How to hook a fisherman

Isaiah 43:16-21, Philippians 3:4b-11 and Luke 5:1-11

Ten years ago my parents moved to Coffs Harbour to pastor a Baptist church. Coffs Harbour is a big area for fishing and Dad was very concerned to build a real rapport with fishermen. On one of his first Sundays he got talking to a very keen fisherman, a man who had immigrated to Australia from Europe.

“I came here to Coffs Harbour,” he told Dad, “For the Klimit.”

“Ahhh, the Klimit, a great fish” said Dad, none the wiser, but very, very anxious to show interest in fishing, “How are the Klimit biting this time of year?”

It turned out the man had moved to Coffs Harbour for the climate.

Jesus’ efforts to engage fishermen are more successful. First there’s the hook – the miraculous catch of fish. Then there’s the line, “From now on you will be catching people.” And then they’re sunk, hook, line and sinker, “they left everything and followed him.”

It is a moment that has captivated artists across the spectrum and through the ages: from Raphael’s 16 century tapestry ‘The Miraculous Draught of Fishes’, a work luminous with inspiration, to Harry D. Clark’s 1927 composition, ‘I will make you fishers of men’.

Most significantly it has inspired people, from the first hearers of Luke’s gospel to us here today, to ‘leave our nets without regret’…and to follow Jesus into the life of discipleship and the mission of the church.

So, how do you hook a fisherman? You hook a fisherman with a call to freedom

Luke’s account of the calling of the first disciples differs from that of Matthew and Mark. In Luke Jesus’ ministry has already commenced when he comes to teach by the Sea of Galilee, or lake of Gennesaret as Luke calls it. He has preached in his home synagogue of Nazareth. He has cast out demons and done healings (including Peter’s mother-in-law). And he has preached throughout Judea. Peter, then, is fully aware of Jesus’ agenda:….good news to the poor….release to the captives…to let the oppressed go free….

And there‘s Jesus’ commission to Peter, ‘from now on you will be catching people’. The verb here appears rarely in the New Testament: zogreo, "to capture alive" or "to spare life," “Catch” uses the vocabulary of war and hunting. These fishermen have been catching fish to kill and sell, but now they will be taking people alive to give them back their life and freedom.

It is the ‘springing forth of the new thing, the way, the water in the wilderness, the river in the desert’ that hooks the fishermen – and hooks followers of Jesus right to this moment.

You hook a fisherman by going fishing with him

Galilean fisherman used large wall-like nets. One end was attached to the shore while the other was dragged by the boat through the water in an arc, pulling in the fish as it came. Or the same manoeuvre was performed by two boats. Weed and rocks damaged the nets and cleaning them was an essential task, but a thankless one if you had caught nothing all night!

Jesus sees the boats and uses Peter’s to sit and teach the crowd. (Sitting was the customary position for teaching, though the floating pulpit was unusual!) That his next request is much less reasonable is indicated by Luke in the text. “Master, we have worked all night long…Yet, if you say so, I will let down the nets.”

Suddenly the nets are strained! The second boat is urgently needed to take in the catch! The master fishermen have been taught something by their Master. The fishermen are hooked by Jesus’ authority – by Jesus being an authority - in their sphere of life! (J. Norval Geldenhuys uses the phrase that Jesus is the Almighty Disposer of the fish of the lake.)

It is not the ‘God of the gaps’, but a God of the ‘grasp’; the God who knows their lives and environment so intimately he can tell them where the fish are who hooks the fishermen. And it is the God who knows us, the Almighty disposer of our bodies and our relationships and our children and our work and our futures, that hooks followers of Jesus to this moment.

You hook a fishermen by knowing him and loving him anyway.

I know the fishermen of our congregation have their own ethics society, but perhaps among sub-culture as a whole ‘fishermen is to ethics as fish is to bicycle!’

Peter was no exception, but in the presence of the divine, just like Abraham, Job and Isaiah before him, Peter acknowledges that he is a man of sin and addresses Jesus, not as ‘Master’, but as ‘Lord’.

For Luke’s hearers, Peter is also the one who denied Jesus three times – and yet by the grace of God went on to become the first great apostolic preacher. This is the mystery of divine grace. Jesus knows who Peter is. He knows Peter is full of sin and failure, but does not abandon him. “Don’t be afraid,” he says, in forgiveness of his sin, and invites him to a new life in the kingdom.

The apostle Paul also follows this trajectory; from persecutor of the church to becoming second great apostolic preacher. For him all that he was – Jewish, Israelite, Benjaminite, true Hebrew, trained Pharisee, righteous under the law – became worthless “because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” Paul like Peter wishes to lose all he has been, and be found in Christ.

These were archetypes of the forgiven sinner for the early church - as they are for us. In the words of Eugene O’Neill: “Men [and women] are broken. They live by mending. The grace of God is glue.”

This is how all of us are hooked, hooked by the grace of God, the love that will not let us go. The love that calls us on to freedom and new life. The love that is Lord of every area of our lives. The love that knows us and calls us by name.

And the result?

‘When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.”

There is a joke about an Irish priest who was obsessed with fly fishing. Curiously, however, the weather was terrible – except every Sunday when he had to work. So, he lied to another priest that he was sick, and the very next Sunday put on his waders and drove fifty miles to another river so no one would recognise him.

But the angels in heaven were watching and they told God.

With the first cast a huge fish mouth gulped down the fly. For an hour the priest fought the fish and when he landed it, it proved to be a world record salmon.
Confused the angels asked God, "Why did you let him catch that huge fish? I thought you were going to teach him a lesson."
God replied "I did. Who do you think he's going to tell?"

Peter and his companions walk away from the greatest catch of their lives. These are not the fish that got away – these are given away!

Athol Gill in Life on the Road comments on how ‘they left everything and followed Jesus’ is more difficult for twentieth-century commentators – more of a miracle – than the miraculous draught of fishes Geldenhuys writes:

Jesus would not have let them catch the fish to be cast into the sea again or to be wasted. Undoubtedly the Lord allowed them to divide and sell the fishes and to provide for their dependants before commending to follow him continuously…

What did happen to the fish? We don’t know. We do know that Peter fished again in his life, and is recorded by Paul as still being married.

The reality, however, that we cannot diminish the challenge of “they left everything and followed him”. Every disciple – every follower of Chist – will know moments – perhaps as dramatic as this of Peter’s – moments of leaving behind, of letting go, in order to follow. Akolutheo is the word in Greek, to walk the same road. Are we walking the same road as Jesus?

But let me add two final notes to illuminate the road ahead.

Peter is not alone – as our Western world view might suggest. They leave everything and follow Jesus as a group. As Marva Dawn, an American writer puts it, ‘the call is to y’all’. She writes: “If we could stop thinking about ourselves in individualistic terms and recognize that everything in faith is communal, contingent and corporate, we would find life and affliction and labour more bearable.”

And we are drawn to this road by love and joy. On this road we find newness, we find places and lives that were desert being transformed, we find refreshment, we find God remaking us and calling us God’s own. Let us give praise to our Master, our Lord, our God.

Prayer of ‘Thanks’

Lord, we thank you that – just as you were with Peter – you sit amongst us this morning.

Lord we ask that we, too, like the crowds at Galilee, will press in to hear the word of God.

We ask that we will let you in to our ordinary lives, just as the fishermen did.

And we ask that will be obedient to what you ask us to do.

And that you will surprise us – perhaps not with an abundance of fish – but with your grace throughout our lives and throughout our days.

Amen.

The Miraculous Draught of Fishes
Tapestry from Raphael, Pinacoteca Viticana 1517

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