2022.01.23 | Gone Fishing
“Gone Fishing”
Rev. Dr. Arlene K. Nehring, Senior Minister
Eden United Church of Christ, Hayward, California
Third Sunday after Epiphany
January 22, 2023
The sign on Johnson’s hardware store back in the summer of 1968 read: “Gone fishing.” Mr. Johnson did not indicate where he had gone fishing or when he would be back.
My father was not happy when he saw the sign, because we had just driven seven miles into town to buy shingling nails, so that he could finish reroofing our front porch before the rain forecasted for the next day started coming down.
Time was wasting. There was no use standing around grumbling. So Dad loaded my sister and me back in his 1956 Chevy pickup. Dad retraced our tracks back to the farm, drove another 10 miles in the other direction to Storm Lake, bought a sack of nails from someone he didn’t know, and then turned around and went back home to finish the roof.
Fishing notices like the one I remember seeing on the front door of the local hardware store were rare in my childhood, so l was more than a little curious as to the whereabouts of Mr. Johnson.
My dad learned the following Sunday during Men’s Bible Study that Mr. Johnson had been lured out of town by a friend who had invited him to go fishing on Lake Superior.
A few weeks after Mr. Johnson returned from his trip, my dad and I were back in his store picking up some hardware for another job. When we went to the counter to pay for the things that we needed, I saw a fancy polaroid picture of Mr. Johnson holding a giant fish. I can’t remember if it was a sturgeon or a muskie. I didn’t know that much about deep lake fishing or big fish. I just remember that the body of the fish was longer than one of Mr. Johnson’s arms.
I had never met anyone who had caught a fish that big before, much less caught one myself, but I did appreciate what a sweet opportunity Mr. Johnson was presented with to go fishing on Lake Superior. Everyone in town understood why he went, because for him and for us, fishing was an avocation rather than a vocation. It was a luxury, not drudgery. The same was not true for Jesus’ people.
II
According to the New Testament gospels, many people around the Sea of Galilee were in the fishing business, and most of Jesus’ first followers were fisherpeople. Fishing was their vocation, not their avocation.
Fisherpeople did not leave signs on their doors saying, “Gone fishing.” Everybody knew where to find them when they weren’t at home. Fisherpeople were either at the dock or on the water.
Fishing was not a lucrative vocation. There was no guaranteed compensation for “mom and pop” boat owners, or the people who they brought on board to help them. There was no social security, health benefits, or life insurance in a package deal. There were only long hours, unknown weather conditions, and boats that could (and did) capsize, and people who could get tossed out and drowned.
Knowing this, perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that when Jesus called Peter, Andrew, James, and John, they immediately left their nets and followed him.
For heaven’s sake, who wouldn’t leave the fishing life if they could?
In his post on Mark’s version of this story, American theologian Ched Myers explains that in Jesus’ day fisherpeople on the Sea of Galilee were caught in an elaborate, oppressive social order (basileia) — and he (Myers) argues that this is exactly why the disciples dropped their net.
They weren’t just changing vocations. They were walking off the job. Moreover, they were rejecting the socio-economic order of the day, and laying claim on a new order by the way that they were living their lives.
Myers explains that the Greek verb aphiemi used in Matthew and Mark’s stories of the disciples’ call has to do with leaving behind debt, sin, and bondage. Did you hear that? Jesus wasn’t asking them to turn their jerseys inside out, or to swap jerseys. He was liberating them from poverty.
III
Imagine that! Imagine for a moment what it would be like to be a first-century fisherperson and to be liberated from poverty.
Imagine not only being invited to embrace a new vocation, but a whole new way of life that had never been open to you before, because people with your background have always been told that they’d never make anything of themselves--like it was your fault you were born into poverty--when in fact there was a whole socio-economic system in place on the day you came into the world that was holding you back.
Imagine further that by following Jesus you not only began to enjoy the fruits of your labor, but you also discovered that you could use your newfound power to help others find a way up and out of poverty.
If you can imagine how liberating it would have been for Jesus’ first followers to hear his invitation, not only to spiritual liberation, but to socio-economic liberation, then you may be on the cusp of believing that Jesus has called you to experience and enjoy this same kind of new life.
Such a life may not unfold instantaneously, but through a series of incremental changes, things could get better for you.
Let’s fast forward to the twentieth century and think for a moment about why so many people, even in this country--the richest nation in the world---are poor.
There are some politicians and preachers who would like you to believe that poverty is inevitable for some because of the class they are born into, or that poverty is a sign of moral failure and that the poor somehow deserve what they get. But that’s not how Jesus saw it, and there is plenty of evidence in our own time that there are ways up and out for us as individuals, families, and economic groups.
Consider, for example, the number one reason why people have declared bankruptcy in the last 20 years or more. It’s not because people don’t know how to manage their money. It’s because they have incurred catastrophic medical debt.
The Affordable Care Act has brought some economic relief, but it hasn’t protected people who have suffered catastrophic losses, and it doesn’t cover all of the prescription medicines that some folks need. In some medical insurance plans, the deductibles and co-pays for care, especially hospitalizations, are ruinous. In some plans, families must pay $12,000 a year before the insurance kicks in, or 20-30% of hospitalization costs.
Other reasons that people in this country drift or drop into poverty has to do with the lack of savings for a “rainy day.” So when a breadwinner loses their job, a couple divorces, or a series of unforeseen expenses have to go on a credit card, it doesn’t take much time to get behind on the bills. According to one study, 60% of all Americans live paycheck to paycheck.
The number three reason for bankruptcy in the US has to do with the accumulation of educational debt. Most of us have been taught that education is key to economic success, and that we have to go into debt in order to better ourselves financially, and yet, ironically, the people with the most educational debt are those who have completed master’s degrees and doctorates, or those who went into debt, but didn’t complete a degree..
Black and Hispanic students carry an even greater burden of academic debt, because as racial/ethnic groups, Blacks and Hispanics have suffered more as a result of redlining in real estate lending practices, which has made it harder for their families to build wealth compared with Asian and White families. They have to borrow more for any higher education. So what’s to be done?
IV
My belief is that we need a three-pronged approach to bring about the economic changes that Jesus envisioned for his followers, and for all of God’s children. I believe that we need spiritual, personal, and social solutions.
On the spiritual level, we need to hear and embrace the good news that God didn’t create any second class citizens. Even though in the Beatitudes, Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor.” He wasn’t saying that poverty was a blessing. He was envisioning a blessing that would bring the poor out of poverty.
Thankfully there are some very straightforward ways to teach healthy money habits and basic financial literacy on the personal and family level. The Mission Asset Fund from San Francisco was just here yesterday teaching these types of classes for Spanish-speaking families in our congregation and neighborhood.
Once parents have more knowledge and confidence in their own abilities to manage resources, they are better positioned to teach these skills (and habits) to their children. Parents have to be intentional about doing this, especially in this day and age. There’s no guarantee that these skills are going to be taught in schools--especially not in the wealthier suburban schools.
This may be one of the best kept secrets in town. Forty percent of the people who file for bankruptcy in the US have incomes above the federal poverty line. It’s not just about how much money you have, it's about how you manage it.
A further strategy for parents in teaching their children about financial management is to start their kids out with savings accounts and debit cards, rather than checking accounts and credit cards.
And here’s an idea for a college graduation gift or a wedding gift: pay the fee to send your young person to a financial advisor, so that they have access to more professional advice than you can give them, since they may question--until they’re older--what you could possibly know about anything.
If/when finances get tight for an individual or family, one of the best things we can do is get help as early as possible from a credit counselor, a psychologist, or a banker. Learn how to consolidate and settle debt early. Negotiate lower interest rates. Take out a second mortgage rather than carry credit card debt.
Finally, let’s take a page from the gospels, and notice that our financial situation is set within a larger socio-economic system in which the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, and the middle class is shrinking.
If we want a living wage, we will have to organize and advocate for it. If we don’t want catastrophic health crises to be a cause of bankruptcy, we will have to organize and advocate for more robust health care cost limits. If we want to remain economically competitive as a nation, we will have to invest in better public schools, extend free public education--at least to the community college level--and provide more financial resources for students in the bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degree programs.
V
In closing, I want to take us back to the work of Ched Myers, the theologian who I mentioned earlier. The word aphiemi is what Myers calls a “Jubilee verb” — it’s a word that invites the disenfranchised into a new world where dysfunctional habits and oppressive systems are left behind, and new patterns of behavior and a new order takes hold. It is a world in which our prayer, “Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven,” comes true. Amen.