3 Epiphany Yr A

As our minds turn toward fishing this morning I recall a story that I must tell. Even during the off season, the Vikings and Packers are bitter rivals, just itching to compete. And with the Packers in the throes of post season play, the Vikings recall an episode from last year, the teams decided to have an ice fishing contest. They met at a lake up north — each ready to prove their superiority wasn’t limited to the gridiron. They scouted out the perfect spots and commenced to fish. By the end of the first day the Vikings had caught 50 fish. The Packers hadn’t caught any. No matter, the Packers said. They were just warming up. But on the second day, the Vikings caught 100 fish. The Packers didn’t catch any. What the heck? The next day, the Packers decided to send a spy to find out if the Vikings were cheating. The Vikings caught 150 fish that day. Packers? You guessed it — zip. When the spy returned to the Packers’ camp, they grilled him, sure the other team must be cheating. Were they? “You betcha they’re cheating,” the spy said. “They’re cutting holes in the ice!”

As Jesus walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea – for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.”

As I consider this passage this time, I am struck by the differences in fishing, there is ice fishing, in which it is preferable to cut a hole in the ice so one may catch fish, there is fishing from a boat in a lake that is mostly liquid, there is fly fishing, in which one stands in the river or creek. Each of these kinds of fishing require a pole, and bait that is selected especially for the circumstances, considering things like the depth of water, the temperature of water, and the type of fish one is fishing for. So what strikes me in this fishin story, is that these people were not doing any of that. They were casting a net. They were gathering in the fish they caught, and those nets were not selective, everything that swam by, or floated by was caught.

Jesus spent much of his ministry in this area of Galilee, by this particular lake. Many of the stories that are told in the gospels are around these fisher people casting their fishing nets. I think this story has a lot to tell us about what the Kingdom of God looks like, I think the people who populate this story have a lot to tell us about what the Kingdom of God looks like.

The Kingdom of God looks very different from the Kingdom in which we live. You see, there’s the fisher’s themselves who follow Jesus, who fish for people. We are those fish. Recall the words of the song we sang as we gathered together this morning. “Here in this place, new light is streaming, now is the darkness vanished away, see, in this space, our fears and our dreamings, brought here to you in the light of this day. Gather us in the lost and forsaken gather us in the blind and the lame; call to us now, and we shall awaken we shall arise at the sound of our name. We are the young – our lives are a mystery, we are the old – who yearns for your face. We have been sung throughout all of history called to be light to the whole human race. Gather us in the rich and the haughty, gather us in the proud and the strong, give us a heart so meek and so lowly, give us the courage to enter the song.” We are the blind and the lame, we are the young and the old, we are the rich and the haughty, all of us in this net together. God has gathered us in. We are humanity, with all of our imperfections, our shortcomings, our fears and doubts. God has gathered us in. That’s the wonder of this net. God isn’t about catching perfect fish, God is about catching us just the way we are.

The kingdom of God right here and right now is open to everyone of us. We don’t have to be perfect before God loves us, God loves us first, no matter what, with all our scales. Then we respond to God’s love. It is our response to God’s love that transforms us. It is our response to God’s work in Jesus on the cross and in the resurrection that transforms us. And our response to God’s amazing and abundant love, the love that is no matter what, the love that gathers us in, the love that casts away the darkness, our response to that love is to follow, and in following Jesus we are transformed, and in the transformation we follow.

The song again, “Here we will take the wine and the water here we will take the bread of new birth, here you shall call your sons and your daughters, call us anew to be salt of the earth. Give us to drink the wine of compassion, give us to eat the bread that is you, nourish us well and teach us to fashion lives that are holy and hearts that are true.”

So the truth is that we are gathered in to the love of God revealed in Jesus Christ. And what Jesus reveals is the truth of our humanity. It is a truth that you and I know well. It is the truth of creation and of blessing and turning away from God. We humans want to and try to be God. We humans want to believe that our happiness and satisfaction are ultimately important. We humans want to put our own needs before the needs of our companions on the way. It is the truth of turning back to God, of repentance and forgiveness. It is the truth of the wandering in the wilderness, the truth of suffering and death, the truth of restoration and resurrection. You see, the truth is Jesus accompanies us on this journey, Jesus isn’t apart from us. The truth is that all our longing, all our yearning, is fulfilled in Jesus. The truth is that our wandering in the wilderness, our exodus and exile are made new, we are transformed in the midst of our humanity, we are made new, we are created in God’s image.

It is the same truth that the prophet Isaiah writes about. The people who have walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness—on them light has shined. Peter and Andrew, James and John knew what the prophet had said, Isaiah was on their minds and in their hearts. You and I know this truth as well. You and I know the reality of the darkness, the reality of the suffering and sadness that life brings our way. We know tragedy, we know sickness and death, we know that life does not always treat us well.

Peter and Andrew, James and John could see this, as you and I can see it. And they could see and feel that Jesus was the God revealer. Jesus did and does something different from all the other prophets. Jesus doesn’t promise relief from our burdens, Jesus doesn’t promise prosperity, Jesus doesn’t promise a life free from pain and suffering, Jesus doesn’t promise that our mortal bodies will not die. What Jesus promises is that he will be with us in the midst of the wilderness, in the midst of the exile. Jesus promises that he will accompany us on the way, and there we encounter the new life that is promised. We are not alone in the journey, we have one another, and in one another we encounter God.

We are those who are gathered in, and we are those who like Peter and Andrew, James and John, are transformed for the work of the Kingdom. This is the Good News that Peter and Andrew, James and John and the others, left their home and family and livelihood to proclaim the Good News. Peter and Andrew, James and John were not perfect, they were not the most likely candidates to follow Jesus and proclaim the good news. We’ve read the book, we know story, the disciples had a hard time with this good news. They often didn’t understand what Jesus was really about. They fell into the trap of thinking this way was about them and whether they would sit at the head of the table, they fell into the trap of thinking that this was about them and others had to be just like them in order to follow Jesus. They fell into the trap of thinking this was about them and that there was a right way and a wrong way to be a follower and others had to follow those rules.

The good news for Peter and Andrew, for James and John, for you and for me is that the Kingdom of God is near when we respond to God’s amazing and abundant love with compassion and mercy. The Kingdom of God is near when we are not seduced into believing that we are Godlike, when we do not believe that we are in control and have the power, because Jesus does not abandon us. Instead, Jesus guides us, teaches us, and even stands in for us as we turn toward God. We ask for forgiveness, we are forgiven and we are transformed. We are changed.

The good news for them and for us is that to be followers is to be transformed in the following. The good news for them and for us is that we don’t have to have it all together, we don’t have to have it all right, we don’t have to understand it all. In the following we are transformed. In the following new life can rise out of our suffering and pain. In the following we are made new creations.

The Lord has shown forth his glory: Come let us adore him.