fishing

A relative of mine was only commenting the other day how great it would be to go fishing, sitting there peacefully beside the river with a cup of tea, away from the children – bliss. In the film Crocodile Dundee 2, fishing was a more explosive affair involving dynamite and scooping the stunned fish off the surface of the water. When I was a child I went fishing only on holiday. I think my parents were more than happy to have quiet moments while I was fishing off a landing stage beside the lake with the rod that cost me all of 11/6d! Later, when married, I took our boys fishing with an even cheaper rod. There we were amongst all the equipment of seasoned anglers but amazingly we were the only ones that caught anything much to the chagrin of the ‘professionals’!!

 

In the scriptures fishing was work. Some of the disciples were fishermen. In the stories recorded of them they seem to catch very little without Jesus being around and are always mending their nets no doubt talking of the ones that got away. Jesus said in Matthew Ch13 v47-50; "Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away. This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

 

From this I deduce that our job as a church is to love people and to gather them towards the loving, healing and saving embrace of Jesus. It is not our task to decide who are ‘in and who might be ‘outside’ the kingdom. At the end of the day the angels sort out that conundrum. We are just called to lower our nets for a catch – and in this is a challenge. Will we reach out by lowering our nets or are we expecting that somehow the fish will throw themselves onto our boat and give themselves up? Let us be those who follow Jesus when he says to Simon Peter in Luke Ch 5 v4 “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch."