“Gone Fishing!”

A Sermon Based Upon John 21: 1-19, NRSV

By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, DMin.  

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership

Third Sunday of Easter, April  10^rd 2016

I’m not a fisherman.  As a boy I liked to fish with my Dad, just like I like to go rabbit hunting with him.  The older I got, I got more interested in hunting because I liked to be in woods.   Later on, I moved from hunting to golf, but I got over that.  But I still haven’t gotten over riding my bike.

I don’t fish, but I’ve had multiple Aquariums and have gold fish in the back yard.   I still like to hear ‘fish stories’, though.   My favorite fish story is about a fellow who was out in a boat on a lake catching a lot of fish because he was throwing dynamite into the water and forcing them to the surface.  When the Game Warden heard about it, and came and got into the boat with him,  the fellow didn’t change his fishing strategy at all.   Even with the Game Warden right beside of him he lit the dynamite fuse.   When the Game Warden started spoke up, telling him it was against the law to fish like that.  Hearing the Game Warden’s threat,  with almost no fuse left, the fisherman handed the dynamite to the Game Warden and asked: “Are you gonna talk, or you gonna fish?” 

FISH STORY

I love that story.  It’s almost as good as the ‘Fish Story’ in today’s Bible text.  Here we read that after Easter, even after being with the resurrected Lord, Peter decides ‘I’m going fishing’  (21:3).  The other disciples with him said, “We’ll go with you.  They (all) set out in a boat….”

While the rest of us might think this is rather strange behavior those who’ve just been with the one who came back from the dead, you just don’t know fishermen.  It’s perfectly normal for fisherman to ‘go fishing’ when they are stressed, confused, or contemplating something they don’t exactly know how to handle.   For fishermen, ‘fishing’ clears the mind, engages the soul, and relieves unspoken fears.  Or as a couple of fishermen put it when they answered, Why do fishermen fish?   “Most fishermen don’t stop to analyze why we love fishing.  We’re too busy planning our next trip or daydreaming about the fish that got away…We fish to remember, and we fish to forget.  We fish when we’re happy, we fish when we’re sad.  We fish to bond with friends and family, or to be alone… Fishing slows us down.  It sets us free.  It teaches us about nature (and life).  It makes fond memories.  We hook fish; they hook us.  It’s that simple.” (http://whywefish.info/).

I know that this ‘Fish Story’ is a true story because it ways that ‘throughout the night they caught nothing.’   Fishermen don’t tell stories like that unless they have too, and in this case, they had to tell exactly what happened, because this is not where the ‘fish story’ ends, but where it only begins.

Early in the morning, after fishing all night, someone on the shoreline, calls out, “Have you caught anything to eat?”  Having to admit they hadn’t, the truth was out.  The stranger, unbeknownst to them, was Jesus.  After hearing the answer, he asked them to “Cast their nets on the right side of the boat and they would find some” (21:6).  This is the second thing to never say to a fisherman; the first being “Did you catch anything when they didn’t,” and the second, “Try fishing over here and you might catch something.”  You’ll insult a fisherman, unless you know you are the fisherman of all fishermen.  Peter suddenly realized this was exactly who Jesus is, when they caught ‘so many fish they couldn’t haul in the net.’

If this all sounds like a ‘fish story’, it gets even bigger.  When the disciples finally land the boat, they notice a fire burning and fish already cooking along with some bread.   Jesus tells them, to ‘bring’ some of the fish they’d caught so as Peter pulled the net to shore and counted exactly 153 large fish.  He realized that it was too many for the net, but it didn’t break and the big ones did not get away.   When they all came to shore, Jesus inivtes them all to “Come and have breakfast.”  As they started eating the bread and the fish, ‘they knew it was the Lord.”

If many things about this story sound ‘fishy’, they should.  This is not just a fish story, this is ‘THE FISH STORY.’    This is a story about how a Christian should live ‘after Easter’.  It’s a story about fishing through the dark nights of life, about listening to the Lord’s voice and obeying his commands, and it’s about a catching lots of fish, that aren’t just regular ‘fish’.  It’s about all these things, but it’s mostly being able to recognize Jesus only when the Lord’s table together.  Jesus is near, but we best recognize him together.

The strangest part of this story, however, remains in how the Peter takes the time to ‘count’ and ‘number’ the fish.  There were exactly, 153 of them.  Why 153?  There’s all kinds of speculation about this, but only one answer makes sense.  This is exactly how many fish they caught--a bunch!   Through the years, however, this number has been 'symbolized' to represent the evangelistic mission Jesus recommissioned after Easter.   This large catch of “fish” came to represent the ‘large’ worldly, global love the God of the world has for all the people in world.  To haul in as big a 'catch' as possible, is  why Jesus came, why Jesus suffered, why Jesus died and why Jesus was raised from the dead.   It points to the new mission task the church of disciples still has to do, through the nights of life, until that great morning which is still to come.

FEED STORY

I know what this ‘fish story’ means because of where it goes next.  Jesus has an extended after breakfast conversation with Simon Peter, asking him:  “Peter, son of John, do you love me more than these”  (v.15)?  Jesus asks Peter this question, not once, but three times; one for each time Peter denied him: “Simon Peter, do you (really) love me?”  Do you love me more than fishing?  Do you love me more than work, and life itself?  Peter, do you love me enough to follow and obey?   If you really love me, Peter,  three times Jesus command him; “Feed (or care for) my lambs.” 

Now we are moving away from ‘fishing’ for fish to ‘feeding’ sheep.  Through Peter, we are hearing the second great calling and work of the church; not just to fish, but to care—to care for God’s sheep.   The church is not called to ‘dip’em and drop’em, but to reach them and then to care for and with them.  Who do you think is being called to do the fishing, to do the caring?  All of us are?  We are to be a church that evangelizes and we are to be a church that makes disciples, feeding and caring those who become ‘sheep of his pasture’.  The church’s story must be both a fish story and a feed story.   Fish and Feed, Feed and Fish.  As the fishermen said, “It’s as simple as that.”   

 LOVE STORY

Do you know why we are are all to ‘answer’ and ‘join’ in this ‘story’?  It’s because the ‘fish story’ and the ‘feed story’ is also a ‘love story’.   This is why Jesus tells them to fish on ‘the right side of the boat’.  This is why they end up catching 153 fish.  Love is why Jesus cooks fish for their breakfast, and “love” is why Jesus keeps asking Peter over and over,  “Simon Peter, Son of John, do you love me?”

What’s not clear in our English Bible’s is what’s very noticeable in the Greek text.  The first two times Jesus asks Peter, Jesus uses the highest Greek word for love, agape.  Peter, do you love me without any conditions?  Each time Jesus uses this form of love in his question, but Peter is afraid to go there.   When Peter answers, “Lord, you know I love you,” he doesn’t use this highest form of love, but he uses a lesser form of love, philia, which means ‘brotherly’ or sibling love.  It’s something like I love you because I know I should. 

This kind of ‘responsible’ devotion is not all Jesus wishes, but  it is what Jesus settles for, at least for now.  Instead of demanding that Peter change his level of love, Jesus steps down to Peter’s level, saying “Peter, Do you love me, like you should, rather than do you love me like I love you?”   The point remains, that Jesus meets Peter where he is and meets us where we are, because no matter where we are in our level of devotion to Jesus or discipleship in Jesus, we all are to be part of the this ‘love story’ that calls us to ‘go fishing’ and to ‘feed’ and care for His sheep.

Have you realized that this Easter story is finally a ‘love story’ that Jesus is calling you into?  This is not a story that is just asking you do believe in Jesus, or do you like Jesus, but it is a story that asks,  “Do you love Jesus?”  I don’t know another religion or living faith on the face of this planet that goes where Jesus goes, or commands what Jesus commands.  The Christian life and the calling of the church is not an option, an opinion, an ambition, or an outlook, but the calling of the church is the call to a loving and caring relationship between friends---who give their lives to each other.  

I recall contemplating the proposal of marriage I made to my wife.  Now,  to her, it looked like she was in control of the answer, for I made the ‘propsal’ to her, “Will you marry me?”  That’s how she heard it.  But that’s not how I really meant it.  When I asked Teresa to marry me, I had already answered the question as to whether or not I loved her.   When I proposed, I was not asking, “Teresa, do you like me?”  No, by the time I got to asking her to marry me, I had already settled, “Do I love her?”

But this was not a question she had fully settled in her mind.  I might have been ‘pushing it’ a little bit, just like Jesus was, so for a while, while she thought it over,  I had to settle for an answer like Peter gave,  “Yes, Joey, you know I love you, but to marry you?  Now, I’m not sure I’m ready to marry a preacher---to not only love you, but to answer your calling with you.   I love you, but I’m not so sure that I can love you in the way that you are asking me too.  That is where my wife was, for a while, when she gave me the ring back for a couple of weeks and said,  “I need to pray about this some more.”  It was hard, and it made me pray harder too, but it didn’t change my love for her, but it made me want her to marry me even more.  She was serious.  She was thinking.  She was praying, and she was loving me the best way she could, but she wasn’t fully there yet.

After a couple of weeks,  she came to me ready to put the ‘ring’ back on her finger.  Teresa, do you love me?   “Joey,  I’m ready to love you and I’m ready to ready, not just to love you, but to answer the call with you.

That’s the answer Jesus wanted to hear from Peter.   Peter is not there yet, but he gets there.  Jesus knew that he would.  “Follow me”, Jesus invites him, again (v. 19).  Now, as conclude the story here, Peter was still struggling to come to grips with all that Easter meant, but he will finally and fully answer God’s call to love.   And just think, this all started with a love for fishing, but now it ends with a ‘catch’ that is more than Peter could ever imagine.   It’s a ‘fish story’, yes, but the biggest catch is him.   Isn’t that why we fish, why we feed and care, and why we love?  “We hook fish, they hook us?  It’s as simple as that.”  Amen.