Sermon preached by The Reverend Dr. Harold T. Lewis

SERMON PREACHED BY THE REVEREND DR. HAROLD T. LEWIS, RECTOR CALVARY EPISCOPAL CHURCH, PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA ON THE THIRD SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY 23 JANUARY 2005


"Jesus said to them, 'Come with me, and I will make you fishers of men.'" (Matthew 4:20)


This is another in my series of sermons about things I know nothing about. This morning's topic is fishing. Of course I've been fishing ---- even deep sea fishing off the coast of Martha's Vineyard. With suitable instruction and tutelage from people who know what they're doing, I have dutifully placed the bait on the hook and cast the line over the side of the boat ---- and the fish, totally unaware of how inexperienced this particular angler is, bite anyhow. But like the traveler who has only mastered the rudiments of a foreign language, I cannot engage in any further conversation. So I certainly couldn't possibly tell you much about which bait attracts which fish, and Lord knows I couldn't tell you anything about lures.

Today's Gospel is about fishing. None of us can read it or listen to it without humming the song about "fishers of men" we learned in Sunday School. But the problem is that we sometimes ignore the words in the text and somehow imagine Jesus and his disciples with fishing poles in their hands. No, the method they used did not make use of poles at all. They fished with nets. "They cast their net into the sea, for they were fishermen," St. Matthew tells us. And for good reason. Last week, we talked about hospitality, which can be described as the evangelism you practice when people show up. Today we're talking about aggressive evangelism --- going out and finding people to whom you will be hospitable once you find them. And this finding of them is best done with nets, not fishing poles.

First of all, fishing with nets is indiscriminate. Baits and lures attract certain kinds of fish, but a net will haul in any fish that can swim. Unlike Claude Rains, the police captain in "Casablanca" who told his men to "round up the usual suspects," evangelists are committed to rounding up all sorts and conditions of men and women. There are few messages in the Gospel that are clearer. Jesus warned the Pharisees over and over again that they did not have a corner on the market. In the parable of the wedding feast, the king compels his servants to go out into the highways and byways, and to bring in everyone, even those on the "B List," even the halt and the lame (Mt. 22:8).

Fishing with nets is labor-intensive. It's hard work. It's not like line fishing, during which the fisherman can sometimes take a nap while waiting for the fish to bite. A team of fishermen had to haul the heavy net and cast it into the water. Perhaps the Mormons have the right idea; evangelism may best be done in teams who beat the pavement.

Fishing with nets requires persistence and dedication. It was in many ways a hit-and-miss operation, dependent on the "luck of the draw." As we learn in another fishing story in the Gospel, it was possible to "fish all night and catch nothing" (Lk. 5:5). Like the fisherman who knows that he might have to try a different site, a different fishing hole, perhaps farther from the shore, the evangelist knows that he sometimes has to "shake the dust off his feet" and try another town (Mt. 10:14).

Evangelism looks like a high-risk business. You are not guaranteed any specific results. There is a real chance of being rejected. I say all this because there is another person in the story whom it is easy to overlook ---- and that is Zebedee. Zebedee is the father of James and John, and they all were in the boat when Jesus called them and invited them to be fishers of men. James and John sprang to their feet, Andrew and Simon immediately left their nets. But Zebedee didn't budge. Now I think I know why Matthew tells the story this way. It's so that we can see that the cost of discipleship is so great that we leave behind our profession, our livelihoods and even our family. It reminds me of that line in Martin Luther's great hymn, "Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also." So Zebedee's being left in the boat is symbolic of all that.

But I ask you to use your imagination this morning, and to see Zebedee in another light. Zebedee seems unwilling to budge. The four others drop their nets; Zebedee clings to his boat. Maybe he thought he was too old. Maybe he thought he had to stay behind and take care of the family business now that his sons decided to run off with this itinerant preacher.

We are all like Zebedee sometimes. We are cautious; we cling to the familiar, the sure thing (which, of course, isn't.) We are averse to risk. We play it safe. We are reluctant to follow the advice of James Baldwin who wrote "Any real change implies the breakup of the world as one has always known it . . . the end of safety." And this is perhaps even truer of the church as an institution than it is of individuals --- the church which seems to move by centuries, and whose seven deadly words are "We have always done it that way." This is why change is always so threatening to church folk --- moving an altar, or putting a woman priest behind it; changing the words of the service, or a decision to engage in outreach which is more than "keeping others out of our reach."

Mind you, springing to our feet and following Jesus doesn't mean that we'll be perfect disciples. When the chips were down, Peter denied Christ (Mt. 26:72) and James and John missed the point of Jesus' teaching, and asked for a promotion --- to sit at the right hand and the left hand of Jesus, (Mk. 10:37) believing, perhaps, that the nature and timing of their call entitled them to lord it over their fellow disciples. And you will remember that in another version of the same story, it is their pushy mother who makes this demand! (Mt. 20:21)

Sometimes we, like the burly fishermen, are poster children for Christian enthusiasm. Sometimes like Zebedee, we err on the side of caution. The good news is that Jesus takes us just as we were when we swam into his net, and uses us, in ways best known to him, for the spread of his Kingdom.

Let us pray: Just as I am, without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me And that thou bidd'st me come to thee, O Lamb of God, I come, I come.
Just as I am, thou tossed about, wth many a conflict, many a doubt, Fightings and fears within, without, O Lamb of God, I come, I come. [Hymn 693, Hymnal 1982]