1/25/15---"Gone Fishing"

There is some irony in this Sunday's message title as it relates to our sermon series title: "God is Here." It brings out the divine truth that God is omnipresent; God is "everywhere at once."

So God is "here, everywhere." Anyone at any given moment in any given location can claim that "God is here."

Even when we are gone fishing. 

During the holiday break, I did go fishing. I went to South Florida with some of my family to go on our annual "Mackerel Massacre." We did well, but not as well as we had in the past. There was one winter where we yielded 3 dozen mackerel and everyone went home with their fair share. This time, though, a dozen fish in the boat satisfied us, and I took none home for myself.

Why were we satisfied this year? We ended up with 1/3 of the fish that we did a few years ago, so why were we OK with that? I think we now accept the fact that filling our boat a few years ago was a special occurrence. It may happen again, but it doesn't every time. 

We accept the dozen we caught because we know we prepared and we fished as if we were going to catch 3 dozen. We were ready. But now, I am afraid that we don't expect to catch many ever again. Perhaps we should, but at least our preparation and work is the same.

I relate this to the command from Jesus, the invitation to fish for people:

Mark 1

16 As Jesus passed alongside the Galilee Sea, he saw two brothers, Simon and Andrew, throwing fishing nets into the sea, for they were fishermen. 17 “Come, follow me,” he said, “and I’ll show you how to fish for people.” 18 Right away, they left their nets and followed him.  19 After going a little farther, he saw James and John, Zebedee’s sons, in their boat repairing the fishing nets. 20 At that very moment he called them. They followed him, leaving their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired workers.

Simon and Andrew did not know what to expect when they followed Jesus. Yes, they probably knew that Jesus was a teacher, but they had no idea where Jesus was going, who was with him already, or how many people he had in mind that he expected or wanted to "fish" for. James and John didn't know what to expect, either.

But they were ready. They dropped their nets, left their boats, their families, the future they expected for themselves, and followed Jesus.

I normally look at this story through the lens of sacrifice, and notice how much these disciples gave up in order to follow Jesus. But perhaps this was not so much a sacrifice as it was an opportunity for these men to fulfill something that God placed in their hearts; an opportunity to follow someone worth following; an opportunity to embrace the unexpected...

In order to embrace the unexpected, the disciples show us that sacrifice is needed, however. They gave up their sense of security, their plans of continuing the family fishery business. 

But the call to follow Jesus was, and still is, a call worth embracing, for we know that God is here, everywhere, fishing with us.