Diana Butler Bass preached on today's prescribed Christian Biblical text, the story of Jesus beginning his ministry by calling on the fishermen to leave their boats and follow him.
[The Hebrew prophet] Amos says, “The time will surely come when you will be taken away with hooks, the last of you with fishhooks” (4:2). And Ezekiel threatens the wealthy Egyptians who oppress other nations: “But I will put hooks in your jaws and make the fish of your streams stick to your scales. I will pull you out from among your streams, with all the fish sticking to your scales” (29:4, NIV).
Fisherman with his catch, San Francisco Chinatown, 2019
Fishing isn’t about converting people to bring them to church. It isn’t about evangelizing the “heathen.” For the prophets, fishing was a radical snaring of the wicked, wrenching them out of the familiar environs of oppression and setting the world a-right with divine justice.
Jesus invited the peasant fishermen to fish for people — to “hook” Caesar’s elite and beach the empire. When he called them, he called them to participate in this prophetic work in the world.
Jesus bid them to angle for justice. They had probably waited their entire lives for such an invitation. They’d been entangled in Roman fishing line far too long. It wasn’t hard to drop Caesar’s nets and pick up the hooks of God.
Certainly not a traditional take. But hey, I like it. I am convinced that, unless we are scholars, we have only the dimmest idea what these old stories mean. Consequently, if we are to be enlarged by them, we have to treat them as poetic prompts to possible truths. That's what she is doing here. The results can be wise or foolish, but we only find out by trying.
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