How is it that Peter had no fish? How is it that Peter, who must have known, after all those years, every trick of the trade, who must have known Galilee like the back of his hand, every cove, every turn of the riverbed beneath, every stump and sandbar, every best “fishin’ hole” there was… How is it that Peter had no fish?

            All fishermen have bad luck. But maybe, “fishing” is not what this is all about.

            Mark’s gospel tells us that Jesus had called his disciples away from their nets to give them a grander vocation. To paint a broader picture of the world. To enlarge their callings: I will make you fish for people (Mark 1.17). He had said to them, “You will do even greater things” (than he had done, John 14.12). And he had told them that he was going away; to a place they could not follow (John 13.36[1]). Yet hardly had the news of his death made its way home to Galilee, than had the disciples returned there, too. Home. To a life of regular, ol’ “fishing.”

            Children, you have no fish, have you?

            And they said to him, “No.”

            Vernon Davis, who is the Dean of the Logsdon School of Theology at Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, Texas asks, “Will our children have faith?” I’m asking “will we teach them to fish?” He answers, “Yes,” but a qualified, “Yes, if…”

1 - Our children will learn to fish, if they see our faith in the shape of courage to take difficult stands for justice and moral integrity.

            This morning I heard a vigorous argument between an Orthodox Rabbi and a Palestinian scholar on the “morality” (or the lack thereof) of suicide bombings and State-sponsored assassinations. Christian faith challenges us to “choose life” (Deuteronomy 29.19). Those ancient words, given to Moses as he stood on the brink of decision, must be our guide today. Are our choices life-sustaining? For ourselves? And, for those around us?

2 - Our children will learn to fish, if they see the priority of our faith reflected in the way we spend our money and our time.

            I do appreciate Dr. Davis making this point in the midst of our slight budget crunch(!), but the issue is larger than the faithfulness of your contribution to this church. The question isn’t just “What do you give, here.” The question is, “How much do you give?” Do your children see your stewardship? (Children can read generosity and stinginess like a book with vivid colored pictures!) Does your generosity have an obvious affect on their own lives? (If we are making generous decisions, there will not be enough left-over every month for everything that children, and we, want.)

3 - Our children will learn to fish, if the church is our primary community beyond the family.

            To make this comment myself would sound self-serving or arrogant, but Amy and I do what we do, in great measure, because we truly believe Dr. Davis is right. We believe in the Church. Failed and flawed as it will always be, we call this our “community of faith,” because it is what we most need out of it. We need the security and comfort of home, and the challenge and discomfort of family. These extremes always come when people seek to live together.

As youth and college ministers, Amy and I were frequently frustrated by the appeals, often made by parents, to support “para-church” groups. Many of these groups are commendable. “Young Life.” “Fellowship of Christian Athletes.” Campus Ministry.” There are many of these organizations, and I do not denigrate them in the least. It is interesting, however, that a group of folk who have already invested the time and financial resources in building the institution called “the local church,” will then restrict their own resources by, in some ways, turning their backs on that organization, just to attempt to create community in another one. Oh, what we could do if we had the time and the financial investment given by church members to other organizations! (There are plenty of non-church members to support the United Way -- shouldn’t we prioritize the church?) The church is our community. It will be our priority. There is no better place to give. No better community who can teach our children to fish!

4 - Our children will learn to fish, if there is a consistency between what we profess at church and how we live at home.

            I am the beneficiary of such genuine faith, as are many of you. Regardless what else you have heard me say about my faith and my parents’, when someone asks me why I seem to have escaped many of the pitfalls of being a “preacher’s kid,” my response is always that what I heard at church always corresponded to what I saw at home. There are no better teachers.

            According to Christian legend, the Sea of Galilee, beautiful and rich, teeming with life had an astounding variety of fish -- one hundred, fifty-three, to be exact! Peter’s catch of whopping proportion, then, was not just another “fish tale.” It is the Gospel of John’s last miracle of abundance – but it is an abundance of another kind.[2]

            The story opens as we learn that “the disciples did not know… Jesus,” standing on the shore. Only after the disciples had listened. Only after they had responded. Only after their willingness to try something a little different – “throw your nets on the other side.” Only then were their nets were filled and their eyes opened. “Now, none of the disciples dared to ask him, ‘Who are you?’” For, now, “They knew it was the Lord.”

            How open are we to the challenge of God’s call? How open are we to the great variety and diversity of God’s children? How open are we to a different look? To a different approach? God’s abundance comes to us, our eyes are still opened, when we learn a life of this kind of “fishing.”

            Let me mention one danger here. It is the danger to read in this story a calling of dominance. To read that it is our uniquely Christian role to take in all of God’s children. To catch them in evangelistic efforts. To entangle them, by force, and to mandate our beliefs, our culture, our story. Such fishing, in such a dangerous world, is like throwing in a stick of dynamite and holding our ears. It makes a lot of noise, but when it’s over there are just a lot of dead bodies floating on the surface.

The better way to read the story is to realize that in many ways we are really more like the fish than we are like the fisherman! We, and all of God’s children around the globe, are but one of the 153 beautiful varieties of God’s diverse creation. We are all swimming free. But our world is getting smaller. And in our intolerance. And in our arrogance, ours is becoming a world like the one Hosea spoke of centuries ago, in which “even the fish of the sea are perishing.”

One hot summer day on the bank of Lake Greenwood, South Carolina, I learned two of life’s most important lessons. I learned that my grandaddy loved to fish. And I learned that my granddaddy loved his grandson.

They are lessons I will never forget.[3]

            May it be so!

PASTORAL PRAYER