Fish Stories
Yesterday, I was gifted the trust of the pulpit at First Christian Church in Pond Creek, Oklahoma. Here are the words I shared. I’m grateful to the elders for their leadership. The delicious pot-luck and conversation was wonderful.
As we approach the good news of God today, it’s important to remember that this is the season of Epiphany. The time in the liturgical calendar between Christmas and Lent when the Church is focused on “a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience.” That’s the definition of “epiphany.”(1)
When you think about it, epiphanies happen throughout the year. The really important ones, the eye opening, life changing, epiphanies are subtle, humbling, or confessional.
Whether you are in this sanctuary, in a digital sanctuary, or the sanctuary that exists only in your mind, we all seek to experience the good news of God:
That, the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
the Lord’s mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning;
and the LORD’s faithfulness never ends.
As you hear the good news of God in the scripture today, listen for your character in the story.
Once while Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, (Sea of Galilee) and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” Simon answered, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.” When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken; and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said 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.
Luke 5:1-11 (NRSV)
If your spirit is willing, please join me in prayer. Open our ears and our hearts, O God, that our words, meditations, and living will reflect our faith in You, who creates, redeems, and sustains all creation; and our lives. Amen.
Buckle up church. Here we go.
“Grandpa, could we go fishing?”
“Sure, go out to the shed and get the little cooler so we can take some drinks and sandwiches.”
Fishing poles, worms, and cooler in hand a ten year old and his grandpa walk to the pond not far away for an afternoon of fishing. The little pond is in the woods surrounded by overhanging trees, but there is a cleared place where they’ve fished before. The eager ten year old struggles to pinch a worm in half to bait his hook. Grandpa watches the frustration a bit before helping. “Here, do like I showed you before.” With both lines in the water Grandpa offers a final word, “Remember, all you have to do is watch that cork. It’s going to bounce, bob up and down a bit, and when it goes under pull up to hook the fish.”
Not long after Grandpa caught a sunfish. He baited his hook and was fishing again. The ten year old’s cork did just like Grandpa said and finally went under. The boy yanked on the pole with a force that could have pulled out Moby Dick and flung his line, cork, and hook into the brush and small trees behind them. While the boy untangled his line, Grandpa caught another fish, and another, and paused to help the boy untangle the line. “Here,” handing the boy an already pinched worm, “Put this on the hook and try again. Be careful because I won’t help you untangle the line again.” The boy put the worm on the hook just like he was shown and not long after he put out his line the cork bounced and bobbed. Almost under. Not yet. Wait. Wait. This time, less force, he pulled on the line, but no fish. Grandpa’s only words, “Looks like it stole your worm. That’s fishing. Try again.”
On the third try, success! Standing proud with his catch flopping at the end of the line he says, “Grandpa, dad showed me how to get it off the hook, but I forgot. Show me how.” “Watch what I do. Now, you hold the fish and then throw it back. It’s too small to keep.” After a moment of pride, the boy tosses the fish into the pond. Grandpa says, “Go to the cooler and get us a couple of sodas. I’ll bait your line and set it out.”
They left the cooler under a big tree back up the trail from the bank to keep it out of the afternoon sun. When the boy returned with sodas his line was out, just a little farther than before. “Just leave it out there in deeper water. Remember, watch the cork. Be patient.” Thirty minutes pass and Grandpa keeps catching fish, but the boy doesn’t get a bite, nor barely a nibble. Each time he wanted to move his line Grandpa said, “You’ve got to be patient. I know it is hard, but it is an important lesson.”
Finally after forty-five minutes watching Grandpa catch fish after fish the boy pulls his line and moves it a bit closer to the shore. Then, after an hour he pulls in his line to discover he has no bait. “I never saw my cork move, but something must have stole my bait.” he says. He confidently puts a half worm on the hook, and sets his line out, but not too far. Not long after he catches another fish.
Walking back to the house Grandpa asks if he enjoyed the afternoon. “Yes sir. It was great, but you caught a lot more fish than I did.” Grandpa grinned, “Well, I’m a little more patient than you are, but I’ve been fishing a lot longer. You’ll learn some patience and be better some day.”
Grandpa and I would revisit that fishing spot many times. When I was in high school I learned that when I was fetching drinks or snacks at the cooler Grandpa never baited my hook.
There are all kinds of fish stories.
Captain Ahab and his whale.
Some fish and two loaves.
The one that got away.
Jonah’s big fish story.
I wonder if Jimmy Houston or Bill Dance had any idea they were the first “reality” TV that would spawn shows like the Bass Masters, Deadliest Catch, Wicked Tuna or more relationship driven competitions about human nature that we see in Survivor, Life Below Zero, or the Amazing Race?
Those first “outdoors” shows, like all “reality” TV, are greatly aided by the editing bay that cut out the mistakes, bloopers, and all the time they didn’t catch anything or were helped by a local guide who may or may not appear in the show or the credits at the end. The same is true for the writer of Luke who had the letters of Paul and the gospel of Mark to draw upon to write Luke and Acts.
Today, when we catch up with Jesus he has been traveling, teaching. and healing after being run out of his hometown. Why? Well, he dug up a past that everyone wanted to forget. He challenged a narrative that everyone thought was long settled. One in which everyone knew the right thing to do, but didn’t do it. Everyone was culpable for what happened and no one was responsible or accountable and there was no reconciliation. They just let it happen and looked the other way. Jesus was unwilling to provide his hometown the same blessing, the same benefit of the doubt that he provided “others” along the way. They got angry and pushed him toward a cliff. The text says, “He passed through the midst of them and went on his way.” (Luke 4:30)
Did you ever notice that Jesus does a lot of his best work along the shoreline or in a boat?
This story of Jesus calling the first disciples here in Luke resembles a post resurrection appearance in the gospel of John, chapter 21. After Jesus is crucified, many of the disciples have returned to the lives they knew before meeting him. It is night or very early morning. The fishing wasn’t good. Jesus appears with some advice about a better spot, and the catch almost breaks the nets, sinks the boats, and everyone gathered recognizes Jesus.
Jesus does something to ignite the spark that becomes a flame within their hearts. In John’s gospel it is a reminder. A remembrance of who Jesus was and is. Here in Luke, it’s a beginning that’s a culmination of listening to Jesus’ teaching, observing the way he lives, and a few seeing him do miraculous things. Simon and his partners know the fishing trade. Net fishing isn’t always easy nor a guarantee of a catch. Remember, this is the near East. You fish at night or early, early, hours of the morning because fish are not going to keep all day. They had a bad night of fishing, but I’m not sure that means they were bad at their job. It did mean that there would be little food for their families or money from selling the catch of the day to pay their obligations.
Mark, Matthew, and Luke all tell of Jesus calling disciples who were fishing. Here in Luke, Jesus has been to Simon’s house and healed his mother-in-law. So, it is not unusual for Simon to agree when Jesus asks to use his empty boat as a speaking platform. What is curious is that the crowds are pressing Jesus for teachings or miracles so early in the morning. You can imagine Simon or one of his partners wondering, “Are these people here to buy fish? We have nothing to sell. What’s this Jesus got to say that’s so interesting?”
Jesus finishes his teaching, and here is where the dialogue between Simon and Jesus is edited out, if it ever existed. Remember, they are in the boat just off the shore.
I can imagine Simon says to Jesus, “Great words rabbi. Look, I’ve heard the stories about you. I saw what you did for my mother-in-law. I don’t know what to think about all that, but do you have any idea where the fish are? What? Wait. Where? Deeper water. Rabbi, don’t you think I thought of that. We are exhausted. Deeper water is dangerous.”
We don’t see Simon’s face and eyes thinking about this choice.
We can only imagine it and see it on our own face.
We can’t hear his internal dialogue about this choice.
We can only hear our own.
When the net is so full that Simon needs help, he calls for the other boats. Knee deep in flopping fish and water washing in over the sides of the boat Simon Peter falls on his knees, “Go away from me Lord, I am a sinful man.” What is the emotion that goes with that . . . humiliation, horror, realization, fear, awe?
It is Wayne and Garth style, “We’re not worthy! We’re not worthy!”
Is it Morpheus, in the Matrix, proclaiming his search is over, “He is the one.”
Is it Mary Magdalene’s reassurance telling the hiding disciples, “I have seen the Lord.”
Simon doesn’t list his sins or explain his sinfulness.
Jesus says, to Simon and all of us, “Don’t be afraid. From now on you will be catching people.” Men and women of all kinds. In his sermon last Sunday, Rev. Jesse Jackson, the minister at East Sixth Street Christian Church in Oklahoma City reminded his congregation that . . .
Jesus called us to be fishers of men and women. And we do not fish with cane poles, we fish with nets. When you fish with a net, sometimes you catch things that you really were not looking for. And this goes to the heart of what it really means to be the church. The mindset of the church cannot be that “we only want to catch ‘this’ kind of member. We are not a country club. At our best, we are a hospital. A hospital filled with sick folks trying to get well and find wholeness. Too many people confuse the hospital with hospice. Hospitals help us to heal, and hospice just keeps us as comfortable as possible when “healing” seems no longer possible. And too many are comfortable in their sickness and are treating the hospital like hospice and they are not getting any better.
Rev. Jesse Jackson, East Sixth Street Christian Church (Oklahoma City) January 30. 2022.
That’s a good reminder for all of us.
We often think that confession precedes grace, but with Jesus and Simon unsolicited grace precedes confession.(2) Do you suppose the writer of Luke telling his own story? And, though we like to ascribe divinity to Jesus there is no guarantee that Simon, nor any of the rest of us, will respond to grace. There is no guarantee that anyone will respond to grace the way we want them to, and there is always a risk that grace, graciousness, kindness, neighborliness, a hand out or a hand up will be taken advantage of, misused, misinterpreted, misrepresented, or hoarded for personal gain. It’s one of the dangers of deep water.(3)
As Dr. Seuss says,
So be sure when you step, Step with care and great tact. And remember that life’s A Great Balancing Act.
Dr. Seuss, Oh The Places You Will Go. Random House, 1990.
The village priest in the film Chocolat summarizes Jesus like this:
“I don’t want to talk about His divinity.
Pere Henri, Chocolat, Joanne Harris and Robert Nelson Jacobs. (Miramax – David Brown Production – Fat Free) 2000.
I’d rather talk about His humanity.
I mean, you know, how he lived his life here on Earth.
His kindness.
His tolerance.
Listen, here’s what I think.
I think we can’t go around…
measuring our goodness by what we don’t do.
By what we deny ourselves…
what we resist and who we exclude.
I think we’ve got to measure goodness…
by what we embrace…
what we create…
and who we include.
For me, the priest describes how Jesus shows us a way to be in the world, but not of the world. It is deep water. It is this realm of God which Jesus taught about and lived; and it is that good news of God that those who claim Christian faith are called to be and called to do as individuals and as a church.(4) The deepest water: love God and love neighbor as yourself. Like those first anglers, some days we are better at it than others.
We can heal up and do better.
I don’t know what you relate to most in the scripture today: the crowds, the partners, the net, the boat, or Simon. Maybe none of it. The shallows and the deeper water can both be dangerous if you are not paying attention. In a times like these the deep water is calling. The choice is ours.
Siblings in faith, thank you for being a voice of gospel in this community and through the covenant we claim as the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Oklahoma and throughout the world.
There are all kinds of fish stories. Sometimes, they aren’t about fishing.
Notes
1) “epiphany.” Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. 03 Jan. 2015. <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/epiphany>
2) O. Wesley Allen, Jr. Commentary on Luke 5:1-11. workingpreacher.org, January 22, 2017. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/narrative-lectionary/great-catch-of-fish-2/commentary-on-luke-51-11
3) The Rt. Rev. Robert C. Wright, Why Some People Don’t Catch Fish. Day1.org, February 7, 2010. https://day1.org/weekly-broadcast/5d9b820ef71918cdf20028f8/why_some_people_dont_catch_fish
4) Read deeper about the “realm of God.” Ronald J. Allen, Commentary on Luke 5:1-11. workingpreacher.org, February 10, 2019. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/fifth-sunday-after-epiphany-3/commentary-on-luke-51-11-4