for people. For starters, bait is used
to get the fish’s attention, and when swallowed, the bait is gone. If we are using bait to entice others to follow
Jesus, that bait is the gospel, which does not disappear when swallowed. Secondly, we are not trying to hook or net
people against their will. Rather we are
trying to use our lives to show others a joyful, grounded way to follow Jesus so
they will want to follow as well. And
lastly, we’re not interested in cutting anyone up and frying them for
supper. We want others to join us in
following Jesus so that together we can make this world a bit more like the
Kingdom of God. So, what are we to make
of this whole fishing business?
For
Simon, Andrew, James, and John, fishing was their life. So, this is what I think Jesus is really saying
to the four fishermen. “Follow me and I
will teach you how to use your life, your whole life, with all of your skills
and your passions, to show others the Kingdom of God.” The four men happened to be fishermen, as
many people were in the first century if they lived near large bodies of
water. The idea of fishing for people
caught on in the first century as a way to talk about making followers of Jesus
because so many people were trained and skilled at fishing. But what I believe Jesus really wanted was to
teach people to use their whole lives for the purposes of growing the kingdom
of God.
Jesus
looks at each of us today and says, “Follow me and I will teach you how to use
your whole life to grow the Kingdom of God.”
Jesus wants to show us how to use our skills and passions as an
engineer, a teacher, a business owner, a cook, a plumber, a painter, an
electrician, a parent, a nurse, or whatever we might be, to grow the Kingdom of
God. If you happen to be good at
fishing, great. Jesus will use those
skills. But there is hope for the rest of us!
Today
is our Annual Meeting Sunday, and a day we stop and think about who we are as a
church and what we are doing to grow the Kingdom of God. One of the things we do at the Annual Meeting
is approve a budget, which has lots of numbers reflecting income and
expenses. I wonder what the Annual
Meeting and Christ Church would be like if, rather than have a budget with
income and expense numbers, we had a budget based on the skills and passions we
have that we can use to make the world look more like the Kingdom of God. For starters, the income side of the budget
would be enormous. We would never be
able to say, “We can’t afford that” because we have an incredible talent bank
to draw on here. But what would the
expense side of the budget look like?
How would we choose to invest the remarkable skill and talent that we
have at Christ Church? Would we balance
the budget carefully as we do with the finances, evenly distributing our
resources among the many opportunities we have for making a gospel difference
in the world? Or would we take some
risks and budget more than we believe we can ever 8do on our own because we
trust Jesus to show us how to follow?
When
Jesus tells Simon, Andrew, James, and John that he will make them fish for
people, Jesus is not telling them that the work will be easy because they
already know what they are doing. Jesus
is telling his four new followers that if they follow him, and take following
him seriously, they will use their entire lives in new and challenging ways to
make a gospel difference in the world.
On this Annual Meeting Sunday, Jesus calls us to come to this special
place called Christ Church to be renewed and reminded of who we are as Jesus’
followers, so that Jesus can lead us out into the world where he will use our
whole lives to make the Kingdom of God come near.
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