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Rabbi Joseph Telushkin wrote a little book called Jewish Humor: What the Best Jewish Jokes Say About the Jews. In it he tells this story: "A man took some very fine material to a tailor, and he asked the tailor to make him a pair of pants. He came back a week later, but the pants were not ready. Two weeks went by, and still the pants were not ready. Finally, after six weeks, the pants were ready. "The man tried them on, and they fit perfectly. When the man paid the tailor for his work, he couldn't resist a friendly gibe: 'It took God only six days to make the world,' he chided the tailor, 'and it took you six weeks to make just one pair of pants.' 'Yes,' said the tailor, 'but look at the pair of pants, and look at the world!'" The world rotates wondrously on its axis, but, as the evening news reminds us every day, it spins still unfinished and unperfected. Despite being made by God himself, creation still displays some uneven seams. And creation shows quite a bit of undergarment beneath its hemline. More than just a little, because God did not make pants, but people, and people have a way of going their own ways and not matching the pattern. And it's into this imperfect and unfinished world, into the world of people, into the world of sin and poverty and blindness and injustice and oppression, into this world of bad news, that Jesus comes to announce good news to the poor and release for the captive and sight for the blind. Do you expect it to be otherwise? Well, what meaning would Jesus have in a world that was perfect? Announcing good news to the poor would make no sense if The New York Times and CNN brought no bad news. Proclaiming release for the captive and sight for the blind and freedom for the oppressed would be meaningless in a world that was not afflicted with such suffering. It's only in light of creation's ragged seams and shabby hemline, only in light of creation's fallenness, that the good news brought by Jesus has any meaning. It's only in the light of "the bondage of our sins" that it makes sense to pray, as we just did this morning, that God will "set us free and give us the liberty of that abundant life which you have made know to us in our Saviour Jesus Christ." As Jesus says, it's not the healthy who need a physician, but the sick. It's only in an imperfect and unfinished world that the need for redemption becomes clear, so it's into an imperfect world that Jesus comes to heal the sick and cast out unclean spirits. It's into an unfinished world that he comes to heal the fallen creation and to show the fishermen, Peter and James and John, how to make a huge catch of fish and to tell them that from now on, if they will follow him, he will show them how to catch people, how to be "fishers of men," how to share the good news of redemption and life with a world that is dying. What does it mean to be a "fisher of men," a "catcher of people"? What does it mean to be an evangelist, a sharer of good news in a world of bad news? One day when I was a boy I went fishing with my grandfather. The only thing I really remember about that day, apart from the enjoyment of just being with my grandfather, was his asking me at one point, "Dayle, do you want to fish or talk? If you talk too much, you'll scare the fish away." William Faulkner, who wrote millions of words to produce dozens of novels, for which he received the Nobel Prize for Literature, described himself as "a failed poet," because he had to use so many words to convey his meaning, while the genius of poetry is to pack much meaning into as few words as possible. "Poet," from the Greek poiein, to create. God the Creator is God the Poet. And Jesus the Creator -- the One who creates good news, the Poet of the place of few words, the Poet of the Cross. St. Francis once offered this version of Jesus' poetry: "Proclaim the Gospel at all times. If necessary, use words." Like Faulkner, and unlike Jesus and Francis, preachers are failed poets. To be a "fisher of men," a "catcher of people," a creator of good news, requires telling it simply. It means telling it the way Jesus told it, using words if necessary. Evangelism means passing on the good news of God that Paul tells us about this morning, the tradition that we have received -- that Christ died for love; that even with its seams and hemline such as they are, Christ loves the world so much that he persists in sharing with the world the tremendous loving mercy of God, even to the point of dying for us to drive the truth home; that Christ was buried and then raised by God on the third day; and that even though he, Paul, was unworthy of that love because of his persecution of those who followed Jesus, and that even though we, like Paul, are unworthy because of our timid response to that love, Christ nonetheless took Paul for who he was and what he was, just as he took Peter for who he was and just as he takes us for who we are and what we are, and he shares God's love with us as well and sends us to share that love with the world, using words only if necessary. Evangelism, the sharing of the good news of God, is not the kind of theological or ecclesiastical imperialism we've come to see a lot of in our day, an insistence that others must cross every "T" in a creed the way we cross them because that's the way we think they should be crossed. It is bad news, not good news, to proclaim a God who insists that one must say he believes something regardless of whether he himself has experienced it. That would be a "bad news" god, not the "good news" God. The good news is that Christ loves even those who persecute him, like Paul. The good news is that Christ loves even those who deny him, like Peter, and even those who betray him, like Judas, and even those who do not live as Jesus lived, like us. The good news is that Paul and Peter and Judas and you and I can, by the grace of God, experience that love in our own lives and can, even now, be remade, refashioned into the loving persons God created us to be! Jesus made "fishers of men" out of Peter and James and John and Paul, not through propositions, but through loving example, through his life and his death. Jesus made "fishers of men" out of Peter and James and John and Paul not with agendas or creeds, but by attraction of personality. "Catching people," for Jesus, was not a matter of throwing out a net to corral or control or manipulate them. People were "caught" by the way Jesus lived in the Spirit of God, by the way he lived in the Spirit of God's original creation, by the way he walked the way of the cross when he could have taken another way, by the way he brought health to those who were sick and hope to those in despair and fellowship and love to those who had been fed the bad news that they did not count with God. Jesus made disciples by the way he lived and died. So what does this mean for you and me? How are we to be "fishers of men" or "catchers of people"? In exactly the same way. By living as Jesus lived, by living lives of reconciliation and peace which attract others to God. By being creators of good news, not just talkers about it. I want to end by offering four examples of "fishers of men," four stories of how the good news that saves has been shared with others, four stories of real and effective evangelism, four stories of people who, like Jesus, were not failed poets, but healers of the sick, bearers of hope and encouragement and faith to the weak, creators of good news. Two of the examples are people who professed the creed of the Church; two are people who did not. But all four are "fishers of men" or "catchers of people" who must delight the heart of God. Mohandas Gandhi was a Hindu who rejected Christianity because of how he saw it practiced by Christians in the South Africa of his youth, and who proclaimed and walked the way of peace in India during the days of her struggle for independence. And you'll remember how, late in Gandhi's life, bitter civil war broke out among fellow Indians once they became independent of Britain, civil war between Hindu and Muslim, a conflict that broke Gandhi's heart. And so, distressed by the continuing strife between his Hindu and Muslim brothers and sisters, Gandhi went on a fast, determined not to eat until the fighting among his brothers and sisters, Hindu and Muslim, stopped. And in the movie "Gandhi," there is a most remarkable scene. Weeks into his fast, Gandhi was so weak he could hardly lift himself from his pallet when a fellow Hindu, who was afraid the great man would die, burst into Gandhi's room. In tears the man begged Gandhi not to die, to give up his fast. The man confessed to Gandhi that he was in torment. He was in hell, he said, because one of his Muslim neighbors had killed a Hindu, and he had retaliated by grabbing a Muslim child, a little boy, and had killed him by smashing his head against a wall. Gandhi thought for a moment. Then, with difficulty, he lifted himself slightly from his cot and whispered, "I know a way out of hell. Find an orphan, a young boy whose parents have been killed in the fighting, and take him into your home as your own son. Only, be sure to rear him as a Muslim." Proclaim the Gospel at all times. If necessary, use words. The second "fisher of men" is a Roman Catholic priest named Robert McCahill. Father McCahill is the only Roman Catholic in the Muslim town of Kishorganj in Bangladesh. He lives by himself in a hut on the edge of town. The law in this Muslim town forbids any proselytizing, forbids any Christian preaching, any fishing for men or catching of people for Jesus. Father McCahill cannot even offer a mass. All he is allowed to do in Kishorganj is to live there. So he does. And he does so by spending his days serving his Muslim friends and neighbors. He gives food to the destitute. He provides the sick with medicines, and when they need it he helps them get to a hospital. He has become a familiar figure in Kishorganj, going to the homes of those too sick to come to him. Father McCahill is also a regular at a small restaurant in town. The owners are used to seeing him invite beggars who are on the street outside to come in and join him at his table to share a meal. What they can't figure out is why this Christian priest and foreigner, who cannot offer a mass or talk about Jesus, pours their tea for them as if he were their hired servant. Father McCahill cannot talk about Jesus, and when someone asks, he responds with a few words only. He tells the seeker what St. James wrote in his epistle, that "in the eyes of God, true religion is helping those in need." And that makes sense to his Muslim friends, who have heard the same thing in the Koran. And maybe, too, that's why, as he walks the streets of Kishorganj, Father McCahill is greeted as bhai Bob, brother Bob. Preach the good news at all times. If necessary, use words. Then there is Golda, a young Jewish girl who lived in Germany during World War II. Golda's father, mother, brother, and sister all died in the Nazi's gas chamber at Maidenak. Golda, too, was on her way to the ovens, but because she was the last one in line that day, the guards could not squeeze her in. So they pulled her out and slammed the door shut. She was the only survivor. When Maidenak was liberated, all Golda wanted was somehow, some way, to avenge the death of her family. "But it struck me," she said, "that I would then be no better than Hitler himself." So Golda went to work in a hospital for children in the town of Maidenak. To purge her bitterness toward the German people, Golda spoke one of the few words heard from the Cross, "Father, forgive them." She chose to remain in the town where her family had been gassed in order to nurse German children, most of them victims of the war like herself. She decided she would remain in Maidenak until she had completely forgiven Hitler. "When I do that," she said, "then I am allowed to leave." Proclaim the Gospel at all times. If necessary, use words. Finally, there was the missionary who was shipwrecked at sea and, half dead from injury and exposure, was washed up on the shore at the edge of a remote village. He was taken in by the villagers and nursed back to health. For the next twenty years, he lived in the village. During that time, he preached no sermons, he sang no hymns. He neither read the Bible nor taught it to anyone. He made no personal claim of faith. But when the villagers became sick, he nursed them, often long into the night, as they had cared for him. When people were hungry, he shared his own food with them. When they were lonely, he was available to talk and listen. A well educated man, he spent much time tutoring the uneducated. After twenty years had passed, other missionaries came from the sea to the village and began talking to the villagers about a man named Jesus. And the villagers said, "Oh, we know him. He has been living here for twenty years. Would you like to meet him?" Preach the Gospel at all times. But why would it ever be necessary to use words? Because, like Peter and Paul, you and I, all of us, are failed poets, unworthy. But the good news is that, by the grace of God, we, too, have been redeemed. By the grace of God, we have been commissioned as evangelists, creators of good news, fishermen, not talkers. In the Name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. |