Sermon: Captivating
Texts: Isaiah 6:1-8; Luke 5:1-11
Date: Feb. 7, 2010
Rev. Dee Eisenhauer, Eagle Harbor Congregational Church
Simon may well have been moments from a clean getaway. He had fished all night; in that hot climate the fisherman hauled in their catches at night so they could be sold or preserved in the cool of the morning. But they couldn’t just walk away the moment they got back to shore. The nets needed repair and cleaning, every single day. Simon’s father had probably taught him that a fisherman who didn’t maintain his nets was soon a very poor fisherman. I imagine Simon was just about finished working on his nets and really looking forward to going home to rest when Jesus sauntered onto the scene with a crowd of eager listeners. They were so eager to hear what he had to say that they were practically pushing him into the waters of the lake. Jesus spotted Simon’s boat and asked to borrow it as a teaching platform. Simon, weary as he might have been, respectfully agreed.
Maybe he brought a net that needed repair with him in the boat. They shoved off a few feet from the shore. Simon probably figured he might as well make good use of the time as long as he was going to be stuck out there until Jesus finished saying what he had come to say. I picture him squatting in the bow working away while Jesus sits in the stern teaching the crowd. Repairing a net is not intellectually challenging work for a fisherman with the amount of experience Simon had. His hands could work while his mind attended to Jesus’ words—like Ann knitting during the sermon. So even if he had not intended to be a member of Jesus’ congregation that day, it is likely that he was soon drawn in to Jesus’ speech.
He might have been fascinated by the time Jesus finished but he wasn’t hypnotized. He still had a choice when Jesus sent the crowd on its way and suggested that they go further out and put down Simon’s nets for a catch. He could have refused. You can tell he was leaning toward “no”—he was tired and the fishing had been poor that night. He starts to explain this to Jesus. But there must have been something in Jesus’ face that won him over to a yes.
I think he had already been captivated by Jesus. We don’t know if they had a relationship before this fateful morning. We know that Jesus had been teaching and healing around those parts for some time. They might have met before. Jesus might have purchased a fish from him sometime. Or Simon might have heard stories told about him. Maybe they had attended a party or a synagogue service together. The gospel doesn’t tell us who they were to each other before this life-altering encounter in Simon’s boat. But it does show us that on this day, Simon is caught hook, line, and sinker by Jesus.
Jesus reels Simon in with an astonishing catch of fish. So many fish that the nets were beginning to snap and the boat was close to sinking. They had to call in backup fishermen to help haul in the great catch. What Jesus says to Simon afterwards was not a wish or a suggestion but a declaration: “From now on you will be catching people.” The great catch is interesting, but I see it more as a exhibition than an act of persuasion. Jesus had already closed the deal with his first disciple the instant Simon, captivated, agreed to row out to deeper water and let down his nets.
A person might feel a mite jealous of the face to face contact Simon had with Jesus. How wonderful it must have been to experience Jesus’ out-of-this-world charisma, his magnetism! But as it turns out, a person doesn’t need to meet Jesus face to face to be captivated by him. Millions of people have been drawn into a life-changing relationship with Jesus Christ without ever meeting him in the flesh. Not directly, anyway. Do you remember when you were reeled in by Jesus? What shifted in your perception, or in your life circumstances, to entice you to follow Jesus? Can we talk about our own discipleship as being captivated by Christ?
It’s hard for me as a “cradle Christian” to point to a moment or a mystical experience that changed me into a disciple. I would have to say that for me it was more being drawn in by other disciples of Jesus than by a direct, dramatic contact with Jesus’ spirit. I was captivated by captivating people I have known who are devoted to the Christian life. How about you?
I’ve run into a few people during my lifetime who have attempted without knowing me to reel me in for Jesus. I’ve encountered plenty of people who take Jesus’ charge to disciples to fish for people with almost deadly earnestness. Their tactics will be familiar to any American who’s ever been out in public: Tracts, sidewalk preachers, strangers buttonholing me to ask if I’m saved, county fair booths that offer a quiz that will reveal whether I’m going to heaven…that sort of thing. I personally haven’t responded to those invitations very positively; they are too often fear-based threats of hell. Such tactics bring this joke to mind: A fisherman walked past a game warden with a line of fish over his back. The game warden said, "Great looking fish. Where'd you get them?" The fisherman said, "Come with me, and I'll show you." He took the game warden out in his boat, took out a stick of dynamite, lit it, and threw it in the water. After a big shuddering blast, hundreds of fish came to the surface. The game warden said, "That's the most illegal way I ever saw of catching fish, and you're coming in with me." The fisherman took out another stick of dynamite, lit it, handed it to the game warden, and said, "Ya gonna talk or ya gonna fish?"
It’s unnecessary to win people by blast evangelism. Lutheran scholar Brian Stoffregen points out in his commentary that the Greek word that Jesus uses to describe Simon’s future work means “catching alive.” In classical Greek it also came to mean, “to restore to life and strength, to revive.” He suggests that when we’re reflecting on the call to disciples to catch or capture people, we think in terms of captivating them. One can be captivated by beauty of charm or excellence. Can we learn to captivate people with Jesus’ love? Can we learn to captivate people with God’s life-giving grace?[1]
Writer Frederick Niedner sparked my imagination with this sentence: “We don’t mend, tend or haul the net; rather, by God’s grace we become the net.” I’m attracted to that idea of becoming the net that might draw others to a restorative relationship with Christ. Jesus’ demonstration of a great catch with Simon discloses the great number of fish that are waiting to be caught. Jesus says elsewhere in the gospel that the harvest is plentiful; he has commanded us to go and make disciples. God has laid the groundwork, and has been trying to communicate grace to all. What God/Christ/Spirit need are nets. Remember, Jesus didn’t commandeer Simon’s fishing equipment; he urged Simon to use what he had to bring in a catch. I am convinced that God will use who we are, the gifts that we each have, to draw more people to abundant life in Christ.
We might react to God’s call to act as ambassadors for the Divine as both Peter and Isaiah did—with an overwhelming feeling of being unworthy. Well, OK, so you aren’t perfect. Apparently imperfection, even downright sinfulness, didn’t disqualify the prophets and disciples God called into service through the grand narrative of the Bible. And it won’t disqualify any of us. We can’t use our faultiness as an excuse not to be of service. Just ask Simon. He tries unsuccessfully to get Jesus to go away because he is so sinful. He looks up from his cowering, quivering position to find Jesus still standing there, announcing that he’s on the fishing crew.
Actually if you are the net, you can conceive of the fisherman cleaning and repairing you so that you can be of use. What dark stain on your soul needs cleansing? The God of grace has got that covered. Just offer yourself up. Divine forgiveness powerfully removes every blot on the soul as God engages in the daily work of creating clean hearts.
Are there holes in you, Net? Are you an incorrigible gossip? That certainly blows a hole in a net that might captivate someone for Christ. Why don’t you let God fix that for you? Pray about it, and let the one who would mend you do his restorative work. Are you greedy, selfish, or fearful? All holes in a net that would be more useful to Christ without those gaps. Why not let the Creator patch you up?
I have an idea that the nets that have been cleaned and repaired by God are among the strongest that the Lord has at her disposal. Those whose lives have been turned around by Christ, those people who have been healed of addiction and anger and disease of various kinds are especially captivating when they start to tell their stories. E. Stanley Jones tells of a number of people who were converted by Christ and began attracting others. One was a woman who had come to his retreat center after years of being bedridden off and on with heart problems. In the course of spiritual conversation, she had an epiphany about the connection between her constant, crippling fears and her heart health. She surrendered herself and her fears to God. Her very face and attitude changed. At her next doctor’s visit, the astonished physician asked her what had happened. When she told him, he said, “If half my patients had what you have, they’d be well. You had better tell them.” A pastor some years later pointed her out at a luncheon Jones attended and said, “You see that little woman? She is the greatest spiritual power in this city.”[2] She, by the grace of God, became the net.
We, too, can become the net. We use the gifts we have—whether it’s in humble service (making soup, hammering nails), writing, listening, offering hospitality, whatever…We use the gifts we have with the intention of captivating our neighbors with the love of God. We don’t use our failures as an excuse but as an occasion for being mended and made stronger by God. All of us who have been captivated by Christ can be captivating for him.
If you think you can draw on nothing else—if your gifts aren’t readily apparent—tap into the pure joy of being alive and knowing the amazing grace of God. Some friends were talking the other day about an activist Lutheran pastor they know—Seattleite John Nelson. He’s worked tirelessly for the poor and for the cause of peace. He and his wife have fostered and/or adopted 22 children. He works hard, and spends all kinds of time among those who suffer, but he is well known for his great, booming laugh. Somebody asked him once why he was so joyful with all the burdens he has borne. His answer: “I guess it’s because I know how the story ends!”
Captivating.
[1] Brian Stoffregen http://www.crossmarks.com/brian/luke5x1.htm
[2] Jones, E. Stanley Conversion New York: Abingdon, 1959, p. 85