Reflection: "Let's Go Fishing"In a recent report on contemporary family life, a somewhat exasperated young father described parenthood as “always filled with joy, but sometimes not much fun.”
Many parents could probably relate to his words. And it doesn’t just apply to modern parenting, either. For being father, or mother, with all its wonder and joys, is not easy in any era. Good parenting invariably entails a great deal of giving and self-sacrifice – which as we all know is “sometimes not much fun.” That father’s offhand comment seems somehow appropriate as we reflect on today’s gospel account of the calling of the disciples – particularly James and John, the sons of Zebedee. Mark’s gospel tells us that they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him. What must Zebedee have thought as he saw his otherwise perfectly sensible sons suddenly get up and leave their nets and their chores? And to do what? To follow a little-known itinerant preacher no less. Not much fun in that for Zebedee, one supposes, as the hired men probably stared open-jawed in amazement at this little family drama unfolding before their very eyes. Apparently, parenthood, and family life, was no simpler 2,000 years ago than it is nowadays. By the way, commercial fishing was – back then and is still today in many places – a family business in which each member of the household has his or her important role. It’s fair to say that fishing for a living is a lot of hard work and is not always fun. While a family-run fishing business might not have been the most glamorous profession in ancient Israel, nor have put one into the highest echelons of Hebrew society, it was nevertheless a respected profession and a solid means of income to support one’s family. It was, in fact, more highly regarded – according to some scholars and experts – than the work of a lowly village carpenter, as might be levelled at Joseph, the father of Jesus, and even Jesus himself. So, to follow Jesus – as admirable as that may seem from our advantaged perspective 2,000 years later – also meant for James and John, the giving up of a not-insignificant trade or profession. As they say, people will always need to eat. The troubling conclusion also seems almost unavoidable: Following Jesus might well mean leaving parents and family and the security and comfort of a good job or career. By the way, how was Zebedee supposed to manage without the assistance and support of his sons, we simply don’t know from the gospel account. “Follow me, indeed!", he was probably thinking. But “Follow me” is precisely what Jesus says to that other pair of brothers, Peter and Andrew, also fishermen at the Sea of Galilee. His call to James and John must certainly have sounded a similar note. Even now, there are probably few words in all of Christian scripture more demanding than these: Follow me, we’re going fishing. Jesus gives no explanation for his challenge. Nor does he give his followers or recruits a clear 7 point business plan for his new start-up ministry. He makes no promise of success or riches either. His vision statement – if you can call it that from a present-day corporate perspective – is only that his disciples will come to “fish for people.” And can there be much of a future in that? The disciples obviously must have thought so, because, curiously, they’re not portrayed as having agonized over their decision to drop everything and follow the Lord. They didn’t first go home and sleep on it, or discuss it at length with family members, friends or village elders. They didn’t check their bank accounts or savings. And surely, if they had approached their local rabbi for advice, they would most assuredly have been sent back to Zebedee to continue the family business. Still, there’s something truly energizing and exciting in the response - or impulse really, because it hardly seems to have been a decision at all – of these first disciples. Perhaps, in leaving their home, they comprehended at once the larger family of humankind to which Jesus was calling them. To “fish for people” is, after all, about community – and family. And, though not always fun, as the disciples were themselves later to discover, it’s most definitely about joy – the joy of bringing the Father’s love to others sorely in need of the Good News of the gospel. Most of us have, no doubt, from time to time dreamed of dropping everything and heading off on some personal journey of discovery – until we sit back and calculate the cost, come down to earth and get back to reality. Probably there would be very few of us today who would leave our nets, much less our Internet, to follow in the footsteps of James and John, Peter and Andrew – or Jesus himself. Yet our Lord’s challenge to the disciples of so long ago remains there to test us still today – just those two words: “Follow me.” The fact that we know from the perspective of faith, just who Jesus is and what he calls us to do, seems to make little difference. In some sense, our challenge and task is perhaps even greater than that of those impulsive young followers of Jesus. For most of us are called to follow our Lord at the very same time that we’re challenged to remain where we are – at the side of family and friends. Yet, perhaps paradoxically, accepting our Lord’s gospel imperative, invariably leads us to fish for other people, even if we never actually pull up stakes and leave home. What the early disciples must have instinctively known is something we must not forget – that in following Jesus we might leave everything, but we lose nothing. That’s the good news of God that Jesus and his disciples proclaimed with great joy throughout Galilee – and we can also do across our world today. And probably even the disciples’ own father, Zebedee, could find joy in that. A while ago, my brother (a minister in Melbourne), put me on to a book called Servant Leadership by Robert Greenleaf. Robert was an unlikely figure – a senior manager in AT&T (a bit like our Telstra) - who also sat on educational boards. But out of these experiences came a deep suspicion of authoritarian leaders. He said a real leader must be a servant first, seeking to serve the highest priority needs of others. He advised “Never follow a leader who is not a servant first.” Greenleaf’s servant leadership sounded to me just like the leadership of Jesus all those years ago. He didn’t say to the disciples “Go.” He said “Follow.” I realised after reading this book, why I wanted to follow Jesus. And from the time I began to know who he really was; someone who gave his life to serve each one of us and yet gave leadership that was stronger than anything the world had seen, I knew that this was the life for me. That probably explained why there has been a deep conviction in me that Jesus is the one I want to follow. He was the most deeply human person the world has ever seen and it’s in that humanity we can see the living God. Jesus was not really the gentle, meek and mild person he’s sometimes portrayed as, but was, in fact, a strong servant leader, who stood up to the forces of this world. He asked the fishermen to leave their nets and become fishers of men. Now he calls each one of us, today, to follow him in the greatest adventure the world has known. Are you ready to go fishing with Jesus? Pastor Rick
2 Comments
beryl blok
22/1/2021 06:52:07 pm
Thank you Rick for another good message. I am singing "follow, follow, I will follow Jesus".
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Andrew corish
22/1/2021 10:07:58 pm
great perspective. I liked never follow anyone who doesn't want to be your servant first.
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