So now is the time I bore you with fun Biblical facts about the Gospel of Luke. Catching a lot of fish, doesn’t seem too exciting, I first thought, and then I read some of these tidbits about fishermen in Jesus’ time. Fish was one of the main staples of the diet of the people in first century Palestine. More fish was eaten there than any other kind of meat. So therefore there was also a thriving fishing industry. Fish was prepared in many different ways, it was eaten fresh often, it was processed, though probably not with the same kind of method that we use today, their processed fish probably actually had a shelf life. It was also salted and dried for consumption. The other thing the people of that time did was pickle fish so they could export it to other countries.
So that is all well and good, you ask, but what kind of fish did they catch and eat!? The fish there were not unlike the fish here in our own lakes and streams. The fish in the Sea of Galilee, Sea of Genesserat is the same as the Sea of Galilee, when you look on a map there is a big lake that sits to the North and even bigger lake that sits to the south in the area of Jesus’ ministry. The lake to the south is the Dead Sea, the lake to the north is the sea of Galilee, the Dead Sea is about 3 times the size of the Sea of Galilee. On another side note, this placing of Jesus is interesting, and some scholars debate whether the author of the Gospel of Luke actually knew what he was talking about. About 10 verses earlier, Luke has Jesus leaving Capernaum and heading for Judea, the area closer to the Dead Sea, it is quite a long haul from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea, and they are no where near each other as well. So scholars are not entirely sure what happened that had Jesus double back to Galilee and then double back again to head back to Judea, and ultimately to Jerusalem.
Anyway, the fish, back to the fish! There were three kinds of fish in the Sea of Galilee where Jesus is found teaching and preaching and doing amazing miracles. The first is the cichlidae, which is a family of large pan fish that includes St. Peter’s fish; the second is the cyprinidae, or carp family, so these carp swimming in our rivers might very well have been right at home in the Sea of Galilee; and the third variety, was called siluridae, or a catfish. If you have ever caught a catfish, you know that they do not have fins and scales, so these catfish were not eaten by Jews as it was against custom. The nets used to catch these fish were also of three different kinds. The first was the casting net, a circular net that was cast out by wading fisherman. The second net was the trammel net, or a line of three nets hanging from floats, the inner net having a small mesh that trapped the fish; this was the kind of net that Peter, James and John would have been using in their boats. The third kind of net was a drag net, which could be several hundred yards long.
What cinched this story for me, was a little bit I read about a recent discovery on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. A first century fishing boat was uncovered that had been preserved in the mud near the edge of the sea. The shell of the boat is 26.5 feet long, 7.5 feet wide and 4.5 feet deep, it could be rowed or sailed. That is a big boat, and if we take the Gospel somewhat seriously, the boats were sinking on account all the fish, they were sinking from the weight of the fish, talk about amazing. Peter, then, instead of saying to Jesus, hold on a minute, let me get this all squared away, the man probably could have retired to fame and fortune from that moment on, instead of setting up his future, he falls at Jesus’ feet and becomes a disciple, the Disciple no less.
The story of Peter and his response to Jesus’ call becomes a little more compelling once we understand all that surrounded the context of his life and his work and all that he gave up to follow Christ. Paul knew this little concept as well; he knew that weaving his own story into the larger narrative would allow him to make a connection to the people he went to in a way that just reading and listening to the story would not do. So he weaves his story through out the narrative, and even uses some heavy bragging to get his point across. I love that line in 1 Corinthians, and I know I am making too much of this, but I still like it, where, in today’s epistle, he says, “last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared to me also. For I am the least of the apostles, (read therefore, I am the greatest, do you sense a little Ali complex here), because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain. (This is all good, and quite beautiful and nice really, nothing overly egoistic) On the contrary, Paul continues, I worked harder than any of them, (oops, maybe I spoke to soon, but wait for it, wait for it) though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.”
Looking back on this now, I can throw in a bit of sarcasm, but if you are hearing this already compelling message of Christ and God’s works and love, and on top of that are then told you are being taught by the greatest, hardest working disciple of all the disciples that have ever seen Christ, you have to be quite impressed. And I know, I know, Paul was one of the greatest ever, I mean look at all he wrote and where he traveled and all the church plants he started. If he were alive today, we would have made him a Bishop and shut him up in some room somewhere in the hopes that he wouldn’t preach and teach anymore! Weaving in his own story, Paul adds a sense of the present to a story that was rooted in the past. Weaving in his own story, Paul is able to connect to people and share with them the story of the Good News of God in Christ. Weaving in his own story, Paul is able to work, not of his own accord, but of the grace of God and fill all those he speaks with the power of the Holy Sprit.
By now you may have seen where I am going with this, how do we weave our own stories into the Christ story? How do we weave our own stories into this already amazing tapestry, with confidence that the thread we weave will make the tapestry all the more beautiful and compelling and powerful? It is simple, we look back, we look back at what has made us who we are today, we look back and the journey’s we have taken, the roads we have walked and we say, this is the story that I am weaving into the story of Christ. And we remain confident in the claim of Christ. We remain confident that the story we share, the story of our own lives is as compelling as anything ever written in the bible. Jesus did not pick out only those who he saw fit. Jesus did not pick out only those he thought could help him the most. There was no merit to his decisions, he chose people, that is it, he simply chose people. And all of us have been chosen, each of us has been given a chance to witness to the faith that we have watched grow in our hearts, minds and bodies. Each of us is asked to witness to our faith, sharing our faith story with all who will hear and all who will listen. That is how we grow this place; that is how we spread the Gospel of the Christ; that is how we connect to one another and make this community a compelling place to belong to. We share our story, we live the story of Christ, we weave the two together, because Christ is in us, Christ is among us, Christ is with us. All tha we do, and all that we are is given to us by God, the grace of God, as Paul showed the early Christians. We must be compelled to witness to our own story of faith, we must share the joy we have at participating in the mission God has for us. Our joy, our stories are all that we have to give, let us not hold them close to us, sharing with only those we trust.
The story of the fisherman is about mission, it is about gathering up people to share in the story of Christ. It is about gathering up people to become believers and create a tapestry so beautiful all who see will feel compelled to add their own thread. It is about making all that we are holy and divine, and therefore making all that we have seen, heard, smelled and touched divine and holy as well. We are called to gather people; we are called to share our faith stories. May we with gladness, may we with boldness, go out into the world, sharing the story of Christ as we have lived it.
Comments