I read somewhere that angling is one of the most, if not the most, popular leisure pursuit in this country. Every weekend during the fishing season and, I gather, sometimes at other more unsociable hours of the day and night during the week, thousands of men and boys and, presumably, not a few women are to be found sitting with their rods at the banks of rivers, lakes, ponds and reservoirs and at the sea shore or on boats and piers seemingly doing nothing most of the time, but waiting. Occasionally there might be a flurry of activity, but mostly it seems that it is by and large a sedentary pursuit. In case there are any anglers here this morning, I hasten to add that I applaud their patience and their ability to enter into what appears to be an almost Zen-like contemplation of life, the universe and everything and I feel that I may be missing out on something rather special.

It seems to me that angling is a pastime in which results, while not unimportant, aren’t the sole reason for doing it; if you catch something, great, but if not, well then, you’ve spent a pleasant few hours alone with your thoughts and being at one with nature. That comment may be a sign of my ignorance but the idea of it sounds good to me.

There’s another sort of fishing however, in which, more often than not, results really are important. I refer, of course to the sort of fishing that provides food and sustenance, be it on an industrial scale or at the more local level. Failure to bring home sufficient quantities of fish can lead to starvation in some parts of the world. But as well as providing for physical needs there can also be an economic dimension to this kind of fishing. The livelihoods of many people depend on a satisfactory catch and a run of bad luck at sea can ruin businesses both large and small.

But these aren’t the only hazards faced by fishermen. There’s the ever-present battle with the sea and its unpredictable moods, veering from serene calm to angry tempestuousness. It can be a dangerous, life-threatening occupation and, indeed, many fishermen have perished in the ocean. In recent times there’s also been the problem of dwindling fish stocks caused by over-fishing and the quotas imposed as a result, which have added a further layer of hardship on top of everything else experienced by those who fish for a living in the widest sense of the term. There’s no leisure dimension in this sort of fishing; it isn’t sedentary or solitary, it’s active toil and labour. Things probably haven’t changed much in that respect since earliest times, and certainly since biblical times. The technology may have improved but fundamentally fishing is the same as it has always been.

In today’s passage from Luke’s gospel, we read about this type of fishing, but I don’t think we get the sense of urgency that was no doubt felt by Simon Peter and his colleagues after a long night fishing with nothing to show for it at the end. Their economic survival depended upon being able to earn money from selling their catch and without anything to bring home, all they could do was to make sure their equipment was in good order ready for the next night’s trip.

Simon and the others, while washing their nets, had probably been observing Jesus surrounded by a crowd of people eager to hear his words and perhaps, when Jesus stepped into his boat and asked him to take it a little way from the shore, Simon thought that he could earn some money by asking for a hire fee.  It’s easy to imagine that Simon too was listening to Jesus’ teachings as he spoke to the crowd from the fishing boat and that some at least of what Jesus said registered in his mind giving him the impression that here was a man who spoke with authority and conviction. Nevertheless, Simon may well have thought the same about any number of rabbis in Galilee. It was what happened next that became the deciding factor in Simon’s assessment of Jesus’ authority and turned mere respect into awe and amazement.

“Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch,” Jesus instructed Simon. “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing” was Simon’s initial response, but then something about Jesus, and the way his bidding had an imperative quality, made him think again and his negativity gave way to the willingness to comply with Jesus’ instruction, “Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.” When the nets were hauled back up, it was revealed that they contained an enormous catch of fish, so many that it required the efforts of several men and another boat to bring it in and both boats were filled with fish and began to sink with the weight.

Simon was understandably both shocked and frightened by this miraculous event. His response wasn’t “thank you master for saving our livelihoods”, but “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man!” This remark was an indication that Simon felt himself to be in the presence of someone who was filled with divine power. Jesus’ next comment was both pacifying and enigmatic, “ Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” Such was the power of his personality and his words and the deed they had witnessed, that they left everything and followed him without asking any questions or, indeed, without a backward glance.

Would any of us here today have done the same? It’s not an easy question to answer, but as Christians we are, in fact, called to be disciples in the same way as Simon Peter, James and John. It’s our vocation to be, figuratively speaking, “fishers of men” to use the more familiar but less politically correct expression. Another way of looking at it is that we are called to be missionaries for the kingdom of God.

There’s much debate in the Anglican Church at the moment about the need for more mission and less maintenance. In the light of the latest statistics on church attendance, which appears to be declining year on year, it’s argued that the church has become too inward looking, preferring to protect and maintain its existing structures.

 I believe that we need both mission and maintenance to be truly effective, but I agree that there has probably been rather too much emphasis on maintenance. To concentrate exclusively on the preservation and maintenance of any organisation ensures that the organisation becomes static and ultimately stagnant i.e. dead. To use an analogy from the fishing world, if fishermen spent all their time overhauling and preparing their boats and nets and never actually engaged in the task for which the boats and nets were made in the first place they would starve and possibly die. Fishermen need to catch fish in order to survive.

Imagine that the Church is like a fishing vessel or perhaps a fleet of fishing vessels and we, it’s members, are the crews. We know that our task is to catch fish, but we decide that the safety of the harbour and keeping our equipment in tip-top condition are more to our liking than the risk of sailing out into the ocean and the possibility of not catching any fish. Maintaining our equipment is hard work and it is necessary but it doesn’t involve us in facing the challenges of our job. The fact of the matter is that if we don’t venture outside the harbour walls then we have nothing to show for the work we’ve done in the harbour. In order to be true to its vocation the Church needs to actively and dynamically engage in the mission of fishing for people regardless of the risks and dangers and the often fruitless journeys.

Perhaps in order to truly live out our vocation as fishers of people we need to free ourselves from the tyranny of existing and entrenched structures and to look at alternative ways of being the church in the world; ways that enable us to engage more fully and effectively with modern society. If we look at the example of the first disciples we can remind ourselves that they left everything and followed Jesus. They had no structures or buildings to tie them down. Indeed Jesus himself said elsewhere in the gospels that “…the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

We are all rightly proud of our buildings and everything else associated with our church life and they do need to be kept up to scratch but they don’t represent the totality of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. Neither is Church membership a hobby like, say, angling to use another fishing analogy from our previous illustration. With angling, if you catch something, great, but if you don’t, no worries because you’ve had a good time anyway. Hobbies are valuable for those who pursue them but they aren’t a matter of life and death. To be a Christian is precisely to be concerned about matters of life and death. Angling, like many other hobbies, is essentially a solitary, some might say selfish, pursuit. Christian discipleship and mission have little to do with self-satisfaction and much more to do with the concern for the salvation of other people and the kingdom of God.

If we fish for people we don’t do it in order to reinforce church structures and power but because God wants us to assist in hastening the realisation of his kingdom in its fullness. In the pages of Scripture we, like Simon, hear the words of Jesus and are attracted to him by his authority and conviction: we read of his mighty deeds and are filled by awe and wonder at his power. We believe that he is the Son of God and Saviour of the World and make the decision to become his disciples. But can we leave everything behind and follow him? Can we become fishers of people for the sake of the kingdom?

These questions are for each and every one of us to answer for him or herself. If we really want to follow our vocation we have the example and pattern of Jesus Christ, that fisher of people par excellence, whose own vocation and mission was to bring salvation to all people and who didn’t play safe, but launched out into the deep and faced the challenges and took the risks and paid the price, and as a result made it possible for us all to have new life with him in the glorious kingdom of God.