Going Fishing

It's after Easter, and Christ is risen! That was good news for the disciples... but it also meant that Jesus wasn't with them in the flesh anymore. So what did they do? They went fishing! But they weren't fishing for fish; and that's the key to the deeper story that John is telling us. Interested? Read this sermon!

What do we do now that Jesus isn’t physically with us anymore? That’s the problem facing Peter and the other disciples as they consider how to get on with their lives (John 21:1-14). For the past three years, they have been with Jesus every single day. They have listened to him, watched him, and followed his example and his instructions. But now Jesus is resurrected. Although the disciples have experienced his risen presence twice already, Jesus isn’t physically present as he had been before. What are the disciples going to do with their lives now? In this story near the end of John’s gospel, Peter announces that he’s going fishing; and seven of the other disciples go with him. It sounds like a step backwards. We know from the other gospels that Peter was a fisherman by trade; and his decision to go fishing sounds like he’s going back to familiar territory. Is he just picking up where he left off before Jesus called him to be a disciple? That’s certainly a possibility; but I think that this story is telling us something else. What do we find if we consider the images that John uses in this story? It turns out to be about a lot more than just fishing!

First, let’s review some early Christian symbols and what they meant. One is the fish. Fish in the early church often symbolized people. Jesus said that his disciples would be “fishers of men,” and the fish symbol reflected that. The boat was a symbol of the church itself. Early Christian art is full of pictures of boats with their masts in the form of a cross. Many church sanctuaries even have ceilings that are curved upwards like the bottom of an overturned boat, continuing the symbolism to this day. (By the way, did you know that the main seating area of a church sanctuary is called the “nave.” The word “nave” comes from a Latin word meaning – you guessed it – “boat.”) Finally, the number seven, the number of disciples who decided to go fishing, is the symbol of fullness or completion. If we put all these symbols in this story together, what do we find? We find all the disciples (symbolized by the number seven) going out as the Christian church (symbolized by the boat) to make new disciples (symbolized by the fish). If we take John’s symbolism seriously, this isn’t a story about fishing at all; it’s a story about evangelism! It answers the question, “What do we do now that Jesus isn’t physically with us anymore?” The answer is that we go out and make new Christians! But Peter and his friends have a problem. They can’t catch any fish! In fact, they’ve worked all night and haven’t caught so much as a sand crab! Oh, they’ve pulled up an old tire and a boot that someone tossed into the lake once upon a time, but fish? Not a one! And they don’t even get a nibble until Jesus appears on the beach. He yells out to them, “Throw the net on the other side,” and when they do, they catch so many fish that they can’t haul them all into the boat! Why does John include this story in his gospel? It might be warning us of some of the pitfalls that we’ll run across in our quest to recruit new Christians, as well as alerting us to opportunities that we may not even know are there.

So let’s hit the “Rewind” button. Let’s go all the way back to the beginning of this story and take another look at it. It starts as Peter announces “I’m going fishing!” That’s a good start. No one ever made a disciple by sitting at home watching reruns of “The Big Bang Theory” on TV. Every evangelist has to take a first step to go out in mission. Too often in our day and age, we assume that “If we build it, they will come.” But that only works for sports stadiums. We build beautiful churches and make them as inviting as we can. We’re ready to tell our visitors all about Jesus! We have information packets about our church, nametags that say “Welcome!” and gourmet coffee in the coffee pot. But visitors rarely show up. We forget that, to make disciples, we have to go to them! Peter didn’t fall into that trap. He took that first step and “went fishing.” But despite their good intentions, the disciples ran into a problem. They couldn’t find any fish to catch! It wasn’t that they weren’t trying. They fished all night, after all. Now, they knew how to find fish! They had once been professional fishermen, and their livelihood had depended on that knowledge. But right now, all their expertise was useless. They were doing what they had always done, but they weren’t getting any results. Do we need to pay attention to that? If we keep doing what we’ve always done but we aren’t getting the results that we want, maybe we need to change what we’re doing! When Jesus showed up, that’s exactly what he told them to do. He told them to throw their nets on the other side of the boat. He didn’t tell them to abandon their fishing spot and go farther out in the lake. He didn’t tell them to stop using their nets. And he certainly didn’t tell them to give up! But he did tell them to change the place where they were fishing. “Fish on this side, not on that side,” he said. Do we do that? Are we so focused on fishing on one side of the boat that we forget to fish anywhere else? Do we concentrate on the people in the McMansions on this side of the street and forget about the folks who live in the low-income housing on that side of the street? All too often, I’m afraid that we do. And what happened when they listened to Jesus and put their nets in on the other side? Why, they caught so many fish that everybody in the boat working together couldn’t haul the nets in! It’s a funny thing… when we are working on Jesus’ behalf, and we do what he tells us to do, we’re much more likely to get the result that we want! When we do things our way, our plans don’t always succeed. Maybe we should listen to what Jesus tells us more often.

But the story doesn’t end there. When Peter and the others get back to shore, Jesus has breakfast ready for them; and it is a real change from the last meal! The last meal that they had shared was a dinner eaten behind locked doors in the privacy of an upper room; and they gathered at night in the shadow of the knowledge that Jesus would soon die. But this meal is a breakfast on the beach: a public place where anyone might join in; and it is shared at dawn in the light of the knowledge that Jesus is risen! Even the food that Jesus served them is symbolic. The disciples shared bread and fish, the elements of Holy Communion in the early Christian church. Jesus knows that making disciples is hard work, so Jesus feeds us so that we have enough strength to carry on. But this isn’t a sad meal of remembrance. On the contrary, it’s a joyous meal of possibility and hope! And Jesus offers it to us, too, whenever we need it.

Can we read this little story as an instruction book on how to do evangelism? I think that we can. First, we have to decide to take a step outward. Evangelism doesn’t do itself; and we have to go out to do it. Then, we have to be open to what Jesus tells us. Even if we don’t know the territory, we’ll catch disciples if we fish where Jesus tells us to. Finally, we have to be strong enough to do the job; and we do that by sharing Holy Communion with Jesus on a regular basis. Decide to begin; listen to Jesus’ instructions; stay strong. It’s as easy – and as difficult – as that. Are we ready to catch some new disciples? Are we ready to step out in faith, to listen to what Jesus is telling us, and to stay strong for the job? If we are, then… let’s go fishing!