“A Whale of A Fish Story”

Luke 5:1-11

Sunday, January 26, 2003

St. Paul United Methodist Church

Rev. John Fleming

Imagine this happening to you. You get a phone call from ABC television company asking you if you would like to appear on their show, Who Wants to be a Millionaire. I know, the show has not been on in a while, but play along with me this morning. You were not interested in being a contestant. You did not answer any qualifying questions. You simply got a phone call, simply asking you to come to New York for the taping. You thought to yourself, “Why not? What do you have to lose besides being embarrassed on national television. You probably won’t get to the hot seat. Besides that, it is a free, all expenses paid trip to New York City.” And so you decide that you will take the chance. You mark the date on your calendar, you say yes to their offer of a plane ticket and a hotel reservation and you wait for the day to arrive.

As the date gets closer and closer, you start to get nervous. You even wonder if there is a way that you can get out of the trip and the appearance. But you decide to go anyway. Now it is not as if you have not prepared. You have bought the board game and have tried to answer all of it’s questions. You have bought every trivia game that you could find and have tried to answer all of their questions. You have answered most of them correctly. You cannot help but to think to yourself that this cannot be as bad as if you had said yes to being on the show, The Weakest Link. At the very least, Regis will be nice if you get the wrong answer. Unlike the host of The Weakest Link who insults you the entire time that you are on the show and if you are voted off, as quickly and as tersely as she can, says, “You are the weakest link! Good-bye!” So you arrive in New York, get settled in your room, and get ready for the next day and the show.

The next day, you arrive at the set. The audience is behind you. Regis is in front of you. Nine other contestants are beside you when the game begins. It begins with the fastest finger question. You must put the correct four answers in the correct order the fastest. You are not good at this sort of thing. You do not think that you will be able to get past the others to the hot seat, but the question that you are asked to put in order, you are able to do quickly. Before you know what has happened, Regis is calling your name up to the seat right across from him, the Hot Seat. You and Regis chit chat for a few minutes. He is trying to get to know you, but all the while you are praying that you will at least get the first question right. It looks easy on television and besides not many people miss the first question. You are prepared to use all three lifelines on the first question if need be. Regis asks the first question and you answer it correctly. You take a deep sigh of relief. Then you answer the next question and the next question and the next one. Near the thousand dollar question you ask for the audience’s help and they supply you with the correct answer. Now you are at least going home with some money. The questions keep coming and the answers keep coming to you. If you are honest with yourself, you admit that you got lucky on a question or two, but here you are answering question after question. You never dreamed that you would get this far. You answer the $32,000 an the $64,000 questions correctly. You answer the $125,000 question correctly. Somehow, by some great miracle, you answer the half a million dollar questions correctly. You agonized over the answer. You thought about walking away, but you took a chance and your chance paid off for you. Now there is only the million dollar question left. You still have a lifeline to use and the million dollar question is before you. You did not dream that you would get this far. You never dreamed that you would be at this point. Then Regis reads the million dollar question. And as he does, it appears on the screen in front of you. You cannot believe it. There it is, with the correct answer in one of the four choices. Now, mind you, you still have a life line left. You look at the question again, because you cannot believe your eyes. You look at the question a third time and then you smile. Friends, there you are in the seat, and you know the answer to the question. This is not just any question, mind you, this is the million dollar question! You think about it because Regis will give you all of the time in the world. He looks up at you after you answer it. He asks you if it is your final answer. When you tell him that it is, he looks at you. It’s the pregnant pause that Regis is so good at. You are shaking in your shoes. Doubt has set in. Then Regis says it, “You’ve just won a million dollars!” Balloons and confetti fall from the ceiling. Those who had hoped to be where you are, are cheering. The audience is cheering. Could it be? Could it really be? Or is this just a dream? It is no dream, friends. You have just won a million dollars.

All the way home, you think and you dream about what you are going to do with all of the money. Uncle Sam will get his cut of course, and the church will get it’s ten percent. (Sorry. You knew that I would say that. It is the kind of thing that a preacher cannot pass up). When you get home, you walk into your kitchen. You pull the check out of your wallet. You can hardly believe how many zeroes are on the check. In your kitchen is a trash can. I do not know if you are prepared for this or not, church, but the scenario is about to make a nasty turn. You hold up the check. You have been thinking about nothing else but the check. You look at it a little longer, smile, and then with one smooth action, you rip the check in half and then you rip those two halves in halves until what is left is only the smallest of pieces of paper. Friends, you have just thrown away a million dollars.

You would not do that, would you? If you are thinking about doing that, let me know. I would be happy to take the responsibility off of your hands. But if you did do that, that would be about as foolish as, oh I don’t know, as what Simon Peter did in our scripture lesson for this morning. All four gospel writers record the calling of Jesus’ first disciples. But Luke puts a different twist to it than do the other writers. Matthew and Mark do not include great healings or wonderful teachings prior to Jesus calling them to follow him. Luke’s version is a little different. Luke has Jesus having been in Simon Peter’s house. He healed Peter’s mother-in-law. Peter has witnessed the powerful healing of other lives, too. So Peter had seen the power of Jesus first hand!

We pick up the story of Jesus and his calling the disciples there. Peter and his fishing partners had been out all night trying to make a living. They had not had any luck. Their nets were empty when Jesus appeared. Jesus had used their boats as a floating pulpit and when the teaching was done, he turned to Simon and said, “Put out into the deep waters and let your nets down for a catch.” I can just imagine what Peter must have been thinking. Maybe he thought, “Jesus, you keep to the carpenter business and I will take care of the fishing industry.” My Bible does not say that, but I think that Peter had his doubts about catching fish. But still he does it. Peter answers, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.” Now my guess is that fishing isn’t on Peter’s mind. I think that sleeping is on his mind. After all, he had been fishing all night. He was there at the right time and with all of the right circumstances and with the right techniques, but had not caught a thing.

Church, I do not know about you, but I can relate to Peter. I can remember the first fish that I ever caught. It was the weekend that I spent at my friend Mark Hammons’ house. Mark used to live near us, but then he moved out in the country, to south Jackson. Mark’s house was a great one. At the bottom of his winding driveway was a pond, I was told, that was full of fish.

That weekend, I spent Friday and Saturday night at the Hammons’ house. On Saturday we went fishing for several hours. Mark’s dad went with us and Mark’s sister, Stacy, went with us. Everyone caught a fish. In fact, everyone caught a lot of fish. Everyone that is , except me. Do you know how embarrassing it was to be out fished by a girl? I did not catch one fish. The next morning we drove down the driveway on our way to church. Mark’s dad suddenly stopped the truck. He reached into the back of the truck and pulled out his fishing pole. He said, “I just know that there is a fish that John could catch this morning.” I don’t mind telling you that I did not want to try. I did not want to get out of the truck. The humiliation of the day before was enough to keep me there. But Mark’s dad would not let me say no. He baited the hook for me. I threw the line into the water. Two seconds later, when I pulled on the line, I hauled in the greatest fish that I had ever seen. I had big plans for it. I was going to mount it and stick it on the wall in my bedroom. So you can imagine my surprise when Mark’s dad, took the fish off of the line, and threw it back into the water.

You know how Peter’s fishing trip ended. By following this long shot piece of advice at clearly the wrong time of the day with the circumstances being not right, Simon Peter let down his net into a jackpot. I hope that know what just happened. With just a word Jesus Christ had made Peter and his fishing partners more successful than they ever dreamed that they could be. At his feet, there was a fortune of fish flipping and flopping in front of him. Maybe you noticed that Peter’s reaction was not that of a winner. In fact the feeling that overwhelmed Peter was one of unworthiness. In the Bible, that is the reaction many have when they realize that they are in the presence of the almighty. Just ask Isaiah and we will tell you. In the temple, with the angels flying around him, he proclaims, “God, I am a man of unclean lips and I live in a land of unclean lips, and yet I have seen the glory of God!” Jesus must have reached down to Peter and pulled him back up. We do not know that he did that, but we do know what Jesus said. His words were these, “Do not be afraid, from now on you will be catching people.” Peter gets up and Luke simply tells us that he left everything and followed Jesus. Everything? Yes, everything! The fortune of fish were still flipping and flopping in front of him and Peter followed Jesus.

Now let me ask the question that I ask most Sundays. What are we supposed to do with these words this morning? I think that maybe I should quickly say that following Jesus is not always like that. Following Jesus does not always mean giving up everything, every little and big thing, and following Jesus. Sometimes it does. There are some who are called to do that sort of thing. I feel, at times, as if I have done that. There are some of you who may be feeling such a tug. But for most of us, that is not our experience. For most of us following Jesus looks a little different from that. But I do believe that it is all of our jobs to fish for people.

I am still haunted by the story that one of my favorite authors tells in a book that I have been reading, again. The preacher tells that he had May the seventh marked on his calendar and on that date, his appointment simply read, “John. Lunch.” The preacher tells that he never had the appointment, because on May the sixth, John killed himself. You see, the story is that John spent many weeks in this preacher’s home. That week, he had been dumped by the love of his life. The preacher kept seeing John pull out her picture from his billfold and look at it over and over again. And when he did, he was dumped over and over again. The pastor tells that he saw John just two days before his death. He looked happy. He looked like he was doing well, but he was not doing well. He had a life that he could not handle and he wanted a life that he could not have. The preacher tells that John was caught in a shouting match between the world and his friend. “It isn’t worth it!” The world yelled. “Yes it is!” We yelled back. “It isn’t worth it!” “Yes it is!” “It isn’t worth it! Yes it is!” John was caught in the middle and finally we stopped yelling. Friends, please hear this, this morning, we cannot stop yelling. We must reach out to people. We must fish for them. It is our job. Evangelism is no longer an option for us. It is now a necessity. We must reach out in love to those that we know!

Then there are those people, unlike John, who you just want to give up on. I do not know if you have seen it, but there is a great line in the movie Simon Birch. Simon has just gotten in trouble at the church. He made a fiasco of the Christmas play. He is sitting in the preacher’s office. The pastor comes in and says, “Simon, the church needs a break from you.”

I don’t mind telling you that I’d never say those words to anyone. Some of you may know that while I was in college and seminary, I was a youth minister. There was a kid in one of my youth groups. Oh, I will never forget him. His name was Andrew. I remember going on a youth trip once. I think that it was Andrew’s senior year. Our church rented a 42 passenger bus. Half way through the long trip to Florida, Andrew and the preacher’s daughter were found trying to help each other breathe, if you know what I mean. Andrew was definitely a handful. I know that I won’t forget what happened on the last night of that trip. When the beds were checked, there was one empty in the girls’ room and there was one empty in the boys’ room. Do you want to guess which boy was missing? That’s right. It was Andrew’s bed. He and the preacher’s daughter were down by the beach. When an adult found them, they were walking on the beach, holding hands. Andrew was quick to defend himself. He said that they had walked down there because they were hoping to witness to someone on the beach. Never mind that it was after midnight and there was no one else on the beach. Andrew was just one of those kids.

But do you know that God started working in Andrew’s life. Andrew even felt a call of God. For a while, he had his own hands full with people who were once like him. He worked with a youth group. Then, I heard he went to seminary and then he got his first church. I hear that Andrew is a pretty good pastor these days. Some people say that he is. This past June, he got his third church, a new appointment, and I hear that he is so happy there. The reason that I know so much about Andrew is that I am him, John Andrew.

Your call might not be my call. God might be calling you to do something simple, here. You might not have to tear up the million dollar check or leave a fortune of fish, but we are all called to reach out and love people. I just hope that you are following closely enough to hear the flip and the flop of Jesus’ sandals. Let us pray.