A Fish Story

Mark 1.14-20

　
T. S. Eliot once wrote, “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.” I’m a preacher, not a poet, but I’m mature enough to admit that I stole this story from Lance Moore, a United Methodist pastor in Alabama:

There once was a fishing village on the shore of a great lake stocked full of fish. The fishermen of the village diligently debated and discussed the best way to catch fish, the best equipment to use, and so forth. They invested millions of dollars in boats and tackle and sonar and other fishing gear. They even traveled around the world, going to other fishing villages to learn how other people caught fish.

One day, in the middle of one of their meetings about fishing, a stranger stood up and asked, “What’s the largest fish any of you has ever caught?”

The fishermen – and fisherwomen, as well. I’m trying to be politically correct, but fisherpersons just doesn’t sound right – the fishermen grew red, and hemmed and hawed and stammered. Finally, one of them said, “Well, you see, we’ve never actually caught a fish.”

The astounded stranger replied, “But this lake if full of fish, and you have all the fanciest boats and most up-to-date gear. How can it be that you’ve never caught a fish?”

“Because,” came the answer, “We’ve never actually been fishing. We just like to talk about it.”

“Follow me and I will make you fish for people.”

The sad fact is that many churches and many Christians like to talk about fishing for people, but they never actually go fishing. They like to plan programs and spend money, but they never actually go to where the “fish” are; they never actually try to reel them in.

Lance Moore says that Jesus didn’t call us to be “Keepers of the Aquarium.” Jesus calls us to be “fishers of people.” Jesus calls us to catch people up in the net of God’s love, God’s grace, God’s salvation.

This isn’t a new phenomenon, by the way. Remember last week, we talked about Jonah. The story of Jonah is one of the oldest stories in the Bible. God called Jonah to go “fishing” for the people of Nineveh, to offer them God’s mercy and salvation.

But Jonah didn’t want the people of Nineveh to be part of God’s kingdom. Jonah didn’t like the people of Nineveh. So instead of grabbing his tackle box and going fishing in Nineveh, Jonah grabbed his suitcase and ran as fast as he could in the other direction.

Of course, as we know, in his reluctance to be God’s fisherman, Jonah became bait, and man, did he catch a whopper! Finally, Jonah did what God wanted done, and even though he did it reluctantly, and with a total lack of compassion for the people of Nineveh, once Jonah cast the lure of God’s grace, he hauled in every fish in Nineveh’s pond.

For us, unlike Jonah, I think our problem usually isn’t a lack of compassion. I truly believe that most of us truly want to be fishers, to do what Jesus calls us to do, but we just need to know a little bit more about fishing.

The first and foremost thing to know is that fishing requires patience. This was my problem as a child; my dad would take me fishing, but if I didn’t get a bite in the first few minutes I’d pull my bait out of the water and try another spot. It didn’t take long for me to give up altogether.

When we’re fishing for people, we have to be patient. The people we need to catch may have no experience of God’s love, or they may even have had a negative experience with a church or with religion. For this reason they may be highly reluctant to any invitation. Great patience is required to convey God’s love to a person whose only exposure to church has been fire and brimstone sermons, words of judgment and condemnation.

We also need to understand that, when we’re fishing for people, there’s a right time and a wrong time to fish. There are certain times of day when the tides and temperatures are conducive to catching fish. Likewise, there are times when conditions are right for catching people – and, believe it or not, RIGHT NOW is not always the appropriate time to talk about our faith to others.

We have to be careful not to embarrass someone by trying too hard to invite them to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ at the wrong time, or in the wrong place. If we embarrass someone, that person may not only turn away from us, but we’ve made them much more skeptical, and harder to catch the next time someone casts a lure in their direction.

The wise, and polite, fisherman waits and listens for a suitable opportunity for the message to be heard with open ears. Because if we listen, people will tell us when the time is right. They may ask our advice about a problem, ask our opinion about world events. When they do, we need to be ready to say, “You know, my faith in God gives me strength when facing that sort of thing.”

There is also a right place to fish, and I’ve got news for you: there are no fish in the baptismal font. In order to catch fish, you have to go where the fish are. That’s what Jesus did. Jesus didn’t hide in the synagogue, waiting for people to wander in and hear his message. Jesus went into the streets, and the marketplaces, the villages, and the homes of the common people.

In the same way, we have to reach out to people in need, wherever they are. We can’t just put up a sign – Church at 11 – and expect the least and the lost to come streaming through our door. We – you and me – we come to church on Sunday mornings to worship God and to be fed our spiritual food, but you don’t go fishing in your dining room. You fish in the lake, or the pond, or the ocean – wherever there are fish.

In order to catch fish, you have to have the right lure. People who know tell me that, even though your tackle box might be filled with brightly colored, shiny lures, and those lures might work from time to time, there’s really no substitute for live bait.

When we’re fishing for people, we have to be aware that the world offers all kinds of glitzy lures – but all of the world’s lures are artificial. People are sometimes lured by money, success, or popularity. Sometimes they’re lured by the pleasures of drugs and alcohol. People can be seduced by power and greed. But all of those things are artificial – in the end, they are all false gods.

Christ alone is the real thing. Jesus is not artificial; he is alive, he is real. Jesus alone offers us true and lasting love. Jesus alone offers us joy and peace. Authentic faith is what the world is really hungry for, and this is what we need to offer. Those of us who know God as a real and genuine power in our lives need to share that knowledge with others. In a world full of artificial bait, people will respond when they are offered something real, something sincere.

People really do want to hear about salvation and hope, about life and love. People really do want to hear about Jesus. People everywhere are hungering and thirsting for something more, something real, in their lives. They may be reluctant at first – in fact, they may be reluctant for a long, long time. But we need to patiently keep offering the right bait, at the right time, in the right place.

And the truth is, sometimes even the best of fishermen, with the best of equipment, under the best conditions, don’t catch any fish. If the fish don’t feel like biting, there’s not much you can do about it. But the thing is, we’ve got to go fishing, we’ve got to try. Then, even if we come home empty-handed, as long as we’ve gotten out there and tried, we’ve done our part, we’ve done what Christ called us to do. Jesus never said we had to be catchers of people, he just said we have to fish for them.

To sum up: fishing for people means sharing the good news of God’s love. It means offering a word of hope, a word of forgiveness, a word of peace. It means offering a gospel of grace to people outside our church walls.

We have to cast our nets beyond the safety and security of our own fishing boats. When Jesus called Peter and Andrew, James and John, they had to leave their boats, their village, their families, they had to journey to new places, and meet new people.

Now, I’m not saying that every one of us has to leave town and go somewhere else to fish for people. I am saying that you might have to get out of your comfort zone, you might have to interact with people you don’t know, or, like Jonah, people you don’t like very much.

But if we are what we claim to be – if we are in fact disciples of Jesus Christ – then we have to follow where Christ leads us, and cast our nets, not where we want to fish, but where God calls us to fish. And above all else, we have to get out there and fish.

Soap Operas, Pro Wrestling, and a Really Big Fish

Jonah 3.1-10

　
The story of Jonah is both one of the most familiar and one of the most obscure stories in the Bible. Practically everyone knows about Jonah being swallowed by a big fish. But do you remember why? Do you know what happened after the fish spit Jonah out? The problem with the story of Jonah is that the glitz and glitter of the fish story overshadows the true message that we need to hear.

To recap the story: “Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai, saying, ‘Go at once to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before me.’ But Jonah set out to flee … from the presence of the Lord.”

God calls on Jonah to go and preach to the people of Nineveh. There’s only one problem: Jonah doesn’t want to. Jonah decides he’s not going to go to Nineveh. Maybe this is because Jonah is afraid to go to such a wicked place. But I suspect that Jonah has an inkling that if he preaches in Nineveh and the Ninevites turn from their evil ways, God won’t punish them – and Jonah wants the people of Nineveh to be punished!

Isn’t that the way we humans are? We like – we relish – seeing people punished for their misdoings. As you know, I grew up in Fort Smith. At the Fort Smith National Historic Site you can see the courtroom of “Hangin’ Judge” Isaac C. Parker. You can see the jail known as “Hell on the Border.” And you can visit the gallows where 79 men were hung during Judge Parker’s 21 years on the bench.

79 hangings. Sometimes as many as 6 men at one time were hanged on the gallows at Fort Smith. Hanging Day was a holiday; whenever someone was scheduled to be hanged, people would come from miles around to watch the proceedings. Families would bring picnic lunches. There was no television, no internet; this was entertainment – seeing someone receive the ultimate punishment.

Today we’re much more civilized. Instead of watching hangings in person, we can see people very realistically “killed” at the movie theater, or in our own living rooms. We watch TV shows like Judge Judy. Don’t you just love it when Judge Judy jumps down the throat of some punk with an attitude?

The fact is, we love it when the “bad guys” get what’s coming to them, whether it’s a fictionaly TV show like CSI or real life drama like O. J. Simpson or Osama bin Laden. And we really, really don’t like it when the bad guys get away with something, like O. J. Simpson.

I have a confession to make: I used to watch professional wrestling. Back in the days of Fritz von Erich and Skandar Akbar – whom my friends and I called “Indoor Snackbar.” Professional wrestling is, of course, all theater. The good guys play by the rules, and the bad guys cheat and beat up on the good guys – until finally the good guys have had enough, or the bad guys’ plot backfires, and the good guys pull out the victory.

What makes professional wrestling so compelling, however, is the fact that the bad guys manage to get away with so much cheating. The audience can see it all, of course, but the hapless referees are distracted by one bad guy while the other bad guy is beating Kerry von Erich over the head with a metal chair. The audience is outraged.

I’ve noticed, in watching Days of Our Lives with Melissa, that soap operas basically follow the same formula as professional wrestling. The Bradys and the Hortons are decent, law-abiding citizens – for the most part – while the DiMeras are evil personified. Naturally, the DiMeras are constantly taking advantage of loopholes in the law, and the good guys’ own basic decency, to pull fast ones on the Bradys and Hortons. Again, the audience is outraged.

But what keeps us coming back for more is the fact that we know that eventually the good guys are going to win – and even better, we know that the bad guys are going to get their comeuppance. Sooner or later, John and Marlena are going to have the last laugh on Stefano DiMera. Sooner or later, Fritz von Erich is going to catch Skandar Akbar in the “iron claw.” That’s what we live for: to see the bad guys punished.

Days of Our Lives wouldn’t be nearly so interesting if someone came along and convinced Stefano DiMera to repent of his sins, and Stefano became just another decent, law-abiding citizen of the city of Salem. Professional wrestling would quickly lose its audience if all the bad guys – and I don’t even know who they are today, but if all the Skandar Akbars suddenly began to play by the rules.

In order to maintain their popularity, soap operas and wrestling have to have someone who is evil, someone the audience can see being punished. That’s because we humans today, just like Jonah, want to see evil-doers get what’s coming to them. We don’t really want them to repent, and change their evil ways, because if they did they might escape the punishment that we believe they so richly deserve.

Jesus once said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are setting your mind not on divine things, but on human things.” That’s exactly the problem. The human thing is to want to see the guilty punished; the divine thing is to want to see the guilty redeemed. Nineveh was a wicked, evil city; Jonah wanted to see Nineveh destroyed. God wanted to give the people of Nineveh one last chance to be redeemed.

So, back to our story. Jonah runs away. However, God, through a series of events including one whopper of a fish story, convinces Jonah to do what God wants Jonah to do, which is where today’s scripture picks up. God once again directs Jonah to Nineveh, and this time Jonah, however reluctantly, obeys God’s call and goes to Nineveh.

We can see that Jonah’s heart really isn’t in it. Dr. Phyllis Trible, of Union Theological Seminary in New York City, points out something that I had always overlooked. Nineveh, we are told, is a large city, and it takes three days to walk across it. Verse 4 says, “Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s walk.” And that’s it. Nowhere are we told that Jonah travels any farther into Nineveh. Jonah goes about one-third of the way into the city, and stops.

Also, Jonah’s preaching leaves something to be desired. Notice what Jonah says to the people of Nineveh – at least, to the people of Nineveh who happened to be within earshot at the time: “Forty days more, and Nineveh will be overthrown!” Again, that’s it.

Jonah says nothing about repentance, nothing about hope. Jonah never says that the city will be destroyed in 40 days unless they change their evil ways. Jonah doesn’t even indicate that there is a possibility of averting this disaster. According to Jonah, in 40 days the city will be destroyed, period. Which, of course, is exactly what Jonah wants to happen.

This means that, for one thing, it was the people of Nineveh themselves who actually spread the word about what Jonah was telling them. Jonah walked in a little ways, made his proclamation, and apparently turned around and left. It was left to the people to spread the news.

And also, it means that the people had to interpret what Jonah said. The people of Nineveh took Jonah’s words of destruction and interpreted them as words of warning. They then heeded this warning, repented of their sins, and placed their hope in God. All without any help from God’s messenger, Jonah.

You see, the story of Jonah is a lot more complex than just the story of the fish. The lessons of Jonah are lessons that are still relevant, still important, to us today. First of all, we learn that when God really wants us to do something, it’s useless for us to resist. God is nothing if not persistent, and God literally has all the time in the world.

More importantly, we learn that God sometimes calls us to do things that we really don’t want to do. God calls us to move out of our comfort zones. God calls us to work with people we really don’t like very much. Maybe that’s a warning in itself: be careful whom you dislike, because God will put you in ministry with them.

Especially if your dislike is basically irrational, based on the color of one’s skin, or the accent one speaks with, or the country one was born in, or the amount of money in one’s bank account. I mean, Jonah at least had the excuse that the people of Nineveh were evil, but even that didn’t stop God from sending Jonah to minister to them.

And then there’s the lesson for those of us who might actually qualify as being residents of Nineveh – those of us who are in need of redemption. That lesson is that God loves us, and God will send someone for us – someone to remind us of our need for repentance and salvation. However – and this, too, is part of the lesson – the person God sends may not be the most eloquent, may not be the best care-giver, may not be the kindest person we’ve ever met.

Regardless, the message will be delivered. It’s then up to us to act upon that message, to interpret the message and do something about it. Jonah delivered the message, but God didn’t call on Jonah to stick around and make sure that the people of Nineveh listened.

God will send the message to each and every one of us – more than once – but then it’s up to us. We cannot make excuses: “Well, Jonah didn’t come to my part of the city. Jonah never actually said that I need to repent.” Nope. The message is delivered; now it’s our turn to respond.

To finish up the story, Jonah still isn’t happy about Nineveh escaping from God’s wrath. The first verse of chapter 4 says, “But this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry.” Jonah lets God know about his displeasure. God lets Jonah vent for a while, and then declares that God is concerned with all of God’s creation. And that’s how the story ends. We don’t know if Jonah ever gets over his anger and frustration.

It’s not the neat conclusion that one would expect. It’s as if Stefano DiMera is now all warm and fuzzy, but Roman Brady still wants to toss him in jail. It’s as if Skandar Akbar now strictly follows the rules, but Fritz von Erich still wants to break him in two.

Actually, I suppose the ending of this story really does make sense. The story of Jonah is the story of life, and life is not all one neat package; life is, if fact, downright messy. Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.

Finally, the ultimate lesson of Jonah is that, in order to make it through this mess called life, we have to follow wherever God leads us, no matter where that might be. God may lead us to wear sackcloth and ashes. God may lead us to a wicked, evil place. God may lead us to work with people we really don’t like. Doesn’t matter. We’ve got to go where God tells us to go, and do what God tells us to do. Or we might end up in the belly of a big, stinky fish.

An Imperfect Faith

Acts 18.24-19.7

　
“[Paul] said to them, ‘Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?’ They replied, ‘No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.’ Then he said, ‘Into what then were you baptized?’”

Apollos is not someone we hear a lot about. When we talk about the early church, in addition to Peter and Paul, we’ll often mention Barnabas, Silas, and Timothy. Priscilla and Aquila get tossed in there sometimes. But Apollos is not a name that immediately comes to mind. Yet at the time, Apollos seems to have been a well-known and influential member of the early church.

Apollos was a Jew, from the city of Alexandria, in Egypt. In the Roman Empire, Alexandria was second in importance only to Rome. It was a center of learning, and was home not only to a famous library but also to a large and influential Jewish community. Since we are told that Apollos was “eloquent” and “well-versed in the scriptures,” we can assume that Apollos received a good education in Alexandria.

Apollos was led to spread his knowledge, and so he traveled to Ephesus. There he “taught accurately the things concerning Jesus.” Among those who listened to Apollos in Ephesus was a group of disciples. Although we are not specifically told so, it seems likely that Apollos was the one who baptized these disciples.

With that assumption in hand, we can also assume that these disciples had exactly the same problem that Apollos had. Luke — the writer of Acts — Luke tells us that Apollos “was well-versed in the scriptures. He had been instructed in the Way of the Lord; and he spoke with burning enthusiasm and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John.”

After Apollos had traveled on, Paul came to Ephesus, and met this group of disciples. Paul calls them “believers,” so there was nothing wrong with their faith. Having been taught by Apollos, they were probably well-versed in the scriptures, and they knew the stories of Jesus. And yet, like Apollos, they lacked something.

And while Priscilla and Aquila went to Apollos and “explained the Way of God to him more accurately,” these disciples somehow missed out. They didn’t receive this new, updated, more accurate teaching. Why? We don’t really know. Maybe they were out of town that week. Maybe they were like the people today who cling to the King James Bible even though the newer translations are more accurate and easier to understand. Maybe they thought that since they were already believers they didn’t have to go to church anymore, didn’t have to hear any more teachings.

Notice that Paul never asks these disciples “Why?” This passage of scripture would be considerably different if, in response to: “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit,” Paul had replied, “Why not? Have you not been going to church? Do you think you know everything already? Are you ignorant or something?”

Unfortunately, that’s the attitude some people encounter in church. A genuine, heartfelt search for answers is met with ridicule and hostility. “I mean, my goodness, the truth about Jesus Christ has been public information for 2,000 years, how could you possibly have missed it? There must be something wrong with you!”

But thank God, that’s not how Paul handled things. Paul never questioned these disciples as to why they hadn’t received the Holy Spirit. Paul simply asked them what kind of baptism they had received. Paul never condemned them for having an incomplete understanding of the Gospel. Just as Priscilla and Aquila had “explained the Way of God … more accurately” to Apollos, Paul explained the Gospel more fully and accurately to these disciples.

Remember, these people had faith. They were disciples, followers of Jesus. They were believers. The problem was that their faith wasn’t perfect. But then again, whose faith is? Who has ever had perfect faith? Did Paul? Peter? John Wesley? Mother Teresa? Does Billy Graham have perfect faith? Bishop Crutchfield? What about you? I think if we’re honest with ourselves then we know that none of us has what might be called a perfect faith.

Apollos and these other disciples had faith. They knew Christ as their Savior. But they didn’t know about the Holy Spirit. Their faith was incomplete. Apollos taught these disciples all that he knew, which was considerable, but Apollos didn’t know the full story. Apollos’ understanding of the Gospel message wasn’t complete. It was good enough to bring salvation in Christ, it was good enough to make these disciples — and Apollos himself — true believers. But it wasn’t good enough or full enough to bring the Holy Spirit.

Apollos and these disciples in Ephesus remind me of a young John Wesley. John Wesley knew, intellectually, everything there was to know about Jesus Christ and the Christian faith. He was well educated, at the finest schools. John Wesley was a Christian, a minister in the Church of England. But it wasn’t until he felt his heart “strangely warmed” that John Wesley knew, deep within himself, the full and complete relationship with Christ that is possible only through the leading of the Holy Spirit.

Here’s the thing: we don’t have to have a perfect faith in order to have a relationship with Jesus. The relationship comes first; the doctrine comes later. This is a very important point. Sometimes we act as if people need to know everything there is to know before they can have faith. That’s just not so. We learn theology after we come to know the risen Christ. Faith comes first, but faith isn’t perfect.

So, even though we are already Christians, already disciples of Jesus, we continue to learn, and to grow, in our knowledge and in our faith. And one of the things that we learn, just as these disciples in Ephesus learned, is that repentance is only part of the story. John the Baptist brought a baptism of repentance of sins, and repentance is an important, vital step for us to take. But there comes a time when we have to move beyond repentance.

Repentance, ultimately, is a self-centered act. When we repent of our sins we are looking inside ourselves. But Christ calls us to reach out to others, to bring others into a relationship with God. We can’t do that if we spend all our time looking inward.

So our faith has to grow, it has to mature. And sooner or later we have to receive the Holy Spirit. Sometimes this happens right away, sometimes it might take years, as in John Wesley’s case. But eventually, somewhere along the road of our salvation journey, the Holy Spirit must become a part of our lives.

Not everyone receives the Holy Spirit in the same way; we don’t all receive the Holy Spirit the way these disciples in Ephesus did. There are other instances in the New Testament where the Holy Spirit came upon people without a laying on of hands, and where the gifts of tongues and prophecy are not present. But the point is that the Holy Spirit must be received.

And another point in this passage of scripture is the importance of baptism. When we are asked, “Into what then were you baptized?” Our answer needs to be, “In the name of the Lord Jesus.” Now, again, just like the coming of the Holy Spirit, baptism is not a prerequisite for salvation. These disciples in Ephesus were disciples, believers, Christians, before they were baptized in Jesus’ name.

But baptism is an important rite of passage in the Church. Through the sacrament of baptism we are initiated into Christ’s Holy Church. It is through the act of baptism that we become a part of the body of Christ, the community of faith. It is through baptism that we come to share with others both the joy and the sacrifice of being part of a community of believers. And it is through baptism that we show publicly that we belong to God, through Christ Jesus.

Yet even after we are baptized, even after we are a part of the body of Christ, even after we have received the Holy Spirit, our faith must continue to grow and mature. Thank God, faith doesn’t have to be perfect. But faith does need to keep growing, and, if necessary, faith needs to make changes, just as Apollos and these disciples in Ephesus learned.

The more we learn, the more we need to be willing to grow and to change. Of course, that’s not always easy. Change, even change for the better, is never easy and is often painful. But like Apollos and those disciples from Ephesus, when we learn something new, we have to be willing to accept it.

When Priscilla and Aquila explained things more accurately to Apollos, he took what they taught him and “greatly helped those who through grace had become believers.”

And when the disciples in Ephesus heard Paul’s more accurate account of the Gospel, those disciples “were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.” Being baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus signifies the working of God’s grace – the washing away of sin, our gift of eternal life with Christ, being born anew of water and the Spirit, and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit.

Most of what baptism signifies will happen over the course of a lifetime, not in the blink of an eye. But baptism celebrates the act of personal commitment to God, through Christ, and it celebrates the gift of God’s grace which makes our commitment possible. In the case of a child, baptism anticipates the commitment that will come at confirmation.

Either way, all those who are baptized are welcomed into the family of God, and the ministry of all believers. To all of you here today who have been baptized, remember your baptism, and be thankful.