"I will make you fishers of men"
Mark 1: 14-20
The Word: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/012124.cfm
Anyone who has ever fished whether in rivers, lakes or the ocean knows that above all you need to have patience and determination. My earliest memories of fishing as a child go back to family vacations when we would take a boat out on the lake, set a worm on a hook, attach the bobber and wait, and wait, and wait for a bite.
Fishing is like the weather. Despite all the preparation you may make in
the end, there is nothing you can do beyond that except wait for the outcome.
You rely on greater power for protection and even for guidance of what would be
the next step to take. Not unlike the call of the early disciples to follow
Jesus.
This weekend as we continue our journey reflecting on
discipleship with the Lord, we hear of both a reluctant prophet by the name of
Jonah and the call and response of the first disciples of Jesus. Last Sunday, it was John the Baptist who sent
his disciples over to Jesus to follow him as “Lamb of God.” This week we hear
of Mark’s version of the call to fishermen on the Sea of Galilee to, “Come
after me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
These are the first words we hear from Jesus in the
Gospel of Mark. The call to reform and conversion was the heart of all that
Jesus said and did and certainly set the tone of his mission.
Yet, I would suppose these early disciples of Jesus were
not really looking for another trade.
These were fishermen by trade and obviously skilled at what they did. They were trying to carve out a living in a
common trade along the lake of Galilee and were likely doing well by ancient
standards.
What amazes us, then, is how they responded so quickly:
“So they left their father Zebedee in the boat along with the hired men and
followed him.” Some brief history may
help us understand.
Jesus came preaching in what appears to be the same theme
as John the Baptist but with one important difference. He did not point the way
to another but to himself: “This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God
is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel.” The time is now and is here with
me. So, his call was both immediate and
a look to the future. But he implied more than just, “Drop what you’re doing,
and I’ll show you a better fishing hole.”
News traveled fast in the ancient world and preachers
were common. Jewish sensibility was
tuned in to end times prophecy. It was
believed that the occupation of ancient Israel by the Romans was the last such
event and the next to happen was the kingdom of God which would now replace all
others.
From the occupation of Israel by the Assyrians to the
Babylonians, to the Romans, and now God will come in these end times and
establish his kingdom on earth. The Messiah would set his power and make the
nation of Israel a mighty force on earth.
To hear Jesus, then, proclaim that the “kingdom of God is at hand,” and
to see his power over nature must have created an irresistible attraction and
hope for the ancient people and for these early disciples as well.
Remember that Jesus had moved down to Capernaum by the
Sea in a very different environment than tiny Nazareth and his reputation by
now had begun to spread. Now Jesus
begins to form a kind of band of followers, disciples of a master teacher but
calls them to a major disruption in their familiar lives.
There is evidence that these two sets of brothers of
Andrew, Simon, James and John were in fact pious Jews and disciples of John the
Baptist. Once John had been arrested,
where our Gospel begins, they retreat to Galilee from the desert in the south
where John was preaching and he had pointed out Jesus to them as the Lamb of
God. So, is it likely they were not
total strangers to Jesus? Had they met
him before in some context? Perhaps.
Now, from the Lamb comes a call to follow him and so they are tuned in and
ready, even eager to respond, and so they do to his invitation. Now Jesus will continue the theme the
baptizer set and fulfill more than they could have imagined.
It is also good to know that Jesus entered not from
clouds but in the ordinary. In the
normal task of their lives, Jesus met them along the lake and recognized their
useful skills that could now be applied to a new “fishing” trade. He cast out
the invitation and patiently waited for their bite.
Our first reading this Sunday even more emphasizes the
impact when one hears the Lord’s call and responds – or at first maybe
resists. Jonah, the reluctant prophet
who first tried to run away from the Lord and found himself cast overboard from
a ship and swallowed by a large fish now accepts the call to preach to the
pagan Ninevites whose reputation was far from virtuous.
To Jonah’s surprise and bewilderment before God, the
pagan Ninevites repent! All of them
including the animals too, showed signs of contrition and “. . . God repented
of the evil that he had threatened to do to them; he did not carry it out.”
God’s call is not only patient for our response, but he is likewise merciful.
And that remains the bottom line of our call to
discipleship – conversion of heart and a new direction with the Lord. In our
independent and feel-good culture this is not an easy process. In a time where everyone receives
acclamations for anything they do, in order not to feel bad, the call to
recognize my limitations, sin and imperfections is not attractive. To the early disciples, Jesus proposed the
same process in his invitation to now go fishing no longer for simple fish but
for ever greater prizes – the souls of men and women turned to the Lord.
God enters our boats or calls to us in numerous ways. He
calls us to a new direction, a better way of life but it demands personal
sacrifice for the sake of a higher good. The present day uncertainty about the
direction of our culture demand that we followers of the Lord
be a sign of light and hope in the midst of trends that are clearly not of God:
the dismissal and casualness of human life, especially the unborn, the
suffering of immigrants unjustly treated, the poverty of those who through no
fault of their own are deprived of basic human needs, the forgotten in prison,
the division of racism and economic disparity.
The confusion of gender in the human person, the endless tension and violence of war, etc. However, if we’re
always looking for the spectacular or expecting some vision or voice calling
us, we may be greatly disappointed.
Simon, Andrew, James and John responded to the bait that Jesus cast out. Their ordinary lives where the Lord met them were about to begin an extraordinary journey. But they too needed to change from one way to a greater way now that they had encountered Christ. For God loves us too much to let us remain as we are; he calls us to a higher way.
Fishing for people has become for us an
undeniable image of discipleship. What it means to follow Jesus in the ordinary
of our lives is to engage in the same process. As we gather each Sunday in the
Lord’s presence, to break open his word and to share in the sacrifice he has
made for us and to share in his living presence in the food he feeds us, we
find strength to follow the call as we hear it. Missionary disciples as we are
reminded to live out and mission that Christ has entrusted to all who will
follow him.
Where has God set out a line hoping to find a
good catch? And ultimately what skills can I bring as a disciple of the Lord to
assist in the basic missionary call to go and fish for others?
direct our actions according to
your good pleasure,
that in the name of your beloved Son
we may abound in good works.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ,
your Son, who lives and reigns
with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.
(Collect of Mass)
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