Put your nets down

[This is a four part sermon that Pastor Volodya and I will preach at Pilgrims tonight.  I am second and fourth, and while I have an idea what Volodya will preach about, I'm not entirely sure what direction he will go.  The altar will be covered with a fishing net, and at the end students will be invited to come forward and place fish into the coils of the net to represent the things that they need to give to God to be able to become a "fisher of men(catcher of people in Ukrainian).  Enjoy.]

Let me paint this picture for you.  It's easy to forget where we are in the story - we see all the way to the end.  When we read the Bible we see all that has come after it, we see that Christianity is the largest religion in the world - that it has transformed the entire world and that things are better and better as the Kingdom of God continues to spread.  Let me paint a picture for you of what these disciples saw.

Jesus has just been baptized.  The people who were there, they swear that they heard the very voice of God - but those were all the crazy people who had followed John into the desert to hear him preach.  Jesus has just returned from the wilderness - where he didn't eat for forty days.  Jesus comes out of the desert place, and you can count his ribs he is so emaciated and Jesus comes up to you and asks you to follow him - to become like him.  What is your response?

Jesus goes to two brothers who are fast at work and he offers them an invitation.  "Follow me and I will make you catchers of people."  And two more brothers - James and John - are sitting with their father in the boat and Jesus calls them and they drop their nets and follow Jesus.

I think it's really important that we think about fishing for a minute.  When I think of a fisherman, my first thought is always of the people I saw fishing as a child.  They would go to the river or a lake and they would have a fishing pole and they would cast out their line and wait until something took the bait.

Every fisherman has a story about the fish that was "this big."

But, these men were fishermen as a career.  The lived on their boats, they cast their nets hundreds of times a day - and sometimes were successful and sometimes they weren't - but when they didn't catch anything, their families went hungry.

This wasn't an occassional past time for leisurely men - this was their work, this was in their blood, this was their whole life.

I think one of the problems with America Christianity is we read this verse - and in English it reads literally "fishers of men" - and we get the image of our modern American fisherman.  Someone who from time to time throws a line out and tries to bring in one fish or a few.

And this is not the picture that Jesus is painting at all.  Jesus calls these men to always be about catching people.  Jesus calls them to live their whole lives preaching the Gospel, sharing their stories, and welcoming people into the arms of God and into the Kingdom of Heaven.

Jesus calls us to throw the nets out wider and wider, to welcome all people in, to invite everyone to sing a new song - a song of joy and hope.  Jesus calls us to be catchers of people - that in everything we do, in ever conversation we have and cup of tea we share to bring our companions just a little closer to God.  To let them just see a tiny slice of the Kingdom of Heaven.


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Jesus asks these men to give up everything - to give up their jobs and their families and their livelyhoods and to follow him  And these men drop their nets and they follow Jesus.

Jesus calls these men to drop their nets.  To put down what they are doing.

There was nothing wrong or sinful about fishing.  Jesus didn't pull these men away from their fishing nets out of disgust for their work.  Jesus looked at these men, and he asked them to put their nets down because he had something better for them in mind.

Jesus called them to something higher - to something greater.  Jesus called them to do the same thing they had always done, but for a better reason and a higher purpose. With these twelve men Jesus changed the world.  With these twelve men, Jesus turned the world upside down and made it right.

Jesus calls us to drop our nets.

Jesus calls us to think about what we are doing and why we are doing it.  If we are studying and working so that we can have a big apartment and a nice car and respect from important people - then God has something better for you.  God wants you to do everything for the glory of God.

What keeps you from dropping your net?  What is holding you back from inviting others.  And I don't just mean inviting people to come to worship here - which we certainly want you to do - but I mean this in a bigger sense.  What keeps you from sharing your faith?  What prevents you from talking about what God does in your life?  What holds you back?

Tonight we have a net up here on the altar and lots of fish.  During our prayer time and our closing song - I want us to think and pray about what keeps us from dropping our nets.  Maybe it's pride.  Maybe it's fear.  Maybe it's sickness.  Write all of these things on different fish and bring them up here to our altar and put them into the net.  Allow God to hold onto those things so that you don't have to.  Let God have them so that you can put your net down and begin a life as a catcher of people.

Amen.