Gone Fishin'

“Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord… And Jesus said unto Simon, Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men. And when they had brought their ships to land, they forsook all, and followed him. ”

The title of this sermon, Gone Fishin' , temped me to just write a big sign saying just that, Gone Fishin' , and hanging it over pulpit here… and disappearing for about 20 minutes . This time of year, Gone Fishin' is just about a universal excuse for not working and is understood by all to be every man's right to rest and recreation. We all work too hard. We need to play, to relax and go fishing.

Jesus saw some men who had worked too hard all night. They were tired and their tasks were just getting finished as He walked up to the shore with a crowd of people thronging Him, pressing in, seeking His attention, crying out their needs, asking Him to speak to them. He saw the fishermen, and the boats, and asked Simon for a favor. “Might I board your boat and have you launch it a dozen cubits out from the land?” Simon wondered at the request, but being a polite and humble man, he agreed. Jesus then sat on the edge of the little fishing boat and He taught the people the things of the Kingdom of God. Simon was entranced at the teaching and couldn't hide his wonder.

Gone Fishin' may mean we are hungry and have gone to a place that only we know about with the intention of coming home with a stringer heavy with fat fish. We may catch our limit. We may be out for the big one. Or we may be just getting away, going down to the beautiful stream, out in nature, watching the water flow by, and sometimes playing out some fishing line in the off chance of catching something. Whether we catch any is often not the point of going fishing.

I was 7 years old and I'd never been fishing in my life when my father and I joined some friends of his and their sons on a big cabin cruiser on Lake Mead. We launched and set out miles across the huge lake behind Hoover Dam. On the first morning after sleeping by a sandy shoreline, we loaded into the dingy, a small fishing craft tied to the stern, and we set out across the lake at dawn. Wind swept the entire face of the water, creating a chop and causing me in my thin jacket to freeze. I wasn't dressed for that cold wind. My teeth commenced to chattering and I thought I was going to catch cold, even in this grandeur with a rosy dawn gradually lighting the sky. This had been going on for maybe 20 minutes when I thought about God, of how He was supposed to have made all this, of how He supposedly hears even our silent prayers and can do anything.

Something moved me to pray, then, in my heart, “God, if you can hear me, please stop the wind. Amen.” It wasn't a minute before the wind over that entire lake sat down like an obedient dog, and the chop, which had been spraying up from the bow, making it colder still, ceased altogether. I looked over the expanse of Lake Mead, and it looked like one enormous sheet of glass. He'd heard me . I knew, from that hour, that God was real.

The boat motor finally slowed and we all got ready to fish. As I said, I had never fished in my life . We were going after large mouth bass . Our bait was mud puppies. Mud puppies are big salamanders, all slimy and grey, with large flappy tails and finger-like gills. You hooked one of these in the back with a large hook, weighted your line down with a lot of lead sinkers, and threw the whole thing over the side. The men set me up and cast my line out for me, then handed me the pole. My small hands held the quivering rod, and I waited.

When it hit, I didn't know what to do. Everybody started to shout orders to me: “Set the hook; pull up, pull up!” “Okay now, let him run. Let the line out so he tires himself out!” “That's it, play him, let him run a little.” I did what I was told, and the line played out almost to the end of the reel. “Now set your drag up a little, like this…” The fish began to pull my arms harder, and finally I began to reel him in, slowly. It took some time, but gradually I brought that fish back to the boat. He seemed to sense his impending doom and again struck out hard to escape. “Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!” sounded the line again and again, as I let the fish tire himself out, and finally I brought him close enough for one of the men to scoop him up in a net. Everyone marveled at the big bass I'd caught . It was our first catch of the trip, and ended up the largest of all, five pounds of fighting bass. The youngest fisherman with the biggest catch sat proudly in the boat with everyone's congratulations. It was a good day.

Later, one of the boys hooked into a bass and began to reel him in when the line snapped and he jerked backward with the recoil. As others patted him on the back and gave him condolences, I got close enough to mutter my advice. “I always let ‘em run a little,” I said.

Jesus finished His sermon and turned to Simon, saying to him: “Simon, launch out into the deep and let down the net.” Simon knew better, and cautioned Jesus that the fish weren't out there: this he knew from an entire night's fishing. But he obediently set sail, took the boat over the dark blue of the deep water, and played out his nets. Not a minute later, the floats started to move, telling of a large catch . Simon began to retrieve his nets, pulling the fish over the rail. More and more fish were flopping in the boat and still there were more to come. He called his partners in their other boat to come help bring it in. Both boats could not contain the catch and began to sit low in the water, heavy with fish . Suddenly realizing the miracle, Simon sank to his knees in the fishy water, bowing low before Jesus and saying , “You should depart from me, Lord. I am a sinful man.” “Have no fear, Simon,” replied Jesus, “from now on, you shall catch men.”

Catching men is called evangelizing , saving souls, winning the lost to Christ , making converts. It is practiced in many ways by many different kinds of Christians. Sometimes it is done by miracles. Sometimes by inspired preaching. Billy Graham invites you down to the field around his stage . Somebody tells you the truth, and though you've heard it before, this time it gets in and you feel the voice of God resonating within your heart. You attend a service of worship and through its majestic grace, the Power from on high beckons you to devote yourself to Him. You come forward, hold your hands up, and receive . Christ catches you and He uses no nets, no hooks, no mud puppies or lures or flies. His bait is Himself . He catches you as you catch Him . But sometimes, after He has you on the line, He has to let you run a little . You still want to live free, go where you want, do what you feel like, not a captive, not possessed by another. You run, you hide, you try to throw the hook, but you grow tired of it, and His strong arms reel you back in.

God once used a fish to catch a man! Jonah was running from God. His presence on a ship caused a tempest and he finally had the crew throw him into the sea. A great fish swallowed Jonah and after three days spit him out on the shore. Now, that's a fish story.

After Jesus' resurrection, the apostles went home to Galilee. Simon Peter tried fishing again, and Jesus, sitting on the shore, encouraged him to cast out his nets. Peter threw out the nets, and again enclosed many fish when finally they knew it must be Jesus.

Gone fishin' was, for Christ's first apostles: Peter, James, John and Andrew, not an excuse for closing shop, but actually the family business. When Jesus invited them to catch men, they left all that behind them. Peter would preach on Pentecost, three years later, and 3,000 new Christians lined up to be baptized and made part of the kingdom . Baptism, coming under the sign of water, is a cleansing for the little fish Jesus has caught.

He catches them in many ways, at all ages. He uses wild Charismatics, thundering preachers, Sunday School teachers, moms and dads, sisters, brothers, and next door neighbors. He uses priests in starched collar and vestments of many colors. He uses whomever He chooses. This is fishing , and the smallest, the youngest, the most inexperienced may catch the big one today. Everybody may know there's nothing biting, but suddenly Wham! The wind dies down over a lake larger than some of the smaller states and a seven year old knows there is a God in heaven, and that He hears our prayers. And He cares about me. He'll be there when I really need Him . The big fisherman, Peter, wrote in our Epistle today: “ the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers.” I don't know how righteous I was in that boat, but God heard me. I caught the big fish that day, but God had been fishing before I ever let out my fishing line, and He caught a seven year old boy gone fishin'.

It's not the job of the pastor. He can give you a fish, or he can teach you how to fish. Which one's better? It may seem a professional's task, and you don't have the right words or the theology. You should know your limits, of course . Let the professionals teach the new members . But that's not going fishing. I baptize new members and squirming babies, but that's not fishing. Every Christian soul has the right to hang a sign on the doorknob that says, “Gone fishin', and we ought to know it's okay to do that . Forget making money for an hour or two. Tell someone your story, how it changed you, what Jesus means to you, why you come. Invite them here . Give them a reason to see for themselves. Explain it to them a little, but don't feel you have to teach them. God is talking in the background. Let Him reel them in . Don't try to jerk them into the boat yourself, all at once. Just cast your line in the deep water and wait.

And personally, in my own evangelistic style, I always let ‘em run a little…

PFH+