Pastor Maggie's homily from February 8, 2025.
Scripture reading: Luke 5:1-11.
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When I was a kid, there was a berry patch on the edge of town called Ballard Farms where you could go pick your own blueberries. So, in the summers, we’d get up early, gather our buckets and sunhats and bug spray, and we’d go pick blueberries, and try to be back before the sun rose too far and it got too hot. It was an absolute free-for-all in the berry patch; you’d pick a handful for the bucket and then a handful for yourself, until all the buckets were full and your stomach was bursting. The blueberries were paid for by weight, and my dad often said they should probably have weighed us before we started picking, and again after. But it never seemed to matter—there were enough blueberries for everyone.
I was reminded of these summers in the berry patch this week as I listened to Robin Wall Kimmerer’s new book, The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World. Does anyone know what a Serviceberry is? The Serviceberry is a berry native to North America, and it’s long been important to the indigenous peoples of this continent. Has anyone here ever eaten a Serviceberry? I haven’t, but I’m told that it tastes like a cross between a blueberry and an apple, with just a hint of rose.
It was such a fascinating book—a short book mostly made of stories about how different cultures have imagined an economy that cares for folks. Economies that are rooted in the belief that everything is a free gift from Mother Earth, and so it doesn’t need to be hoarded. If you’re into economics, she references some more in-depth things you might like to read, but for casual economics readers, like me, it really encouraging and enjoyable read. I recommend it to you.
One of the stories was from a Brazillian hunter-gatherer community. An American linguist was learning from the community and observed that a hunter had brought home a large kill, far too much to be eaten by his family alone. The researcher asked how he would store the excess—smoking and drying was a well-known technique, so it would be very possible. The hunter was puzzled by the question—store the meat? Why would he do that? Instead, he sent out an invitation to a feast, and soon the neighboring families were gathered around his fire, until every last piece of meat was gone. This seemed like foolishness to the researcher, so he asked again: given the uncertainty of meat in the forest, why not store the meat for yourself? That’s what my culture would do.
And the hunter replied, “Store my meat? I store my meat in the belly of my brother.” Essentially, I know that when the time comes, my brother will do the same for me. Because, you see, in these gift economies, the currency is relationship, which is expressed as gratitude and interdependence. These economies are built on ongoing cycles of reciprocity (Kimmerer, 32).
You might be saying to yourself, “Pastor, we hear Jesus in this story—we’re with you—but that isn’t this reading.” But trust me, it really is related to our gospel reading.
This evening I want to offer you an alternate take on our gospel story. One based in the tradition of the prophets, not in the harvest metaphors of the New Testament. But first we need to talk about the life of fishermen in Jesus’ time.
Fishermen in Jesus’ time were part of the laborers who were in the lowest of the low in Rome’s hierarchy of occupations. They didn’t own land, and they had to pay for the right to fish on the Emperor’s lakes. On top of that, they also had to pay for the right to sell what they caught. It was physically hard, dangerous work that, in the end, barely allowed them to care for their families. When Jesus arrives that day and sees them washing empty nets, no fish in sight, he knows the only thing they caught that day was indebtedness to the empire which they’d likely never be able to pay. Fees and bills just piling up.
Can you imagine how they must have felt? I imagine they were worried about their families. Defeated. Angry at the empire. Hopeless that they’d never dig out. Tired from the physicality of their work. And we know they were. When Jesus walks up and tells them to take the boats out again, when he tells them to throw their nets out again, Peter says, “Jesus, we’ve already done this. We’ve been out all night, and we’re tired.” What you’re asking doesn’t make sense. We did it already, and we didn’t catch anything. And then I imagine Jesus saying, “Trust me. Just trust me.”
So they do. They take Jesus on faith and throw their nets out again, into the deep, deep water…and this time they pull up so many fish that their nets begin to tear and their boats begin to sink. So many fish! One boat signals to another boat—hey, come help us. When the other boat comes to help it starts to sink too. And then, amid their astonishment and fear, as they are in the process of sinking—I mean, they're out there drowning in fishes and water (notice, he doesn’t wait until they get back to shore)—Jesus tells them not to worry, because, from then on, they’re going to be fishing for people. What a strange thing to say at all, let alone in the middle of an emergency. What could he possibly mean?
When I’ve heard this passage preached on, it’s always been about evangelism—about making disciples for Jesus and bringing more people into the church. As long as we’re not scaring or coercing people into doing things they don’t really want to do, both of those are worthy endeavors. But this week, I encountered the work of some scholars with an alternate take I think is worth our knowing about.
The evangelism tack on this passage is essentially a harvest metaphor. And it would make sense if we understood catching fish in the same way that we heard other harvest metaphors in scripture. Jesus uses a lot of them. But in the prophetic writing, we see fishing used as a call to revolution. In Jeremiah 16, God, disgusted by the self-serving practices of the elites says, “I’m sending out many fishermen to catch them, because I see the wrong they’re doing.” In Amos chapter 4, fishing imagery is used to describe God’s response to those who oppress the poor and needy—Amos says the oppressors will be taken away “with hooks, even the last of you with fishhooks.”
We know Jesus was familiar with the prophets—liked to quote them, in fact. What if, in telling Peter and the other fishermen that they are going to be “fishers of people”, Jesus is inviting those who would be his disciples to be part of a revolution, part of imagining the world in a different way? A world where people, like them, who are preyed upon by self-serving elites finally receive justice. A world where the lowest of the low point the way forward. Where no one is one bad day away from starvation. Where fish and water are free gifts of Mother Earth given for the care of all people, and are not property used to create profit for some at the expense of others. Doesn’t that sound like Jesus?
Can you imagine how the fishermen would have experienced these events? We know Peter took them personally, because he says to Jesus, “I know we’re all disgraceful, but I’m the worst.” He says, “Don’t get too close to me Jesus—everybody knows I’m bad, and you don’t want to be associated with someone like me.” But Jesus says, “You aren’t the problem. Don’t believe it, not even for a second. There is something rotten here, but it isn't you. You’re being taken advantage of. Come with me and watch as God brings justice. Come with me and build a better world.” No wonder they dropped everything and went with him.
I also wonder how we hear Jesus’s words. We who have been about the work of God’s kin-dom in our time. I wonder if we identify with the feeling of empty nets. I wonder if we, like the first disciples, are standing on the shore going, “Jesus, we’ve been out all night. We’re tired. We threw our nets in—we’ve been trying to catch the self-serving and keep them from hurting the vulnerable—but our nets keep coming up empty. What do you want us to do?"
And to that, here is what I hear Jesus saying, “Scoot over—I’m getting in your boat." I know you’re afraid, but go out again. I’m coming too. Keep trying. Keep going. Don’t give up hope. I’m here.
Friends, we know what to do. We’ve already built an alternate community. We know how to store our excess, the free gifts of God and Mother Earth, in the people around us. We are already seeking to build a community based on gratitude, reciprocity, and interdependence, trusting that there is enough among us for all to thrive.
So listen to Jesus. Trust him. Take him at his word. Though you are tired now, and justice seems impossible, a time is coming when the sea will be dredged, and our nets will return full. So full that we’ll be drowning in justice. Can you imagine? And until then, remember that we aren’t fishing alone. Jesus goes with us. Helping, guiding, and encouraging. May we, like those first disciples, be willing and able to drop everything and follow where he’s leading. May it be so. Amen.