Sermon: Fishing in Low Tide

It is really, really hard to be part of congregations these days. It can feel pointless.  Part of the problem is COVID.  Not meeting in person for over a year accelerated problems that were already afoot.  The American Enterprise did a survey that has garnered a ton of media coverage which showed how the pandemic precipitated in a decline in church attendance.  A third of those surveyed no longer attend religious worship services. I’ve talked with people in other congregations and they are experiencing the same problems. Congregations that were barely hanging on were basically undone by COVID.  

We have faced those problems here as well.  We’ve lost people.  Heck, we lost a whole building because of the fallout from the pandemic.  Dan Cox, the leader of the survey worries that the drop in attendance in religious services could lead to polarization between those who are religious and those who aren’t.  ““We’re going to quickly come to a place where a good chunk of the country is not only going to have different views about religion, and different religious experiences, they’re not going to be able to relate to each other in any real way,” he said.

Our texts today deal with living in periods of what I once heard described as living in low tide.  The gospel opens with Jesus learning that his cousin, John the Baptist was arrested by King Herod, the puppet king of Israel.  The passage is a reminder that Jesus lived in challenging times.  He lived under a government that could be quote oppressive and John paid the ultimate price for calling the king to account for injustice.  Jesus goes to Galillee in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali.  We learn that this is to fulfill scripture.  The passage in Isaiah mentions this same region named after two of Jacob’s sons, two of the 12 tribes of Israel.  In Isaiah, the region is living in darkness because of oppression by a foreign power that occupies the land.  In Jesus time the land occupied again, this time by Rome.  Our scripture tells us that a new light has dawned in Jesus.  This is where we then see Jesus walking by the seashore and calling his first disciples.  He calls two sets of brothers, Peter and Andrew and then James and John.  They were fisherman that were probably plying their trade in order to feed the growing empire.  In both cases, Jesus tells them to follow him and he will make them fish for people. 

They leave that all behind and follow Jesus.  The passage uses the word immediately, twice.  They left everything to follow Jesus.  One of the podcast I listen to asked why we don’t focus on what they gained instead of what they lost by leaving behind their job.  But the road ahead wasn’t great.  It included times of doubt and outright cowardice.  It included a wondrous times of crowds who listen to the good news, but it also included times of getting into trouble with the authorities and according to popular belief many of the were killed by the state.  

And yet, their willingness to follow Jesus, to help others catch the vision of the good news had an effect.  They helped grow the nascent church and helped it spread throughout the known world.  Their loss is great, but they also gained as well.  The apostle Paul wrote while in a jail cell, that every good thing that happened in his life, he counted it as rubbish for the glory of Christ.  He lost things, but he also gained.

This church, First Christian Church of St. Paul is in a season of low tide.  There is no other way of looking at this.  We are living in the land of Zebulun and Naphtali where things seem dark.  And yet there is light.  There is light that comes from the gospel, that is Jesus Christ. If we have that light then we can’t lose.

But how do we as a community live in this time that seems a time of darkness or where the tide has gone out? A friend of mine shared this post on Facebook a quote from Martyn Lloyd-Jones, pastor of Westminster chapel wrote the following about the seasons of the church:

“If you look back across the history of the Christian Church, you immediately find that the story of the Church has not been a straight line, a level record of achievement. The history of the church has been a history of ups and downs… When you read the history of the past you find that there have been periods in the history of the Church when she has been full of life, and vigor, and power… And when you read of these tremendous periods of life and vigor and power, what you notice is that these glorious periods of revival and of re-awakening have often followed periods of great drought, great deadness, apathy and lifelessness in the history of the Church. In every case, as you find these great peaks, you will find the troughs. You will see that the Church has many times been as she is today, counting so little in the life of the world and of society; so lacking in life, and vigor, and power, and witness, and all that accompanies it. You will find that has happened many and many a time before. There has been the same desperate, urgent need as confronts us today. And then, after that, has come this mighty uplift, this outpouring of the Spirit of God.”

My friend, Disciples pastor Doug Skinner describes how we as a church should live in this time when it seems like the church is in decline. He wrote:

“Of course, I would welcome a fresh move of the Spirit of God blowing through the corridors of the churches I know and love, and the denomination of which they are a part, stirring us from decline to growth, from fear to faith, from apprehension to anticipation.  But I know that we don’t control the times and seasons which the Father has fixed by His own authority” (Acts 1:6).  But this doesn’t mean that there’s nothing for us to do.   We can pray.  We can preach.  We can break the bread and bless the cup of remembrance, presence and promise.  We can gather with the faithful remnant to witness and serve.  And because I know that the darkness will not overcome the light (John 1:5), that the gates of hell shall not prevail against the church that Christ is building (Matthew 16:18), I will not lose heart.”

So, even in this time when fewer and fewer people are coming to church, we are still called to be church to be fishers of people.  There are those little sparks of light that are happening all around us. We may have lost people, but we have also gained people, both in person and online. As a friend noted this week, there are people who hungry for a place like this; a small community that is diverse, inclusive and seeking to live out the gospel in word and in our deeds. 

So even in the land of Zebulun and Naphtali, we continue to gather as church, where the good news of Jesus is preached, where we break bread and drink the wine, where we pray for each other and the world and where we serve our sisters and brothers.  In this time when the tide is low, we continue to be faithful because the people who live in darkness have seen a great light.  Thanks be God. Amen.