I love fish stories. I have always thought it fun to hear folk talk about the fish they have caught or the one who got away. Most all of us have heard fish stories of some kind or another during our lifetime. Some of them are very believable and others, well let’s just say that the exaggeration is the best part of the story.
I want to share a fish story with you. And, you may think that this story, like so may other fish stories is based best in the exaggeration, but I promise you, this is a true story.
When I was a teenager, I had a friend named Mike Baker. Mike and I worked together in the first job I ever had. We worked for the National Forest Service in the Sam Houston National forest at a recreational park called Double Lake. The park is near Cold Springs. We were a part of a program the government had in the ‘70’s called Youth Conservation Corp. It was a great job and one of my favorite jobs in all my working life. We lived in barracks style housing all week and went home on weekends. During the day we worked on several projects in and around Double Lake.
At night, after work, we often would go over to Lake Livingston and go fishing. Going out there was always a lot of fun and we almost always caught a few fish. But it was particularly fun when Mike came with us. It was fun because Mike had a fish call. When I call it a fish call, I don’t mean something he stuck down in the water to attract fish. Mike would stand at the edge of the lake, hold his hands to his mouth kind of like many people hold their hands to whistle, and he would make this strange sounding noise. About the closest sound that I can think of is the horn on a diesel truck, but it wasn’t quite that either.
I know that it sounds funny and you might not think that it would work, but it did. When Mike came with us and used his fish call, we caught fish. We caught some fish most of the time, but when Mike came and used the fish call we really caught fish. The biggest fish I have ever caught was one night that Mike went with us and used his fish call. I caught a 15 pound catfish. Yes, it was small compared to many like the one taken out of Lake Texoma a few years ago, but I was proud of it. I still have a picture of it somewhere around the parsonage.
Some of you are probably sitting there thinking to yourself, boy that is just about the lamest fish story I have ever heard. Others may think I can really tell a fish story. I promise you, however, the story is true.
You can’t live in east Texas or on the Gulf coast without having heard at least a few fish stories. I would guess that all of us have heard some and most of us even have one or two stuck in the back pockets of our memory that we can tell on just about a moment’s notice. And fish stories aren’t anything new. The disciples had a whopper of a fish story to tell. It was a true story, but just as some of you are probably doubting the truth of my fish story, I would guess that many people of their day doubted the truth of what Peter and Andrew and James and John were telling them when they talked about this morning’s lesson.
Jesus comes up to the lake, and as usual, a crowd gathers. So, he gets into Peter’s boat and tells Peter to put out just a little from shore. Jesus uses the boat as a pulpit or a lectern and begins to teach the crowd. When the lesson was over he tells Peter to put out his nets on the other side of the boat from where Jesus was teaching. Peter puts up a short protest saying, “We have been out here fishing all night long and haven’t caught a blessed thing. We have come back in and cleaned up our nets and now you want us to put them back out again? Oh well, you want us to put out the nets, we’ll put out the nets.” And, Peter goes about doing what Jesus instructed him to do. He put out the nets. The Bible doesn’t tell us what Peter was thinking as he put the nets into the water. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was thinking, “Here I am, a professional fisherman. I know how to catch fish, I’ve been doing it most of my life. I have worked all night and haven’t caught anything. And now this itinerant carpenter/preacher presumes to tell me how to fish. Of all the nerve.” Now he may not have thought it, but it certainly would have been in line with Peter’s character.
But in spite of whatever Peter may have been thinking, Jesus had a huge surprise in store for him. Peter lowered the nets down into the water where Jesus told him to put them and when he started bringing them back up he couldn’t handle it. The nets were so full of fish he had to have help and more than just Jesus and Peter’s brother Andrew. So he called to James and John in the other boat and they came and helped haul the nets back in. They were full of fish. It was the biggest haul any of them had ever seen.
It was a haul very much worth bragging about. Can’t you just hear them telling this grand fish story? “The nets were so full of fish it took five of us to get them all in. Yep they were at the point they were about ready to break. You haven’t ever seen so many fish all at one time.”
The response would be very predictable. “Oh yeah, right Simon. Sure you caught that many fish. What did you do with them all? And all Peter could say was that they walked away. Talk about the one that got away. They let a whole load of fish go. That’s some catch and release program.
The biggest catch of fish in any of these men’s lives and they just walked away from it. They walked away because Jesus said if they would walk away and come and follow him they would fish for people and that is exactly what they did. They went out and they got new fish stories, different fish stories. These stories weren’t about fish but about people. And, as they gathered these stories they told them over and over again.
Let’s think about this story and how it applies to us. Andrew, Peter, James, and John bring in the biggest catch they have ever seen and yet they walk away. A net load of that many fish would have been worth a great deal of money, and they walked away. They walked away from something of great material value and instead followed Jesus.
Are we willing to do what those first disciples did? If we were suddenly given more material wealth than we had ever had before, would we be willing to turn our backs on this good fortune? Unfortunately, most of us wouldn’t be so inclined. We would want to sit down on the bank and start counting our money. That is the way that society is. That is the way human nature is. It is a tough think to answer what Jesus is calling us to do. It must have been a tough think for the disciples to do, but they did it. They traded in fish for fish stories, well actually people stories.
Those four and eventually the other disciples too, went and followed Jesus. They learned from Him. They saw people have their lives changed as they came into a right relationship with God. They felt good about what they were doing. It may not have been what they were trained to do. It may not have been what they imagined themselves doing. But Jesus was there and teaching and it just felt right. And, along they way they built their stories and started to tell those stories. I am sure that they began to tell the stories before that first Easter, but afterward they really had some stories to tell. And they did just that. They went out and told anyone who would listen their fish stories, their fishing for people stories.
But it didn’t stop there. Ever since the days of the disciples people have been sharing their fish stories. They have gone out and shared their faith. People have told others what God has done in their lives. And friends, God has done some mighty and powerful things in people’s lives.
God has done some powerful things in the lives of people like us and people like us have gone out into the world to tell others what God has done.
I don’t know all of your stories of faith, but if I were a betting man, I would bet that at some point in your life someone has shared a fish story with you, maybe more than one. I don’t mean a fish story about some sill fish call or some fish caught or almost caught from a lake or the ocean. I am sure that someone, at some point in time, shared a faith fish story with you. Maybe a preacher or a Sunday School teacher. Maybe it was a parent or your best friend. Maybe it was someone a Miss Hattie, the wise old matriarch of the Church that everyone listened to because they knew she had a special relationship with God. Or, maybe, it was someone standing on a street corner asking of you knew about Jesus and then took the time to share their faith with you. I don’t know who it was or what their story was, but somebody took the time to tell you a fish story. Perhaps it was more than one somebody, but the point is, you heard a fish story.
From that time and even before, until now, you have been gathering your own fish story. We like the disciples have a story to tell a world that needs to know about the love of God and the lifesaving actions of Jesus Christ. God has done things in our lives and others need to know what those things are.
Friends, they will never know if we faith to share our fish stories, our faith stories. The disciples shared their stories. Will we share ours?
“Oh, but preacher, I am too busy to tell people about that.” We all lead busy lives, that’s why we have to work together if we are to accomplish God’s work. Or, “Oh, but preacher, I don’t know the Bible very well.” First of all, we won’t know the Bible if we don’t study it and second, I didn’t say go out and tell people about the Bible, I said go tell them your fish story. God tell them how God is working in your life. Or, “Oh, but preacher, I am afraid.” You don’t think the disciples were afraid? Sure they were. They walked away from what they knew to a new way of living. They had to trust.
One of my friends, a former seminary roommates named Mike Lindstrom, now the pastor at Asbury UMC in Pasadena once told me a story that made me think.
He said a few years ago he went out fishing on Galveston Bay with a long time friend. He said they had been fishing for a while and hadn’t caught much when they decided to take their boat out to one of the oil drilling rigs. When they got there Mike said the fish were boiling and they could hardly put a hook into the water without bringing up a fish. They let the time get away from them and soon it was getting dark. The boat had no lights on it and all they had to navigate with was a flashlight that would shine about 10 feet. It was pitch-black, no moon. Mike said that his friend knew the way back but it was a long way and they had to go very slowly from one buoy to the next. They would see a light on the water and it would look very small and they had to wonder if it was a big light a long way away or a small light attached to something that was very close. Eventually, they made it back and Mike lived to tell the story. But he said that as he reflected back in that event, he realized that he had really put his trust in his friend. Without his friend’s knowledge of the bay, they never would have made it safely back to shore.
The disciples walked away from the biggest catch they had ever seen. That was a big thing to do, but they did it. They trusted Jesus to guide them in the days ahead. We might be afraid of going out and sharing our fish stories, but we need to remember that God is with us. We need to share. Will you tell your fish stories?
