Fishers of People
a sermon based on Mark 1:14-20
Rev. Thomas Hall

The first time that I ran into the words in this morning’s gospel lesson was in Two Harbors, Minnesota. Our church sat on the corner of Fifth Avenue about five blocks from the Lake Superior. Most days seemed to be foggy and damp out, so we usually heard the fog horn from the lighthouse bellowing out like some beached whale in timed sequence. In the basement of the parsonage I discovered old fishing nets and commercial fishing rods and huge hooks meant for salmon or muskies. So when I was first introduced to Mark 1:14, my imagination was fertile.

"I will make you fishers of men, c’mon, children sing with me," fishers of men," Billy stop poking Dave, fishers of men. I will make you fishers of men, if you follow me." At eight years old, I was a literalist. If the Bible said it, that’s exactly the way it was. Don’t try twisting the Scriptures. If Jesus said we’re fishing for men, then let’s get our gear and go. So remembering the old fishing nets and huge hooks in the parsonage basement, I would envision myself out on Lake Superior amidst the spray of frigid water fishing for men. I would use minnows and imagine catching men in three-piece business suits. I knew that one was supposed to set the hook and then to just let the fish tire out. Then reel him in. But liberal theologian and teacher of us eight year olds--Mrs. Anderson--would try to bring me back to a more reasoned approach to hermeneutics. Seeing me furiously casting and reeling in the big ones, she would come and say, "No, Tommy, the point of the story is that God tells us to go evangelize others." Evangelize others? That meant going door to door like on Halloween, I reasoned, only not as fun. Asking people to join the church or come to a special gospel quartet or something. Seemed boring. So I would eventually return to my literalist approach to interpreting Scripture and soon have great entertainment reeling in businessmen.

Funny isn’t it, how we get first impressions from Scripture? Wasn’t until I finished seminary and began to teach that I returned to the Scripture of my childhood to take a look at it again. Still there, that call to fish for men--and now women and all others added to the list. Still there. Mrs. Anderson was right after all.

Listen to this little story again.

As Jesus walked along the shore of Lake Galilee, he saw two fishermen, Simon and his brother Andrew, catching fish with a net. Jesus said to them, "Come with me, and I will teach you to catch people." At once they left their nets and went with him.

He went a little farther on and saw two other brothers, James and John, the sons of Zebedee. They were in their boat getting their nets ready. As soon as Jesus saw them, he called them; they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and went with Jesus.

Mark tells us a simple story. Clean, short, and to the point. If Luke speaks in the tongues of mortals and of angels, Mark tends to speak in grunts. Commentators call Mark’s grunts, "telescoping." Probably, they say, Mark has telescoped events that occurred over days, even weeks into a moment. We telescope all the time. "So how was your day at work, dear?" "Fine." Doesn’t that sounds like a telescoping grunt if you’ve ever heard one? "Tell us what you learned at school today?" "Oh nothin’." That kind of thing is what some think Mark is doing here.

I wonder what really happened between the lines? What’s missing from the text? Did Andrew have an inferiority complex being loud-mouthed Peter’s younger brother who got all of the attention when they were kids? So that whatever Simon said, Andrew said--or did, or went? And what about the two brothers who just up and left their father in the boat? Did they leave because they didn’t want to get stuck cleaning fish for the rest of their lives? Did Jesus tell them any parables? Perform a convincing miracle? Did he spend hours trying to convince these fishermen that following him was the best thing they could possibly do? Had he promised them the world?

But we will never know what lies behind the text. No. Mark just tells us a few pieces of information. Two fishermen. Jesus. "Follow me." "At once they left their nets." Repeat again: another two brothers fishermen. Jesus. "Follow me." "At once they left their nets." In five verses Mark tells us an account of how four fishermen just drop everything and follow after Jesus on the whim of an invitation--given in less than twelve words.

Doesn’t that strike you as just a bit odd? The fishermen four--they make a snap decision, they unflinchingly, immediately drop their plans for their lives to follow this man. No counting the cost. No weighing of options. No saying good-bye to family and friends. No hitting the snooze button for another nine minutes. Just up and leave everything connected to their life? Haven’t most of us discovered that life is just a bit more complicated than that. We are not apt to drop everything and run off after some itinerant preacher who announces that the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is now.

What would be your response if your teen came to you with this piece of news?
"Guess what? I’ve met this cool guy over the internet."
"Oh? Really? That’s nice."

"Yeah, and he’s asked me to marry him--and I’ve accepted his invitation."
"Do you know where he lives? Who his parents are? If he is a Christian? If he has a job?"
"No, but we’re going to get married next week! Isn’t that great?"
What if your spouse came home from work with this news:

"Hi, honey. Guess what? I’ve invested all of our life savings and bought 50,000 lottery tickets. We’re in the money, we’re in the money.

"Invested? You call that investing? You’re kidding! That was for our retirement. So when did you decide this?

"Oh when I was eating that egg salad sandwich during lunch."

No, that’s not the way we approach major decisions.

Yet, maybe Mark is saying in his own grunt way this story exactly as we have it--without telescoping at all. Maybe Mark is telling us that this is the way Jesus gets followed--as an act of sheer impulse, following him without waiting until all the facts are in, stumbling after Jesus whom we don’t know very well and not knowing where he will lead us. Maybe it was the way he spoke that triggered some impulse deep inside of four fishermen to respond to Jesus’ invitation to follow him. Maybe it was his eyes that were clear and resolved that captured their imagination and lives.

Jesus preached, "The right time has come and the Kingdom of God is near! Repent and believe the good news." That means that Jesus was going about telling some piece of good news. The good news had finally made its way down to the docks.

"Did he say, the time has arrived, the Kingdom of God is near?" Peter blurts out. At those words, Andrew sits stone-still, his fingers still wrapped around the nets. Been waiting for five generations to hear those words. The world was for them a single line drawn in the dirt. On the left side of the line was the age in which they lived--The Kingdom of Darkness--a kingdom where satan ruled, a kingdom marked by sin, sickness, pain and death. But their Bibles reminded them that God has a calendar and on God’s calendar is a red-letter date when God would come to begin living among us. And when he would come God would begin a new kingdom--called the Age of the Spirit--marked by light, healing, forgiveness, and wholeness. Everyone knew that. Even the fishermen down at the docks, eking out a living for the rest of the neighborhood. That was called euangelion, "good news." "Did he say, the time has arrived? The Kingdom of God is near?" Peter blurts out.

These four fishermen who had caught wind of this piece of good news knew better than we, the difference between chronos-time and kairos-time. From chronos time we get words like chronology, calendars, clocks, and aging. Fishing today, fishing tomorrow. Mend a net, hit the books, go to work, plan to retire, raise the kids, clean the house, walk the dog. It’s all chronos. No big deal if Jesus would have used that word. "The chronos has arrived." All he would have gotten was, "Sure is a nice day out; hope the fish are biting." Or "not today," or "let me think about it." But chronos time was not the word Jesus used.

No, Jesus used kairos-time. That’s the special, technical word that Mark records. "It’s kairos time," he says, "so turn from your sins and embrace this good news." Kairos time means a special time--God’s time--that is, the right time, a time in which your whole life is caught up in a moment, when everything crystallizes, and everything hinges on whether you say yes or no.

That’s why D.L. Moody would never close his meetings without extending an invitation to those to whom God might be speaking to in kairos time--their time to respond. That’s why Billy Graham gives an altar call--because he is aware that always and in every crusade--for someone out there--it is time for them to respond, to say yes to God’s invitation to follow him.

So this story is not so much about evangelism, sorry Mrs. Anderson, but it’s a story of invitation--to invite us to open our lives to God’s kingdom.

This morning God stands among us calling out to us in kairos time. It’s God’s time for you and me. Time to respond to what God wants to do in your life. Be impulsive! Make a response that comes from deep inside you. Follow your heart, not your head. Plenty of reasons to go back to fishing and mending nets. No time, too busy, have other things to do, gotta cook, work, get the kids through school, attend my aging parent, take a class, sit on a committee. Listen to your heart, respond to God without having all the facts, without knowing where following Jesus will lead you. Who knows, it may lead you become fishers of men people. Amen.