St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Wesley Chapel, FL
Preacher: The Rev. Adrienne R. Hymes
Epiphany 3B/Mark 1:14-20
January 21, 2024
As Jesus walked along the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon and Andrew, both fishermen, casting their net into the sea. “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” There was something about Jesus that inspired those two brothers to immediately leave their fishing nets; abandon their source of livelihood; and move to follow him.
Along this same walk, Jesus spotted two more brothers, fishermen also. These brothers were minding their business, focused on the task of mending the fishing nets. Jesus, again, issued the authoritative call-to-action, “Follow me,” and they were obedient to Jesus’ words. Their obedience meant that they would be abandoning their source of livelihood, and the person who grounded their identity in this earthly world, their father Zebedee.
Imagine the scene. Jesus was walking and talking. He was divinity in motion. And there was something about his divine movement and his divine message that stopped the would-be disciples, Simon, Andrew, James and John, from minding their business. In Jesus, the kingdom of God had come near to them, and in the presence of the indescribable “otherness” of Jesus, those men knew no other response than to be obedient.
We have all heard this scripture in the first chapter of Mark, as well its parallel in Matthew 4:18-22, and are very familiar with this beach scene—the calling of Jesus’ first disciples. Jesus and the disciples are staples in these scripture scenes. But there is another staple found in both of the gospels that can easily be overlooked—the fishing net.
Let’s start with the first verse. John the Baptist had already been minding his business of fishing for people through his ministry of baptism. After John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the life-saving news of the gospel; Jesus continued fishing for people, and he was the model for the fishing net.
The theme of fishing and mending is prominent in our passage in Mark and in Matthew. In both, the fishing net was being cast for actively catching fish and the fishing net that was actively being mended in order to be a strong, effective instrument for catching the fish. Imagine the ongoing wear and tear of the nets used by the fishermen, day in and day out, as they went about their business.
As we go about our business as bearers of the gospel and bringers of Christ’s light, we are the nets that our divine fisher of people, Jesus, casts into the sea of God’s people. We are also the nets that, due to the wear and tear of the human condition, need ongoing healing and mending, in order to be strong, effective nets, used by God to be about God’s business of fishing for people. Fishing for people is ultimately about God’s mission of restoration all people to unity with God and with each other through his only son Jesus Christ.
We need to listen to Jesus’ lifelong call to follow him; to be inspired by his example of teaching, preaching and healing; to be healers of spiritual brokenness and menders of tattered relationships; and we are to be agents of transformation for all of God’s people. Our faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ assures us that we are, at once, caught up in Jesus’ divine “net,” in which the baptized are inextricably entangled and formed, and that we, as the body of Christ, are being collectively transformed by God.
Might St. Paul’s grow into the body of Christ that God calls us to be for each other, and for those souls whom we have yet to meet? Souls who, like the fishermen, turned disciples, go about the mundane business of their daily earthly work and who may have little to no connection to the sacred.
There was something inspirational about Jesus’ presence and divine movement that sparked the curiosity, and mobilization, of ordinary men as he passed along the sea of Galilee. And there is much that is inspirational about St. Paul’s presence and divine movement that can spark the curiosity of ordinary men and women in this community to follow Jesus.
Unlike the earthly fishing net, used as an instrument of death for the fish, St. Paul’s follows the model of our divine fisher of people, Jesus, who transforms those who believe in him, and follow him, into living fishing nets—instruments of life for people seeking sacred space in a secular world, inspiration, healing and transformation by the love of Jesus Christ.
Friends, God is in the business of soul inspiration, soul healing and soul transformation. On this, our annual meeting day, let us be reminded that we are to show up in this world, minding God’s business. Let us embrace and embody, what God has called St. Paul’s to be: a sacred place where all people can be inspired, healed and transformed by the love of Jesus Christ. May it, and may we, be so. Amen.
