Past Sermons

David G. Gladstone

     January 27, 2008

        “Fish or cut bait,” was one of my Grandpa Gladstone’s favorite phrases.  As a stroke victim, it was one of the stock phrases that he could call upon when other words escaped him.  He meant it quite literally when he was frustrated with our childish fooling around.  I spent one summer afternoon fishing with Grandpa along the banks of the Betsie River near my hometown of Frankfort.  Grandpa had the capacity to sit silently for hours watching a bobber float in the water.  As a fisherman Grandpa was all business.  As a young boy of ten or eleven I had not yet developed that capacity.  I was constantly fussing with things, playing with the grass, flipping stones into the water and generally acting in ways guaranteed to annoy a true fisherman such as Grandpa.  (Right now Terry is in the choir loft whispering to Mary Ecker that nothing has changed since I was ten.) The fish were not biting that day.  After hours in the sun, Grandpa had caught just one small Rock Bass.  I had caught nothing and I had had all of the sitting around I could stand.  I pulled my line from the water, put down the long cane fishing pole I was using and walked over to the bucket where our lonely Rock Bass was swimming.  I reached into the bucket to pick up our solitary catch to get a better look at it. (You are way ahead of me.)  Granpa look over in my direction.  He had just begun to say it, “fish or…” when the fish flipped out of my hands. I slipped on the wet river bank and our solitary Rock Bass prize arched through the air and landed back in the waters of Betsie River.  I sat in the mud.  Granpa gave me a look I will never forget and finished the phrase “…cut bait.”  Then he stood up packed up his gear and said, “We cut bait.  We’re done for today.”

              It is difficult for us to find anything new in this profoundly familiar passage of scripture.  My earliest childhood memory in the church is singing “I Will Make You Fishers of Men” in Sunday school.  I am conscious of the gender specific nature of that title.  But in my childhood that is how we knew the song.  Concentrating on Jesus’ call to James and John puts the focus on our personal response to the invitation to discipleship.  I have preached that sermon many times.  It is a fair homiletic direction.  (It’s so much fun when I can insert those expensive seminary words.)  However, there is another message in this scripture.  It is found in Matthew’s citation of Isaiah and in the words of Jesus that follow when he says, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”  Do not forget that Matthew is the most Jewish of all the gospels.  He has a special concern to link Jesus with the fulfillment of Jewish messianic expectations.  Isaiah’s vision of the coming Messiah was for the redemption of Israel’s corporate soul as well as for the salvation of individuals.  According to the gospel of Matthew, when Jesus links himself with Isaiah and declares, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near,” he is boldly proclaiming that the process of restoration has begun. Jesus’ ministry will not just call individuals to a spiritual journey.  He is also calling the culture of Israel back to its work of covenantal relationship with God in establishing a world of justice and love.  Putting it in contemporary language, Jesus declares that the time had come to either fish or cut bait.

            “Fish or cut bait,” is a way of saying get serious or get out.  It is a phrase appropriate as we consider today’s scripture.  Not only did Jesus call James and John to a new kind of fishing in which people are spiritually caught for God, he also declared that the time had come for Israel to get back to its real work for God.  It is a message we need to hear today.  Either we are Christian disciples living in a manner that is appropriate to our calling or we are dithering around the edges.  Either the church will fulfill its God given mandate to move the world in God’s direction or it is just an organization in which people can associate with people they like.

            I say this knowing full well that it may be perceived as a harsh judgment.  I do not mean it that way and I also do not link this message with any particular theological or doctrinal viewpoint.   There is room in the community of disciples for a variety of theological perspectives.  What God cannot stand in the church or in individuals is a shallow understanding of our purpose.  The kingdom of God is still at hand and we are the ones who are charged with making it real in the world.  Everything else is a distraction.

            That is why I am so excited by things that are developing in this congregation.  There is new energy in our programs.  Wednesday Word Fellowship has experienced a significant increase in participation.  There is still room for more, but people are deciding to reinvest in the ministries of this church.  It is exciting to be a part of a church that has decided to embrace its work.  We are a church that has decided to fish and not cut bait.  I can think of no better place to serve in this moment.

        I wonder what the proposed coming together of the West Michigan and Detroit Conferences into one new Great Lakes Conference may mean for us.  If it means a new energy in United Methodism in Michigan then it is all good.  If in coming together we find a renewed energy for ministry and a renewed capacity to bring people into relationship with God, then I’m all for it.  But if it is just a dressed up way to cut cost and suppress our mounting institutional anxiety than I say, “Why bother.”  I don’t know the answer.  I pray that it is the former and not the latter.

        I came across a poem a couple of years ago.  It's by a man named Samuel Kay Davis.  I always want to give credit when I quote something, because people deserve to have credit for something they've done so well.  This appeared in a little magazine called Alive Now which is a devotional magazine that comes every month and I commend it to you--it's a wonderful magazine.
 He wrote this poem about the call to the disciples by the Sea of Galilee.  Here is what Samuel Kay Davis wrote:  

            "It did not begin when they understood Him. 

            It did not begin when they discovered who

                        He was. 

            It did not begin when they found out what

                        He could do. 

            It began when they stayed with Him,

                        when they left where they had been

                        and went to where he was. 

            That is how it all began, and ever since then

                        our whole life

            whether alone or together has been that

                        simple struggle

            against ourselves and our world