Have you noticed a distinct theme running through our lessons the past few weeks as we work our way through the season of Epiphany? Especially in our Gospel passages the theme has clearly been: to be a disciple of Jesus Christ means to follow him. Last week we heard one version from St. John of how Peter and Andrew were called by Jesus, today we hear a different version from St. Matthew. Bottom line, they and the others were called by Jesus to follow him and they did, recognizing that in doing so their lives would be transformed.
Last week’s call to the new disciples was simply “come and see;” (oh, yes and Simon got a new name: Peter, a sign his life was already being transformed). Today’s call is more active. Jesus tells Peter, Andrew, as well as two other fishermen brothers, James and John “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.”
An intriguing statement. “I will make you fish for people.” I wonder what it meant to Jesus? To his disciples? To the early church? I wonder what it means for us today, January 26, 2014 at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Coconut Grove on the day of our Annual Parish Meeting?
You can look around this building to get an idea of what “I will make you fish for people” meant to this parish a generation or so ago. This sanctuary, constructed in the late 1950’s, was built to hold up to 500 people at a time (my predecessor took out the last several rows of pews a number of years ago so that the church wouldn’t look so empty — and also to enable us to have coffee hour at the back of the church. A brilliant move — in my last church you had to go down into the “undercroft” — the very name itself is foreboding to those unfamiliar with our church — for coffee hour and I can tell you not many visitors were brave enough to venture down there their first time!).
But I digress. There were, at that time, four full-time clergy on the staff, daily Eucharists and several on Sunday. The classrooms built around the two courtyards were for the sole use of our Sunday School (our day school wasn’t even founded until a few years later). The boys’ and men’s choir was the envy of all — boys had to audition to get in, right Jack? — and it was a great honor to be admitted. There were guilds and societies and affinity groups — all of which served a parish membership of over a thousand people. There were so many people that St. Stephen’s launched mission churches in other parts of our deanery — St. Philip’s and St. Thomas, to name two. It’s pretty clear what “I will make you fish for people meant in “those days”: build a beautiful aquarium and people will just dive right in.
Of course that was a very different time, wasn’t it? Church was the only game in town on Sunday morning: stores were closed, soccer hadn’t been invented yet (well, for American kids any way…). It was also a time when most families could get by quite well on one income, and even the one wage-earner didn’t compulsively work 50, 60, 70 hours a week because so much work had to be covered on account of the number of people already laid off and the unspoken fear “I could be next.” There was much more discretionary time, and more time to volunteer at church, join civic groups, spend time with the family.
Please, do not misunderstand. I am in no way nostalgically suggesting a return to that time (heck, women couldn’t serve on vestries nor girls be acolytes back then. It never in my wildest imagination occurred to me that I could be a priest). That was then, this is now and there was good and bad about then just as there is bad and good about now.
We did go through an enormous shift as a society from then to now, didn’t we? Again, just look around this building… Or any house of worship, for that matter: lots of empty pews. We have gone through an enormous shift as a society from the time this building was built to now.
And during that time of change and shifting norms what did “I will make you fish for people” come to mean? One way to answer that question is to look at what our church — with a capital “C” — thinks is important. Every year we dutifully fill out something called the “Parochial Report” which goes from this parish and hundreds of others like it to the local diocese, ultimately to the national church. And the main statistics to be reported? How many butts filled our pews in the past year and how much income came through our operating budgets. Looking around at this building today and hundreds like it around the country it’s pretty easy to see that those numbers have radically decreased during the past generation or so (adjusted for inflation, of course…).
And with those stark numbers in hand what happens? Anxiety sets it and Jesus’ call to us to become “fishers of people” shifts from building beautiful aquariums (aquaria?) for people to just dive into to “bring ‘em in any way you can so we can build up our numbers of butts in pews and revenue in our operating budgets” — reminding some of us that the ultimate purpose of fishing is, after all, to haul ‘em in, gut ‘em, fillet and eat ‘em…
Times of transition and rapid change from what came before do bring about anxious responses, anxious reactions.
But here’s the thing: we can not turn back the clock. We can not bring back the cultural norms of a generation ago. We can not will the church of 1956 back into being. Nor do we want to. We have lived through a time of reactive transition and, thanks be to God, at least here at St. Stephen’s we are still here. We are blessed with resources which insure our sustainability — from our generous pledge base to the newly-instituted financial contribution of our school and several other revenue streams — we are strong and healthy financially and have moved beyond the “reel ‘em in, fillet ‘em” etc understanding of “being fishers of people.”
So what does this mean for us, today? What do Jesus’ words “I will make you fish for people” mean to us today, the day of our Annual Parish meeting? What do they mean for the year ahead for us? What does it mean to be the church in the 21st century when we are no longer the only game in town?
Well, the primary rule about fishing is that in order to find them you have have to go where the fish are. Or the people are in our case. So one thing I would like for us as a parish to explore and wrestle with this coming year is: how do we be the church in the wider world? How do we go where the people are? How do we connect with the lives of people who don’t walk into this building on a regular basis — who may not even realize, or care, that this building is here? How do we go where the people are?
The first question is “how?” The second question I believe we need to wrestle with is “why?” Commentator David Lose of Luther Seminary suggests an answer: “what strikes me” he says “is that Jesus is calling these first disciples not into work but into relationship.” Jesus calls us to be in relationship with each other and with him. Jesus calls us to fish for people in order to break down the walls that separate us, to carry each other’s burdens, to care for our neighbors — not just the ones we know, but especially those we don’t know. Jesus calls us into relationship with each other, and, even more importantly Jesus calls us into relationship with himself. In a world filled with so much anxiety, so much despair, wouldn’t the news that at the heart of the universe is a loving God who actually does care for us, who walks with us and ultimately transforms even the shadow of death into new life, new hope — in a world such as ours today, wouldn’t that be the best news one could hear? And isn’t that news ours to share?
People who fish go to where the fish are and then offer them something compelling. In Jesus’ metaphor of “fishing for people” that is the purpose — go where the people are and offer them something compelling. Not for any ulterior motive, but only because Jesus first did that for us — came to where we our in the very earthiness of our human condition, and offered us his good news.
I recently posted a piece on our church’s facebook page from the blog “Dirty Sexy Ministry” (yes, the name grabbed my attention too!) which is authored by two priests: The Rev’d Mary Koppel and The Rev’d Laurie Brock. The piece was titled “The New Parochial Report” and made the observation about the Parochoal Report we all have to fill out at this time of year that “Numbers are simply that – numbers. And for all the numbers we have, I’m still convinced no one really pays attention until all the numbers are screaming red and at DefCon 4. Sadly, some pay too much attention to their numbers, assuming that a large attendance number and an even larger income number makes them a successful church.”
And they go on to say “I am stunned every year that the Parochial Report in a church with such savvy, imaginative people, can’t either be expanded to obtain more information about what truly makes communities the church or renamed something more appropriate, like the Annual Report on Money and Attendance.” And Koppel and Brock go on to offer some alternative suggestions to what should go on the Parochial Report, like “How many services did you hold this year? And by services, we mean including those times you prayed as a community in Church, in the hospital, and anywhere else people were in need of time with God. Did you as a priest do all the services, or have you invited laity to be prayerful leaders?”
And: “While your pledge income is helpful, how many hours were donated by parishioners? Include hours spent visiting those who were sick and in prison, the time donated preparing meals for those who were hungry, and the time spent simply being present with those in need?”
Well, you get the picture. And you can read the entire article on our facebook page. The point being that we need to start thinking about what it means to be church, what it means to be fishers of people in a way that makes sense in the lives of people living in today’s world.
I usually fill my Annual Parish meeting address (which, by the way, this sermon has been) with lots of ideas and activities that I think we should undertake in the upcoming year. This time I only have one overarching charge. I believe that this coming year we are called to seriously wrestle with the question “what does it mean to be church today?” and then seek ways, as a parish community, to respond to that question.
Follow me, Jesus said, and I will make you fish for people. And that invitation was so compelling to his disciples that they left everything and followed him. AMEN.