Wouldn’t the story of Jonah make a great Disney movie? After all, we frequently think of it as a children’s story, every Sunday school program always and forever includes it, it is a story that fascinates children. Imagine the graphics, a solitary and reluctant prophet lodged inside an ooey, gooey big fish. And, that’s the better translation; Jonah was inside a big fish, not a warm and more appealing mammal. He was stuck in a cold, dark, slimy and smelly creature. And, like a good Disney movie, it has layer after layer to also hold the interest of adults.
Jonah is a minor prophet, not one of the big names like Isaiah or Jeremiah. And, God gives him a relatively minor task; he is not charged with calling the whole Israelite nation to repentance, no, he is sent just to Nineveh, to warn only this one city to straighten up and fly right. And, he is resistant, reluctant and recalcitrant about his mission. Jonah does not want to be with the people of Nineveh and, as we find out later on, he certainly does not want them to be saved. He runs away from God, boards a ship and gets thrown overboard into the belly of the big fish. When Jonah comes to his senses and prays to God, he is vomited up onto dry land. God comes to Jonah a second time and orders him to Nineveh to deliver this short and powerful sermon - “Just forty days more and Nineveh will be overthrown”. A sermon of merely 8 words, but it caused the Ninevites to proclaim a fast, put on mourning clothes and stop their evil behavior and violence. Now that’s a sermon!
Jonah however, isn’t thrilled with this outcome. No, Jonah is angry with God, resentful of God’s mercy and compassion. He leaves the city in a snit and builds himself a hut to sit in. Jonah is angry with God for showing God’s grace to people he doesn’t approve of. Using a shrub and a worm God teaches Jonah that God will always be available, abundantly available, to those who work toward being in right relationship with their creator, regardless of whether or not we find them worthy of God’s grace.
Our readings today take us from the story of a big fish to the story of four fishermen. Like Jonah in Nineveh, Jesus is in Galilee is preaching repentance. Jesus witnesses Simon, better known to us as Peter, and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea. He invites them to follow him and they immediately drop their nets, leave their livelihood and their families to join up with Jesus. Likewise James and John stop mending their nets, the tools of their trade, leave their father with the hired hands and walk away from the sea into the company of Jesus. Like Jonah, Jesus uses few words, and the results are almost unimaginable. The fisherman get up and follow immediately, with no arguments or demands for details they leave everything and everyone behind. They show us the true meaning of repentance: to change one’s whole way of thinking and being in the world.
The words Jesus uses: “Follow me and I will make you fish for people” are so familiar to us that we almost ignore them, we gloss over them and don’t spend a lot of time discerning what they might mean for us, in our day and age, in our circumstances and situations.
Let’s think for a moment about the fishermen’s nets. Nets are of utmost importance to fishermen, they are the means by which great quantities of fish are caught, the tools used to provide the living that support their families, that sustain their way of life. Boats are important, strong and savvy sailors are important, knowledge of tides and winds are important, but no nets means no fish and therefore no income. It is impossible to conceive of fishermen, then and now, making a living without nets. Nets are familiar to them, nets are a source of safety, and nets are part of their identity. Nets are not merely important, they are iconic to fishermen. So, when Andrew, Peter, James, and John drop their nets, they are dropping everything that they previously thought, believed and treasured.
So, the first thing we need to know about fishing for people is that it will disrupt our usual patterns; this means it will force us to drop our beloved safety nets, it will challenge all of our assumptions about the worthiness of others, it will take us out of our comfort zones and completely turn us around.
The second thing we need to know about fishing for people is that it happens in relationship. And, as we will learn from Jesus throughout the Gospels, it happens in relationship with people that God places in our paths, not just the people we are used to being with, not just the people we are comfortable being with. Jesus takes these fisherman and exposes them to prostitutes, tax collectors, the poor, the hungry, the sick, the imprisoned, all of the outcasts they have been raised to avoid, all of the outcasts they have been taught are unclean, unsavory and unsafe. Just as God didn’t need or want Jonah’s approval before saving Nineveh, God is not likely to ask or want our approval before putting people in place for us to fish for. Nope, the good news of God’s kingdom come, here on earth, is for everyone- no strings attached, no exceptions.
The third thing we need to know about fishing for people is that it involves putting ourselves out there, out there in the often cold, cruel, messy world. Jonah had to go to Nineveh, our four fisherman had to leave the shores of Lake Galilee and we have to leave our pews and these four walls. God isn’t asking us to fish in an already stocked pond.
Jonah was called. Andrew, Peter, James and John were called. We are called. We are called to proclaim and demonstrate the good news, the good news that God is here, always and forever…the good news that we are all loved beyond measure by our creator, the good news that God in Jesus models for us, and we are to receive and share that love, not only with one another, but with the world. The church is here for our renewal and refreshment, it is up to us to offer that renewal and refreshment to everyone else. AMEN.
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