Fishing for People
Mark 1.14-20
Epiphany 3B
January 21, 2024
I heard an interesting story this week. It seems a college counselor was working with a high school senior and her parent. The counselor suggested a scholarship opportunity. It’s called something like “End the Hate,” and as the name suggests it asks students to write an essay in which they reflect on their experiences with prejudice and hatred and discuss ways they can make their communities more welcoming and loving.
The parent expressed immediate skepticism. “Isn’t that only for black folks?” they asked with a note of disdain in their voice. (The parent and student were white.) The counselor, a bit shocked by the parent’s tone, replied that the scholarship is open to everyone: black and white and Hispanic and Asian students have all won it. Besides, the scholarship is actually sponsored by a Jewish organization.
Well, the parent still wasn’t convinced. They explained that the family is conservative and Christian—they appeared to link those two descriptors very closely in their own mind—and people don’t like what they believe in. The parent strongly doubted that a student writing an essay from a conservative Christian perspective would get any sort of consideration from the scholarship committee. Frankly, it sounded to me as if this person suffered from that false persecution complex that seems to afflict many Christians in the U.S., particularly conservative evangelical Christians. Many people seem to mistake disagreement, criticism, and the growing secularization of society with persecution. Yes, society is changing, becoming more religiously, ethnically, and philosophically diverse. White Christians are losing our longstanding dominance of American culture and society, but this is not the same thing as persecution. If you want to talk about persecution, talk with our Jewish and Muslim neighbors. The war in Gaza has only exacerbated longstanding prejudices and increased acts of hate and violence.
At this point the student chimed in. She said she would like to apply. She explained, “There are a lot of misunderstandings about Christians. Some folks have a bad image of us. I would like to do something to address that. I would like to show them something different.” It seems, she wanted to show people, especially those who don’t think much of Christians, a loving, compassionate, forgiving faith.
I think this young lady understands what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. I think she understands what it means to “fish for people.” Instead of beginning from a position of fear and suspicion, she approached her task as a Christian from a position of empathy and love. Instead of embracing a vision of social dominance or political power, she embraced a vision of the Kingdom of God, and thus sought to walk, however tentatively, however imperfectly, in the way of Jesus, the One in whose life and ministry, in whose death and resurrection that Kingdom has been embodied / made manifest.
The author Madeline L’Engle once observed, “We do not draw people to Christ by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, [we draw them to Christ] by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it." [I came across this quote in a fundraising letter from The Christian Century some years ago.]
We can only be “fishers of people,” we can only draw people to God who is revealed in Christ, if we present them—in word but especially in deed—with Good News, good tidings of forgiveness for sin, grace for the struggling and welcome for the outcast, the seeker, and the wondering wanderers. In short, we can only successfully fish for people if we show them an example, give them a vision of the Divine love.
In a letter to a pagan priest written in 362 AD, Julian, the last of the pagan Roman emperors, observed that recent Christian growth was caused in part by Christians’ “benevolence toward strangers and care for the graves of the dead.” Explaining further, he lamented, “[they] support not only their poor, but ours as well.” [Quoted in Stark, Rise of Christianity, p. 84, emphasis added] The sociologist Rodney Stark has suggested that such concrete acts of charity played a significant role in the growth of early Christianity: “To cities filled with the homeless and impoverished, Christianity offered charity as well as hope. To cities filled with newcomers and strangers, Christianity offered an immediate basis for [social] attachments. To cities filled with widows and orphans, Christianity provided a new and expanded sense of family. To cities torn by violent ethnic strife, Christianity offered a new basis for social solidarity. And to cities faced with epidemics, fires and earthquakes, Christianity offered effective nursing services.” [Ibid., 161] In other words, works of love, deeds of kindness, and acts of self-sacrifice on behalf of others in need all helped to convince people that there really was something to Christianity. In the love of their Christian neighbors, the people of the Roman Empire encountered the love of God and many came to believe.
As theologian Hans urs von Balthasar has succinctly put it, “Love alone is credible.” [Balthasar, Love Alone Is Credible, Ignatius Press, 2004]
At the beginning of Mark’s Gospel, Jesus appears in Galilee declaring, “Now is the time! Here comes God’s kingdom! Change your hearts and lives, and trust this good news!” [Mk 1.15, CEB] He wanders the shore of the Sea of Galilee proclaiming the good news of God and calling to Simon and Andrew, to James and John, “Follow me.” There is an urgency in his words and there is equal urgency in the fishermen’s response. Immediately they leave their nets, without delay they leave their father in the boat and follow Jesus.
This is not a call that comes only to the spiritual elite. After all, who were Simon and Andrew and James and John—just ordinary folks, fishermen plying their trade with no special qualifications, no unusual depth of spiritual insight. The call comes to all of us. We are all called to repent, believe and follow. We are all called to lives of active love for God and neighbor. To be a Christian is to be a follower of Jesus, a disciple, one who carries on his work.
Being a disciple is not so much something we do, as it is something we become, something we are. We are not simply called, but also equipped. Ted Smith argues that a literal translation of verse 17 is “Follow me and I will make you to become fishers of people.” So, a better reading would be, “Follow me and I will cause you to become fishers of people” or “I will transform you into fishers of people.” This is not a call to a task, but a call to a new identity. [Ted A. Smith, “Third Sunday after the Epiphany—Mark 1.14-20: Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year B, Volume 1, p. 289] We are transformed and equipped for a whole new life of compassion, courage and love. By the grace of God we become disciples of Jesus—the deeds, the acts flow out of this new identity we have been given.
Thus, this is not a one-time call, something that comes to us only, say, at our confirmation or baptism. I once heard of an old preacher who was speaking to a group of seminary students, trying to impart a little bit of wisdom gained over a lifetime of delivering sermons and leading congregations. A student asked him, “When did you hear the call to be a preacher, the call to speak a word from God?” “Oh,” he replied, “it was this morning, just before I stepped into the pulpit.” The call comes to us, all of us, not just once, but over and over, repeatedly, throughout our lives, in the midst of our lives, as we go about our routines. Jesus says: “Follow me—right now. Be my hands and feet—for this person. Repent—in this moment. Live differently—today. Tell the good news—to this guilt-ridden soul. Show compassion—for this needy woman. Extend my welcome—to this outcast man. Embody my love—right now, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
We cannot do this in general. We can only follow in very particular ways, ways that are unique to us, to our lives, to our place in the world.
Reflecting on this truth, David Lose writes, Perhaps we follow by becoming a teacher. Perhaps we follow by volunteering at the senior center. Perhaps we follow by looking out for those in our schools who always seem on the outside and invit[ing] them in. Perhaps we follow by doing a job we love as best we can to help others. Perhaps we follow by doing a job we hate but contributes to supporting our family and helping others. Perhaps we follow by being generous with our wealth and with our time. Perhaps we follow by listening to those around us and responding with encouragement and care. Perhaps we follow by caring for an aging parent, or special needs child, or someone else who needs our care. Perhaps we follow by…. [ http://www.davidlose.net/2015/01/epiphany-3-b-following-jesus-today/] You fill in the blank. There is no one size fits all call, no universal formula for discipleship. There is only our own unique response to Jesus’ urgent call to us.
William Willimon, the Methodist pastor, bishop and writer, served for some years as the Dean of the Chapel at Duke University. He tells of someone, actually a group of someones, who had filled in the blank and responded to Jesus’ call to follow him on the way of Divine love. He recalls being invited to speak at a fraternity—such programs were required by the school. The topic was “Character and College.” Willimon says when he read that he thought, “‘Lord, thou hast delivered them into my hands.’ I can’t believe that they are dumb enough to invite an old guy like me to talk to young guys like them on ‘character.’”
Willimon arrived on the appointed evening, but was surprised when the door was opened by a boy who looked to be nine or ten years old. Though he didn’t say anything to the boy, Willimon wondered what in the world the child was doing a frat house at that late hour. The boy, for his part, greeted the guest and said, “They’re waiting for you in the common room. Follow me. I’ll take you there.”
Willimon followed him back to the common room and found a crowd of unenthusiastic collegians awaiting him. He was introduced to the audience and, as he began his talk, he noticed the boy crawl up into the lap of one of the fraternity brothers. The hour being late and the talk being boring for a ten-year-old, it didn’t take long until the boy put his head on the shoulder of the young man and fell asleep.
Willimon recalls, “Well, I hammered them for the moral failures of their generation for about half an hour. When I finally finished my talk, I asked if they had any questions or comments. Dead silence. So, I thanked them for the honor, and made my way out.” As he did so, he heard the college student tell the little boy, “You go on and get ready for bed. I’ll be in to tuck you in and read you a story.”
The student—it seems he was an officer of the fraternity—caught up with Willimon and walked him outside. Once they were in the night air, the young man thanked Willimon for coming.
“Let me ask you,” [Willimon] said, “Who was the kid there tonight?”
“Oh, that’s Darrell,” he said. “The fraternity is part of the Durham Big Brother program. We met Darrell that way. His mom is on crack and having a tough time. Sometimes it gets so bad that she can’t care for him. So we told Darrell to call us up when he needs us. We go over, pick him up, and he stays with us until it’s okay to go home. We take him to school, buy him his clothes, books, and stuff.”
“That’s amazing,” [Willimon] said. “I take back all that I said about you people being bad and irresponsible.”
“I tell you what’s amazing,” he said …, “what’s amazing is that God would pick a guy like me to do something this good for somebody else.” [Willimon, William Willimon’s Lectionary Sermon Resource: Year B, Part 1 (Abingdon Press, 2017), p.115-116]
Jesus calls us, each of us, all of us: “Follow me.” He calls us again and again in the midst of the tumult and muddle of life, right where we are on our lives journeys, in the present moment: Repent, believe, follow, share, love. He calls us to fish for people by showing them something different: a love so beautiful and compelling that they will want to know its source. The call is clear: “Follow me, each of you; love your neighbor, now.” Do you hear? Will you respond? Will you fill in the blank? Will you follow Jesus?