187 Catching People

   (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Catching People”, originally shared on February 3, 2022. It was the 187^th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.) 

   Have you ever gone fishing and caught a person? Maybe you have. Today, we’re going to find out how.

   One of the first urban legends I ever heard was the one about the brush fire in Southern California where firefighters who were extinguishing hot spots supposedly found a body after the flames had been knocked down. The person was reportedly wearing a diving mask, snorkel and swim fins. “How did he get there?”, everyone wondered, until someone realized that the flames had been knocked down by a Super Scooper airplane that got its water from a local reservoir where… Well, I think you get the picture.

   I’m pretty sure that that is not what Jesus had in mind when he said, “from now on you will be catching people.”

   Luke tells us, in Luke 5, verses 1-2,

Once while Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, ² he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. 

   Commercial fishing was common around the lake of Gennesaret, aka the Sea of Galilee. Net washing was regular maintenance for a fisherman named Simon Peter, but not that day.

   There was no sound system for Jesus, so if you were at the back of the crowd, you’d press forward to hear better and, pretty soon, the crowds were pushing Jesus toward the water. Then, he saw a couple of empty boats.

   Luke continues with verse 3,

³ He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. 

   Fishing by yourself is fun. You know what they say, “Give someone a fish and you feed them for a day. Teach someone how to fish,…and you can sell them fishing equipment for the rest of their lives.” 😊

   Fishing for a living, though, is a job. Simon Peter was doing his job when Jesus got into Simon’s boat and asked him to put out from the shore. He did and gave Jesus a stable place to sit and teach, with water around him that bounced the sound of his voice to more people.

   Then Jesus put on a show, starting with verse 4,

⁴ When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” ⁵ Simon answered, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.” ⁶ When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. ⁷ So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink. 

   Had Simon been listening to Jesus as he worked? Jesus had enough credibility for Peter to call him Master. But, if Peter had been impressed by Jesus’ teaching, his regard for Jesus was about to take a sharp turn further upward.

   Simon Peter did something that made no sense to him. He knew how to fish. He was a fisherman! He hadn’t caught anything. Yet when he was obedient to Jesus, he saw a result that, in its excess, scared him.

   How would you respond to this windfall if you were a commercial fisherman? Buy another boat? Put something away for a stormy day? Plan a larger family of potential workers? Ask Jesus to show you where to fish tomorrow? Peter’s response is totally unexpected to our 21^st century ears. We see it in verse 8,

⁸ But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” 

   Why? He had seen something with his own eyes that he knew was impossible. You can’t pour water from an empty cup! Yet, there it was. An excessive haul! He knew that he was in the presence of the holy and by contrast, he felt his sin hit home like an uppercut from Mike Tyson. It literally knocked him to his knees.

   What happened next will surprise you. Yeah, that’s click-bate. But in this case, nobody really has to say it. Luke concludes the story, starting with verse 9,

⁹ For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken; ¹⁰ and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” ¹¹ When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.

   “When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.” I’ll bet it surprised Simon Peter, and James, and John, too!

   What could have induced these three tough commercial fishermen to just walk away, to leave everything and follow Jesus”? Luke tells us in verse 10b, “Then Jesus said to Simon, ‘Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.”

   Jesus called them, and Peter and James and John answered Jesus’ call. That was it.

   They don’t appear to have any qualifications, at all. Here, God does not call the qualified. God qualifies the called. They would go on to spend three years being taught by Jesus before they began their ministries. They began with their obedience to Jesus’ call.

   Each of us, likewise, are called to be evangelists. An evangelist is someone who shares the gospel, which means the “good news”.

   Some of us have the spiritual gift of “Evangelist”. But not all.

   Peter Wagner, from whom I have read and taken a course on Spiritual Gifts, tells the story of taking a class in seminary from a professor who apologized for getting to class late one day. He explained that his car wouldn’t start, so he had to take the bus. But, he said, when he boarded the bus there was only one seat left. He sat next to a sad young man and, by the time the professor arrived at his stop, the young man had opened his heart to Jesus and received the gift of faith. The professor had the gift of evangelism. Young Peter Wagner was so inspired by that story that, the next day, he intentionally took the bus to school. As he boarded, he scanned the bus. He sat next to someone who looked like they needed to know Jesus, and by the time Peter Wagner arrived as his stop, they were mad at him. He didn’t have the gift of evangelism.

   But all of us are given the role of evangelists.

   The final words of Jesus to his disciples at the end of the Gospel according to Matthew are described as the Great Commission, in Matthew 28:18-20,

¹⁸ And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹ Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

   Now, I know that we all get a little nervous when it comes to evangelism. We all feel a little inadequate. We may even feel a little guilty. We feel, like Simon Peter, that we’re not good enough for Jesus.

   But that’s especially par for the course in a secular and materialist culture like our own. We want to get along and, that’s part of the compromise that secular cultures expect of Christians. We are expected to be tolerant of others’ beliefs and to keep our own to ourselves, just like the first Christians living in the Roman Empire. Yet, we are here because they witnessed to their faith in Jesus Christ whatever the cost.

   How can we live so that we are “catching people”?

   I want to share five general outlines for catching people. You can fill them in as the Holy Spirit leads you.

   First, fishermen spend a lot of time and money figuring out where the fish are. If you want to catch people, you have to go where the people are.

   Second, study after study has found that 80-85% of all people who come to a living relationship of faith do so as the result of the influence of friends or family. The Christian faith is often caught before it is taught.

   Third, catching people sometimes begins with catching-up. Listen and learn where they are and where they are coming from before you speak. And don’t work on what you are going to say in advance. Work on yourself. Be open to the Holy Spirit’s leading through all things, but particularly in the word and sacraments, and in prayer and service. Sometimes, people need to catch-up with who you are before they catch on to what they Holy Spirit is doing in them.

   Fourth, invite people to come to faith, not to come to your church. People catch-on to ulterior motives. Help people catch what no one else in our community can pitch: a living relationship with the one true living God.

   Fifth, it’s been said that Christianity has historically rebounded from decline through holy living and the arts. Help people catch on to the work of God through their impression of God at work in you and through the expression of the arts that you support.

   A surprising number of churches have an attitude of “Well, our doors are open. No one is stopping people from coming in.” But fish rarely jump into a boat. Catching people is fundamental to who we are as disciples of Jesus Christ. What will we do to be catching the people that God is leading to faith in our own time?

   What God has given us is too necessary and too good to keep to ourselves.