Let’s go fishing!
The first disciples … professional fishermen …
Boats and winds,
Ropes and nets …
Sails and storms.
They knew what every fisherman knows …
To get fish, you have to fish …
Sometimes ya’ get skunked …
Sometimes a boat-load.
My brother and I, Raystown Lake, Pennsylvania …
18-foot, white fiberglass, Lincoln Canoe …
In a cove …
Fishing with jigs …
And suddenly a strike …
Pulled in a big Crappie …
Then another, and soon we were hauling ‘em in on every cast … by the time the school passed by, we had 20 or 30 fat Crappie …
Went home happy that evening … a terrific fish fry …
What does it mean to fish for people?
A simple recognition – life without God is a diminished life.
And lots of folks live with little or nothing of God.
Life without God - like a compromised immune system – without God, we’re vulnerable to all sorts of infections.
Victims of the latest fad …
Every promise that comes our way looks good, and off we go …
Longing, looking, searching, seeking … never quite landing anywhere, never finding, always disappointed, and then on to the next effort, until we just grow tired, weary, jaded, cynical … and we sink all the deeper into the quagmire of ourselves.
Lots of folks live with little or nothing of God in their lives, and it’s for their sake we go fishing!
Frederick Buechner writes of a time when a friend asked him for help … Buechner didn’t want to step out, didn’t want to get involved, but then makes a discovery:
To journey for the sake of saving our own lives is little by little to cease to live in any sense that really matters, even to ourselves, because it is only by journeying for the world’s sake – even when the world bores and sickens and scares you half to death – that little by little we come alive. It was not a conclusion I came to in time. It was a conclusion from beyond time that came to me. God knows I have never been any good at following the road it pointed me to, but at least, by grace, I glimpsed the road and saw that it is the only one worth traveling [Jan. 25 devotional].
Why do we fish?
Because there are fish to be caught … people who desperately need to hear the Good News … who need the hope and peace that comes through Jesus our LORD.
Let’s see what we can learn today about fishing …
The Text says, They left their nets.
In order to go anywhere, we have to leave some things behind …
Over the years, I’ve watched Christians struggle to juggle all the loyalties and interests of life … there’s a lot of pressure on us to do everything, see everything, be everything before we take our final breath …
Like children setting out on a trip –
Mom and Dad, can I take along my toys?
You can take just one.
Can I take my favorite books?
Just a few.
How about my iPod?
Sure, but we’re going to disconnect ourselves for a while.
The disciples left their nets … but more than just leaving something behind, they followed him.
The one-two punch, if you will … leave AND follow!
It’s not just about leaving things behind; it’s all about following something … or someone … a reason, a purpose!
Remember the 2007 film, Into the Wild?
The young man left everything behind to live in the wilds of Alaska – he left everything, but he followed nothing, except some vague inner dream to get away from it all!
He left everything … but followed nothing!
Here in this place, we follow Jesus …
Others follow other paths … and God is their companion, too. I’m not concerned about faith different than mine.
I’m concerned about those who struggle through life without faith … with a north star to guide them through the night … without a sense of eternity … without a standard by which to measure their life … a life with little or nothing of God – that’s what I’m concerned about.
People who have nothing to follow, and haven’t a clue what to leave behind!
Here in this place, we follow Jesus.
That’s why we do what we do.
He call us to go fishing!
But it’s the next piece of the story that really intrigues me.
Those early disciples left their nets to follow Jesus … and then did nothing …
They did nothing for a long time!
Sometimes we Christians are way too busy …
Over the years, I’ve heard Christians say, I’m burned out and burned up. I’ve been a deacon and an elder, I’ve served on the Stewardship Committee, the Evangelism Committee, the Building and Grounds Committee – I’ve sung in the choir and I’ve taught Sunday School - I’ve done it all, and now I don’t want to do it anymore.
Maybe some of you’ve said that.
Sometimes we Christians are way too busy.
What did those first disciples do?
They watched!
Jesus didn’t ask them to do anything.
Just watch me, he said.
I wish that we Christians could learn to do that a little better.
To settle down and not be so busy …
To watch Jesus … and watch him a lot.
But preacher, you say, how do we watch him? How can we do that?
Several things:
First, there’s no substitute for the Bible.
In it’s pages, we see Jesus …
And then something from beyond time, if you will, takes hold of us …
The Holy Spirit …
The Holy Spirit takes these words and applies them to our heart …
The words we read begin to read us …
We move from information to formation …
Religion becomes relationship …
The heart is warmed at the fires of God’s grace …
“O God” ceases to be an expression of surprise and becomes the cry of adoration …
Just a closer walk with thee, as the hymn puts it …
How do we watch Jesus?
By watching others who follow him.
Who are your Christian heroes?
Give thought to their life … watch how they do it.
Flesh and blood heroes … like Buechner says of himself, never very good at it, but my heroes work hard at it.
Long ago I learned – it’s not how well anyone does; it’s the love of trying, and trying to love.
Another source: good books.
Reliable Christian authors … pay a visit to Cokesbury in Pasadena now and then …
Check with me …
Frederick Buechner, Thomas Merton, John Ortberg, William Sloane Coffin, Jr.; writer Ann LaMott, or Jan Karon and her Mittford Series, featuring Fr. Tim – one of the best series ever written capturing the life of a pastor amid the joys and sorrows of a small congregation.
Find some heroes and watch how they live.
More than anything, I’ve long to see Christians well-connected to one another in fellowship … not just socializing together, but linked together with Bible reading and prayer.
Maybe it’s just one friend you have in Christ.
Maybe it’s a small group.
But when you’re together, Christ is there, too.
Wherever two or three are gathered in my name, says Jesus, I am there.
Christians sometimes mistakenly substitute socializing for fellowship – socializing is good; I’m all in favor of it – running clubs, card clubs, bowling together, eating together, painting projects, mission trips, but all of that is not yet fellowship.
Fellowship begins when we gather around the Bible, or a spiritual book, and when we pray for one another and lift up the name of Jesus – that’s fellowship!
Watching Jesus with one another … learning about our LORD.
The first disciples spent a lot of time learning …
That’s a lesson for all of us …
Not just at the beginning of our walk with Jesus … but throughout our life … to keep our eyes upon him … to learn more and more about him!
To learn of him who is our LORD.
Take my yoke upon you, says Jesus, and learn from me.
To know Jesus well …
And you know what?
The world will see it in us.
Let your light so shine, says Jesus, so that the world will see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.
Dear Christian friends, it’s time to go fishing.
Throw out the net … love, faith and prayer.
Honest, humble living.
We’ll catch a few folks for the kingdom of heaven.
Billy Graham had his millions, but you and I will only have a few … but God has his eye on the sparrow and can number the hairs on our head - God is a God of small numbers.
If we catch only a few in our lifetime, we will go to our rest having honored Jesus with our best!
And we won’t even know we’re doing it!
Spend enough time with Jesus, and it just happens.
Like a glass filled to the brim, we overflow …
Christ within us, through us, to the world.
A friend has been seeing a doctor.
Much to his surprise, the doctor wrote a note, thanking him for sharing his faith. It triggered something in the doctor’s life - some re-thinking about faith and the doctor’s walk with God.
But my friend said, I didn’t share my faith. I just talked about how important God was to me.
My friend went fishing, and didn’t even know it.
That’s the best kind of fishing we can do.
Just living … plain old living, telling folks how important God is to us in the course of simple conversation … we won’t even know we’re doing it.
And maybe, just maybe, as Paul says, We’ll heap coals on someone’s head – we’ll light a fire … stir the conscience; the Holy Spirit will go to work, and a lonely traveler will find her way back home to God!
As we look to the future here at Covenant,
Covenant on the Corner,
I challenge you … I invite you:
Get to know Jesus … and get to know him well.
There’s a lot of fishing to be done. Amen!
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