PEOPLE'S CHURCH OF DOVER

Matthew 4:12-23                                                                                        Fisherfolk All

Sermon January 27, 2008:  People's United Church of Christ, Dover, DE:  The Rev. Dan Griggs

 

            The sun beat down hot, and the waves cast reflections off the rippling surface of the Lake of Galilee, toward white mud houses standing along the waterfront.  Beyond the wharves lay the sleepy village of Capernaum, and then the hills sprouting in fields of wheat and barley, up the sides of the gentle slopes toward old snow-capped Mount Herman, lying like a sleeping giant twenty-five miles to the northeast.  In spite of snow so close, around this inland lake two hundred feet below sea level, the air is warm even in winter.  Along the beach boats were returning to their quays after a night's work.  People called it "Capernaum by the sea," and thought of it as a kind of miniature Florida.  A stranger walked unnoticed toward  two fishing boats at the water's edge.  The boat crews, sparsely clad for maximum comfort, consisted of about eight men each. 

            One of the boats lay about a hundred feet out, and a muscular, tanned man stood at the stern holding a round net with weights and a draw-rope around the edge.  He cast the net out over the water between the boat and the quay, and then when it sank into the water he drew it back into the boat.[1]  The stranger watched as this business went forward, standing on the bank, arms akimbo.  Now he calls out, "Catch anything?"  Comes the answer, "We've been out all night, but caught nothing."  The stranger calls back, "Cast one time on the other side."  The waves sloshed against the hull and an oar bumped its regular rhythm as the tired man cast his net toward the open lake.  He pulled the rope taut and began to strain at the weight.  The boat began to list.  He cried out to his friends, "Big haul!  Help!"  Several men pushed another boat away from shore and rowed out to help buoy the haul to land.  The muscular man was the first one out of the boat when it reach shore.  Simon bar Jonah looked at Jesus with a questioning expression.[2]  Jesus said to him, "Follow me, and I will make you fishermen for people."  Silently Simon and his brother Andrew followed him to the other boat.  During the night the net had snagged and torn.  James and John were making the repairs.  Jesus stood before them and said, "Follow me."  He needed menders as well as net-casters.[3]  Peter, Andrew, James and John:  with these first four men Jesus began gathering a little flock to bring the good news to the world.  Some would cast nets and some mend nets; but they were fisherfolk all.  And it's still the same in the church:  we proclaim the gospel together, but not all are called to do the same thing.  My point is:  The people of God propagate the gospel in many ways. 

 

            In the Book of Ephesians we find the diversity of skills and gifts described this way:[4] 

 

 

 

From the church's beginning there have been certain individuals suited for particular tasks—visitation evangelism, preaching, mission work.  Although missions is not everyone's job, there are some so commissioned.  One of them was Francis of Assisi.  Born into Medieval Italian wealth, Francis was deeply unhappy.  He felt that his life was incomplete.  He entered the ministry, but he still craved some deeper satisfaction.  One day Francis was out riding when he met a leper, his skin flaked white by that devastating disease.  Even though the man was repulsive to look at, Francis jumped down from his horse and flung his arms around him.  In this simple act of compassion there began a whole new order of Christian faithfulness—the Franciscans, whose typical work has been service to lepers.[5] 

            It takes the right mix of spirit and talents to be a missionary.  The great nineteenth-century British Bible scholar George Adam Smith once shared a seating compartment on a train with a young minister.  They talked together and Dr. Smith learned that this young man was headed for the seaport to go to Africa as a missionary.  A hundred fifty years ago Africa was a much more dangerous place because of the tropical diseases for which medicine knew no treatments—not so much because of the people, as is the case now.  Professor Smith tried to reason with the man:  why not go some place where he would be sure to live long enough to do some real good?  But the young man said simply, "Christ loved me and gave himself for me; and I cannot hold back."[6] 

            But that's not a put-down of Professor Smith.  What if the young missionary had turned the question around:  "Dr. Smith, you've spent so much of your life with books; when are you going to begin to serve where you can be heard by the people?"  Then Professor Smith would have answered, "Christ loved me and gave himself for me; and he gave me work to do—I cannot hold back."  The people of God propagate the gospel in many ways. 

 

            That passage from Ephesians says:  "Some [Christ] gave to be prophets, and some pastors and teachers."—it's referring to the ordained ministries of the church:  preaching, pastoral work, teaching ministers and administration.  I look at the diversity of ordained ministries in the church today and it confirms just what this text says:  we proclaim the gospel together, but not all are called to do the same thing. 

            When we were living in Ohio my friend Bob Bowen was the pastor of the college church in Hiram, Ohio.  Bob served as a pastor for ten years in Arizona, and then he accepted a call to go on loan to the Presbyterian Church of Brazil to help the young denomination organize youth ministries.  It wasn't typical "mission work"—that kind of evangelism is now being done in our time by the Brazilian Christians themselves.  Instead, Bob gave special support to the gospel there—ministry to youth, a kind of ministry he was well suited to.  When he returned to America with his Brazilian bride, he accepted the call to the college church and served there for nearly a decade.  After a year or two the leaders of the church began to wonder what was wrong with Bob—his behavior was erratic, his sermons confused.  Then he told them:  he is an alcoholic.  The church opened its arms wide and embraced him and his family all the more.  They set up a program for Bob to take time several evenings a week to go to A.A. meetings; and they loved him into health.  So together this minister and this church spread the good news of Christ in a college town. 

            Over the past fifty years or so there has been a lot of stress between local churches and their denominational headquarters.  The less we have communicated with each other, the more stress there has been.  This is true in all the traditional Protestant denominations.  But we need to remember, and they need to remember that both sides are working to live out and to spread the message of Christ.  People's Church works in an intentional way to include Our Church's Wider Mission offerings in our regular budget.  What does our mission money do?  It pays the salaries of ministers and laypersons both in our Conference office in Baltimore and in our National office in Cleveland:  why?  So they can proclaim Jesus Christ.  The way they go about it may look to us like bureaucracy.  To them, the way we go about it may look like a disorganized confusion.  But we are fisherfolk all.  The people of God propagate the gospel in many ways. 

            Look around our own church.  Some of us are good listeners, and by listening to people who have burdens on their heart, you share good news in Christ's name.  Some of us are good at administration, organizing and leading, and in doing that for the church you are evangelists.  Some among us have the personality and the desire to speak to other people, invite them to visit our worship, make friends for Christ.  Several are skilled with their hands in building, making and decorating, and so share good news.  Several can sing the gospel.  Some have the talent and the gift of hospitality.  Some have the energy to press us all forward in our work as a church—like the current Homeless Project we are participating in with other local churches.  It takes all of us, doing the work God has given each, to be the church.  We are fisherfolk, all of us.  We proclaim the gospel together, each doing something different.  The people of God propagate the gospel in many ways. 

            The other way to say this is "the priesthood of all believers."  It's not just ordained ministers who have a "calling" from God:  you do, too.  Public school teachers have a calling; people in business have a calling; professional people have a calling; contractors have a calling; nurses have a calling; watermen have a calling; cooks, seamstresses, dentists, grocery store cashiers—a few weeks ago I was in the check-out line, and the cashier was having some trouble with the computer so she called her supervisor over:  the supervisor inserted a key and typed something in, and the computer unfroze so she could give change to the Latino customer in front of me; and then she said, "Have a good day" in Spanish, and the customer smiled.  A calling! 

            We all have many opportunities both within the church and beyond the church to serve, just as the sons of Zebedee mended nets and the sons of Jonah cast them, the people of God propagate the gospel in many ways. 

 

            The key to being a faithful church is for the people to be faithful in all our callings.  The Russian novelist Dostoyevsky told the story of a stingy woman who never did anything for anybody except herself.  Her life was spent turning others away and helping herself.  When she died, her soul awoke in the lake of fire; but her guardian angel rushed to God and begged for mercy.  God said, "If you can show me one kind deed in all her life, I will grant her mercy."  The angel smiled, "She was indeed a very selfish woman, but once she gave an onion to a poor beggar-woman."  "Very well," said the Judge, "take that onion and with it draw her from the flames; but if it breaks and she falls back in, there she must remain."  Quickly the angel took the onion to the edge of the fiery pit and held it out to the woman.  She reached up and grasped the onion, and the angel began to pull her out, all the while trying not to put too much strain on the onion.  Other inmates of hell saw what was happening and ran to the woman, grabbed her feet and her skirts, hoping to be rescued too.  She looked down and saw them and began kicking them off, "Get off, get away!"  And that    was when the onion broke.[7] 

            The English mystic William Dell said it well:  "the believer is the only book in which  God himself writes his New Testament."[8]  You are the only gospel somebody will ever read.  It may be only an onion, but God can use it—and use us—to announce good news in the world.

 

            "Jesus called them one by one:  Peter, Andrew, James and John"—

and me, and you.  Some cast nets, some mend nets, and some have other duties; but we are fisherfolk, all of us.  The people of God propagate the gospel in many ways

AMEN