Thoughts About Wetting A Line

As the last few summers arrived and vanished I often thought that I would break out my fishing equipment to go fishing.  Last year, I even went as far as to receive my “lifetime fishing license for North Carolina. But still never wet a line, all summer.  It was a week or so ago that my brother-in-law, Dave and his wife, Evelyn came for a wonderful visit, when I was tempted to  revisit the idea of getting out my gear, heading with David to a Blue Ribbon Trout stream to catch a few. When I laid my head down that evening, many fond memories of fishing outings with my father and grandfather flooded my mind.  Living near the Snowy Range of the Roosevelt National Forest in Southeastern Wyoming, my grandfather and dad would carry my cousin, Bob and me deep into Jack Creek, where on more than one occasion all our extra large keels would be “plum full” of Brookies. My grandfather would thrill us with stories of his great fishing adventures of fresh mountain streams where he had hiked in and spent four or five days, catching fish, having them for breakfast, lunch and dinner, cooked over an open fire. When we would arrive home, Bob and I would spend our time cleaning while grandma and mom would be preparing for and calling family and friends, announcing the time of a big fish fry.  Wow, what times we had!

My own fishing career, if you could call it a fishing career, was far less dramatic than my grandfather's adventures. My career began off the Pacific coast on fishing trowlers then in the tributaries of the Mississippi River, near Quincy, Illinois again later on Lake Michigan.  Whenever we went to visit my boyhood home in the summers, I would revisit some of the streams nearer my home town of Saratoga and the Saratoga Lake. I cannot fail the stream aound Estes Park, Colorado. For the last few years, it’s been off the coast of Southwest Florida, on the Gulf side.  Unfortunately, I have never been as successful enough as an angler to know the thrill of catching as many fish and the pure enjoyment of standing next to my grandfather and father, “wetting a line.” It was a good time with my brother-in-law, but it just wasn’t the same.  And what should I expect?  It’s been sixty years!

Even though my angling career has not been very successful, I like to think that I was following in a great tradition—not only one begun with my grandfather and dad, but one that began with a young carpenter's call to four fishermen to follow him. I read with amazement how these four fishermen "immediately left their nets and followed him" Mark 1:18. What was it about this call to follow and the invitation to become "fishers of men" that would compel such a dramatic response?

The notion of "fishing for people" was actually not a foreign idea for those familiar with the Hebrew prophets. The prophets used this term to describe God Ezekiel 29:4, 38:4. God was the great "angler" catching people for judgment—judgment that preceded the coming of God's kingdom. This came to be the understanding of these texts, particularly after Israel returned from their exile in Babylon. Having experienced the horror of the exile, the Jews had a new appreciation for obedience to the law. Furthermore, they thought their restoration was dependent on cleansing their world from all sin and evil. So prior to the coming kingdom, God would go on the ultimate fishing mission to gather evil and destroy wickedness.   

With this background, it is easy to understand why the first disciples jumped when Jesus used this phrase to call them. The judgment was coming and they were being called as fishermen for God. Jesus had come to purify the nation from evil, and they would be co-anglers with him, catching evil and wiping Israel clean of sin prior to the kingdom of God being established in their midst.

Their fishing mission began with Jesus's announcement, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." The followers of Jesus heard this call as a warning to get life in order or be caught up in the fierce wrath of God. But Jesus upended their expectations. Something new happened. First, Jesus made this announcement to the Gentiles. These were the very ones God should have destroyed! Yet, rather than destroying, Jesus began to heal. Soon after calling the disciples, Mark's gospel reports that Jesus healed a demoniac; in Matthew's gospel, he healed "every disease and every infirmity among the people" and in Luke's gospel, he healed a leper. The old understanding of this mission kept all these people as unclean outsiders; these were the ones who needed to be gathered up in the nets of judgment and destroyed.

But Jesus rightly understood what the in-breaking of God's kingdom entailed. Calling individuals to the mission of fishing was a sign of Jesus's proclamation: "The time is now fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand." Jesus went fishing as the sign of the in-breaking kingdom in his very person, and in his teaching ministry. And so it remains today. Rather than ridding the world of sinners and of evil, Jesus gathers these outsiders into the net of his fellowship where they are healed and transformed. Dallas Willard in his book, The Divine Conspiracy, says it this way: "Jesus then came into Galilee announcing the good news from God. All the preliminaries have been taken care of and the rule of God is now accessible. Review your plans for living and base your life on this remarkable new opportunity.”

It is into this same fishing mission that Jesus calls those who would follow him. His intention is not simply telling people what they need to turn away from, but showing them who they can turn toward. To be sure, turning to God requires an entire reorientation of my life: I do need to repent, to turn around, and go in a kingdom-direction. In the presence of Jesus, there is now the option of living within the light of God's kingdom purposes and finding my life caught up into the kind of life I was always intended to live.

Often I’ve found that my attempts at fishing for God's kingdom has been just as bumbling and clumsy as my out of practice as my attempts at casting the fly rod the other day. Sometimes they have been only as good as my own understanding of what it means to be kingdom dweller. As those who would seek to follow Jesus, I too am called to review my plans for living and base my life on this remarkable new opportunity. Jesus's mission compels my beyond myself and towards others, reaching out to those on the margins, healing those who are sick, blessing those who are cursed, and combating evil with love and justice. It’s just not a feeling I have but a fact that I have been invited to join Jesus in his ministry of reconciliation, gathering people up into the net of the kingdom and kingdom living.