01232021 – Mark 1. 14-20
Bob’s walking down the street when he sees a kid sitting on his front porch “jigging in a bucket.”
As he reaches the kid, Bob stops for a better look. The bucket’s empty.
He asks the kid, “What are you fishing for, son?”
The kid looks up and says with a shrug, “Suckers mainly.”
Bob smiles and asks, “Caught any yet?”
“Yep,” the kid replies.
“You’re the tenth.”
(Pause)
A woman is walking on a beach in Texas carrying two Redfish in a bucket.
A game warden walks up to her and asks to see her “fishing license.”
“I don’t have a fishing license,” says the woman.
“You know it’s illegal to fish without a license, right?” asks the warden.
“I wasn’t fishing, officer. You see these here – Redfish are my own personal pets.”
“Your pets?”
“Yes, officer. They like “a little exercise,” so “when the weather’s fine” (like today,) I take them down to the water and let them swim around.
Once they are done, I give them a whistle and they jump back into my bucket and we head for home.”
The officer wasn’t buying a word of it, so the woman says, “Don’t believe me? Watch!” and she throws the fish into the sea.
The warden waits for a minute then says, “Alright, now whistle to your fish and make them jump out of the water.”
The wise old Texas gal turns to the officer and says, “What fish?”
So, at the onset of his ministry, Jesus does a little bit of fishing himself.
Last week, from John’s Gospel he HOOKED UP with Nathanael and Philip…and now this week…
From Mark’s Gospel, he HOOKS UP with Simon and Andrew and James and John.
And, just so you know, NO ONE KNOWS what the “correct order is…”
All we do know is – right out of the gate, Jesus starts building up a religious community around himself.
We are told by Mark after John was arrested (although we are told NONE OF THE DETAILS) Jesus went to Galilee…
So, the automatic assumption is that prior to this he was in the land of Judah.
But now, he is going back home to the old and to the familiar…back to Galilee.
This is where some scholars make the supposition, that perhaps, Jesus himself was a follower or a disciple of John.
Jesus picks up where John left off.
Like John, he urges people to “turn their lives around” and “believe (or trust) in the good news (or the Gospel.”)
The headline is that “the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near.”
Jesus walks along the Sea of Galilee.
Mark calls it a “sea,” but it is really a lake.
Fisherman were looked down upon.
Being “OUT” all night and “smelling like the fish they caught and cleaned” – made fishing a disreputable occupation.
Fishing was always done at night so that the freshly caught fish could be sold as soon as possible in the morning.
It seems reasonable that Jesus sees Simon and Andrew at night (or just before “dawn”) as they were ACTIVELY FISHING.
And he must have seen James and John (after dawn) as they were finished fishing for the night and were IN THEIR BOATS mending their nets.
Simon and Andrew DROP EVERYTHING and IMMEDIATELY accept Jesus’ offer.
This is like TOTALLY IRRESPONSIBLE BEHAVIOR, without a doubt.
“The event” is probably mentioned to provide a lesson about “the nature of discipleship.”
The same thing happens again, but this time it is James and his brother John who are mending their nets.
But the weird thing here – is that they abandon their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired hands and just follow Jesus. They just walk away.
That about sums up fisherman. Irresponsible. Out all night. And stinky. Unpredictable.
David got up bright and early one weekend and headed to the ROOT river. He fished all day long but did not catch a thing. On the way home, he stopped at the local fish market.
“I want to buy the three biggest Steelhead you’ve got,” he said to the owner.
The owner starts to bag up his order when DAVID says, “No need for that, just toss them to me, slowly, one at a time.”
“Why would I do that?” the owner asked.
“So, I can tell my wife that I caught three fish today!”
And that’s why, fishermen BIBLICALLY get a bad rep.
Amen.