January 22, 2023

Epiphany 3,

Epiphany, Winnipeg

Matthew 4:12-23

You might have noticed that the very first thing we hear in the gospel today is that when Jesus heard that John had been arrested he withdrew into Galilee. The quick timeline is that Jesus was baptized by John in the Jordan river, and after that Jesus spent forty days in the wilderness being tempted by Satan. When he comes out of his time in the wilderness, the first thing he hears is that John has been arrested, and arrested by the son of the king Herod who had wanted to find and get rid of Jesus when he was a child. So it’s not the safest environment, is it? So Jesus withdraws into Galilee, maybe to lay low for awhile, keep out of sight for a few days, catch his breath and see if it’s safe.

All these stories of Jesus happen in a real world with real politics and intrigue and danger and human worries. It’s good for us to remember that.

“Follow me,” Jesus says to two who are casting their nets and then to two who are mending their nets, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.”

Here is my history of fishing, in a nutshell.

I didn’t fish much when I was young, but the fishing I remember was usually with my dad and my brother. We’d end up at a lake within a few hour’s drive of Calgary, having left super-early in the morning because that’s what fishers do. We’d stand on the shore and cast for hours and then come home. My memory – and I might get a phone call this afternoon to correct me – is that we almost never caught any fish. There were a few times when we borrowed a canoe or rented a boat and headed out to where the big ones are and invariably someone would pass by in their own boat and say, “Catch anything?” “Nope.”

As an adult I fished in northern Saskatchewan with a Norwegian thirty years older than me named Lars. I caught a few fish. I fished with a German named August, also thirty years older, at Child’s Lake in Western Manitoba and caught a couple of fish. I fished with my good friend Greg who tried to teach me everything he knows about fishing but I really don’t think any of it took, and to this day if I do fish my decision about what lure to use usually boils down to “This one looks shiny; I’ll use it.” When my kids were three and five they saw me catch the only fish they’ve ever seen me catch and Ben the five-year-old said, “That’s a pretty good catch for a man of your age.”

My brother and my cousin and I fished a few times, and one time mom came along and whenever she sat on a certain rock one of us would catch a fish. I guess maybe moms just know stuff that no one else does.

I haven’t fished much, and I haven’t caught much, and even if I do catch something I get nervous and I hope there’s an adult around who can show me what to do, or even better yet just do it, once I’ve reeled in the fish.

So here’s what my experience has taught me about fishing:

Sometimes it all depends on dumb luck. Sometimes you need someone around with a name like Lars or August or Adelene – mom – if anything much is going to happen. People much younger might make fun of you and people much older might think your intentions are good but it’s just not going to happen. You might never know what you’re doing and you’ll hope there’s someone around who does. And you might never catch any fish.

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

Fish for people. What does that mean? It’s a question that matters to us because although this is an old story we’re hearing it’s our story too, and even though it’s about Jesus and some fishermen on the shore it’s about us too, no matter our fishing history; and you and I are people of all kinds of shapes and sizes and ages and orientations and identities and lives who have heard that same call: “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.”

What does it mean to fish for people? Jesus doesn’t ever really say what it means to fish for people, but he calls us to leave our nets behind and follow and see and hear and learn. We’ll hear Jesus say things like “Blessed are the poor, and those who mourn, and those who are hungry or merciful or persecuted” and we will see that fishing for people has something to do with honouring those who are weak, or being blessed by those who the world might just think are cursed. Jesus’ disciples will follow Jesus and we’re following too and we’ll see all along the way that “fishing for people” doesn’t just mean gathering a crowd or a catch; it has something instead to do with caring for those who are sick or feeding those who are hungry or eating with those who are hungry. “Fishing for people” might have something to do with living as though people matter more than systems or structures or rules or balance sheets.

We’ll follow Jesus with all those other disciples and it won’t be long before we see Jesus arrested and executed and laid in a tomb. We’ll see that fishing for people might get us in trouble some day. And in some way, “fishing for people” might have to mean standing with those who suffer and die, and it might have to mean something about learning how to die; learning that we will die, because dying is a net that catches all the fish. And as we follow Jesus we will meet him again as he is called to life again, and we will learn to trust that life will always be raised up from death, because God sees to it that resurrection is a net that catches all the fish.

So Jesus calls us together to follow and learn and to try it out, all this “fishing for people” thing. Sometimes we’ll get it right, sometimes we’ll get it wrong; and always, Jesus will call us again, “Come on, follow me; I’ll make you fish for people.” And we’ll follow again, and Jesus will keep walking along with us.

A few minutes ago I said that thing about what I’ve learned from my experience of fishing. You know, it’s all just luck, and if I go fishing I really don’t know what I’m doing and I’m a little nervous about what to do when I catch a fish? And how I’ve really hardly ever caught any fish?

But I also said that I need adult supervision, and that a few people took me along and tried to teach me how to fish. I think that if I spent enough time with them I might just learn something more about how to fish. I might even start to get it. And that’s the thing: we don’t have an instruction manual; we just learn from all the people around us what it means to fish for people or, in other words, how to follow Jesus. So when we see kindness given or we receive kindness ourselves, we are tasting what it means to follow, to fish, to be caught up in the generosity and kindness of God and of the people we meet. When we see someone famous like Martin Luther King or Viola Desmond who teach us all something about resisting racism we are learning what it means to fish for people. When Sally Azar is ordained in Jerusalem we see that fishing for people might take us to struggles and celebrations for gender justice. When people grieve together and we comfort each other, we see what fishing for people means; when muffins are baked for the school next door or chili is cooked for our neighbours downtown we see what fishing for people looks like.

That’s the thing: We’re not left to figure it out for ourselves. We look around, and when we see kindness, or caring, or courage, or speaking out or supporting one another, we’re seeing what fishing for people looks like. We learn how to fish by watching it happen all around us.

In case I wasn’t clear enough about it way back at the start, I’ll be clear about it now. I’m lousy at fishing. But any time I’ve fished there’s been someone else there, and that’s made fishing a good thing. It’s even made it bearable when it might otherwise have just been frustrating. There’s always someone along, and we always end up talking about everything, or just being quiet and enjoying the fresh air together. And more often than not, that’s even made it fun. We don’t follow and fish alone; Jesus calls two or seven or fifty or eleven at a time, to fish together when it’s easy and to fish together when it’s hard. Every now and then people who have been fishing somewhere else come along to fish with us here for awhile. We never fish alone or follow alone. We fish together. We live together. We die together and live again together because the one we follow is all about raising the dead. Then we fish some more.

AMEN.