Fishing Lessons

Luke 5:1-11

Isaiah 6:1-8

Rev. Stephen H. Wilkins

Georgetown Presbyterian Church

February 4, 2007

There’s a story that is told concerning the frigid relationship between North and South Korea. It seems that two men were fishing along the same river, on opposite sides of the border between the two countries. The man on the South Korean side was catching a fish with every cast. The man on the North Korean side, however, was catching nothing—not even a bite. He was even using the same bait as the man on the South Korean side. And so he called out to the man on the South Korean side, and he asked, "Why is it that we’re fishing in the same spot, with the same bait, but you’re catching all the fish and I’m catching none?" The man on the South Korean side thought for a moment, then he replied, "Maybe the fish on your side of the river are afraid to open their mouths."

As people living in a land that values freedom of expression, it’s hard to imagine places in the world where people speak only in fear. Every once in a while in the Presbyterian Church, though, I do notice that there is a word that strikes such fear in us that we tremble when we hear it. It’s a word that can make even the boldest and strongest of us want to curl up in the fetal position.

I’m going to share that word with you right now: Evangelism.

There, I said it! I can see you trembling already!

Evangelism is a word that conjures up images of going door-to-door and stopping at the homes of complete strangers to tell them about Jesus. People are willing to do many things in the life of the church. But evangelism is just something that makes us nervous. And so Presbyterians everywhere have come up with a wonderfully safe approach to evangelism. If you go to a typical Presbyterian church and ask about their approach to evangelism, they’ll say something like this: "Well, our doors are unlocked. Anybody can come in on Sunday if they want to."

Why do you think it is that so often we’re afraid to talk about Jesus? We’ll talk freely about the price of gas, or about who you think is going to win the Super Bowl tonight, or about what’s going on over in Iraq. But why are we so reluctant to talk about Jesus? Once while I was reading a church leadership journal, I came across an article that gave some excuses that people offer in trying to avoid the E-word. Let me give you a few of them:

1. "I don’t have any non-Christian friends."

2. "I don’t have the gift of evangelism. It’s not my thing."

3. "I’m afraid of what people will think of me."

4. "I’ll just live out my faith in front of my friends; they’ll figure it out." (This one’s kind of like thinking that putting one of those little fish on the back of your car is the same as evangelism)

5. "I don’t know enough."

6. "The way I was taught, faith is a personal thing."

What excuses have you used? What are some of the reasons you give for dodging the Great Commission?

At this point I need to say that Georgetown Presbyterian Church is not a typical Presbyterian church. You do a wonderful job of making people feel welcome when they visit our church. Time and again, when I ask people who are joining the church what made them interested, they have said that this was the church where they felt most warmly welcomed. And so I applaud your gracious hospitality. But making people feel welcome is only one piece of evangelism.

Many of you who used to live in Columbia know Joe Donaho, who was a long-time pastor at Eastminster Presbyterian Church. He wrote a little book on evangelism called "Good News is for Sharing." And in that book, he takes the term "Good News" and makes it into a verb. He asks people, "Have you good-newsed anybody lately?" He does this to make a point. Maybe we’re afraid of evangelism, because we’re intimidated by particular methods of evangelism. But at its most basic, evangelism is about sharing good news. In fact, that’s what the Greek word for evangelism literally means: good news.

You see, telling a stranger about a few Bible verses may not come naturally to you. But how much easier it is to share something that is important in your life. In much the same way we proudly show baby pictures to friends and acquaintances, or in the same way that a newly-engaged woman is quick to display her engagement ring for others to see, or like when you have to explain that the reason for the smile on your face is that you just got a promotion, evangelism is simply the act of sharing good news with someone. At its most basic, evangelism is telling someone else the precious news of God’s love made known in Jesus Christ.

Evangelism is about good-newsing people.

"Jesus said to Simon, ‘Don’t be afraid; from now on you will catch people." This is, of course, seen by many people as a mandate for evangelism. And that is true. But today I want to look at evangelism, not so much from the perspective of the "fisher of men" who catches people, but from the perspective of a fish who was caught by the net of the gospel. I want to look at evangelism from the perspective of Peter, and how it is that he was good-newsed by the Master Good-Newser, Jesus. To use the language of today’s text from Luke, let’s take some fishing lessons from the Master Fisherman.

Fishing lesson number one: Jesus doesn’t wait until Sunday or some particularly spiritual moment to show up. Jesus comes to us in our everyday, ordinary moments. In our text, Jesus came to teach, and because of the crowds he used Peter’s boat as his pulpit. Jesus simply came to Peter and his crewmates in the middle of what they were doing.

This is important, because we are tempted to think that Sunday is our "Jesus" day. We like to compartmentalize our lives, so that Jesus is good for "spiritual matters," but otherwise irrelevant. And so we work by one set of rules at home, another set of rules at the office. When we get sick, we look for the expertise of scientists, doctors, and psychologists, etc. For national issues we rely on politics. For world issues we turn to diplomacy. Oh yeah, for spiritual matters we turn to Jesus.

But the truth is, Jesus’ presence is relevant for all of life. It’s not that we would substitute Jesus for medicine or politics or diplomacy or workplace policies or household rules. Rather, it is that when Jesus enters into our everyday ordinary realities, he transforms them and enriches our lives beyond our imaginations. Jesus is not a word to use on Sundays; he’s a Savior who brings redemption and wholeness to every aspect of our lives.

Evangelism is about finding ways to introduce Jesus into every aspect of our lives and the lives of those with whom we share the gospel. Because if we wait until Sunday morning, we will miss out on so many opportunities for Jesus to enrich our lives and the lives of others.

Fishing lesson number two: An encounter with Jesus will reveal who we truly are: sinners in need of redemption. That’s what happened when Simon Peter fell on his knees at the moment that he recognized just who Jesus really was. When Peter realizes what is going on, he cries out, "Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!" Do you see what’s going on? It is when Peter realizes that he is in the Divine Presence that all pretenses of righteousness fall away.

It’s the same thing that happened with Isaiah in his vision. When he realized he was in the presence of God, he cried out "Woe is me! I am lost! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people with unclean lips. And my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty."

John Calvin spoke of this dynamic in his Institutes on the Christian Religion. Basically, Calvin said that a person cannot know himself or herself until that person also knows God. And it is when we see ourselves in the light of who we know God to be that our sins and frailties and weaknesses are exposed. It is when we behold ourselves in the light of the holiness and majesty of the Living God that we see how far short of God’s glory we truly fall.

And so Peter’s cry of despair comes when he realizes that he is a sinner, unable to save himself. An encounter with Jesus will reveal who we truly are: sinners in need of redemption.

But that’s only half of this fishing lesson. The other half is that in Jesus God meets us in our sin, and he answers our sin not with condemnation, but with grace and mercy. "Do not be afraid," says Jesus. Those are some of the most powerful words found in the gospel: Do not be afraid. Again we see the same thing in our text from Isaiah, where the angel takes the burning hot coal and touches it to the prophet’s lips and says, "See, this has touched your [unclean] lips. Your sin has been atoned for, and your guilt has been taken away."

An encounter with Jesus will reveal to us that we are sinners in need of salvation; but that same encounter will assure us that the One who helps us see our sin is the same One who addresses our sin with mercy and grace and who becomes our Savior.

Fishing lesson number three: The caught now becomes the catcher of others. Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Do not be afraid; from now on you will catch people." And Luke tells us that at that point Simon and the others with him pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed Jesus. Peter, who has been "caught" by the good news of the gospel, is now one of the ones who will do the catching. The good news of Christ does not stop when it reaches our hearts; some would say that is just the beginning. The good news of Christ is given to us so that we who believe in Christ can then share this good news with others. In other words, we are good-newsed so that we can good-news others.

The call to evangelism is a call to every Christian. Not just the pastor. Not just the Session. Not just a committee of the church. It is a call to every Christian, to take the good news of Christ out into the world. It’s not about numbers. It’s not about church membership. It’s about casting the net of the gospel of Christ and catching the whole world with his love.

And it’s about making ourselves available. Because the truth is, Jesus comes to ordinary people like Peter and a few other fishermen, and he comes to people like you and me. And he enters our lives and transforms us.

And when he asks, "Who will share this good news with others? Whom shall I send?", the right answer is for every one of us to raise our hands and say, "Here I am, Lord! Send me!" Amen.