Scriptures: Isaiah 6:1-8; Luke 5:1-11
Key verse: “Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.” (Luke 5:5)
I’m neither a fisher nor an angler or a noodler. These are the types of people who enjoy being outdoors for hours since they need to be on the ocean or a beach, or in a river or a lake for long enough to catch fish. There’s no doubt that catching fish requires a lot of patience, persistence, determination, and the ability to read the water. Studying and understanding their prey, the kind of fish they intend to catch, is a must. It probably takes months or years to excel in these tactics if they want to become really good or even professional.
Jesus was neither a fisher nor an angler or a noodler; nonetheless, he recruited his first group of disciples, Simon, James, and John to fish for people. Instead of fishing in the deep water, they entered the lives of people deep enough to read their suffering and struggles. They sensed their hunger for God’s good news; they saw the isolated vulnerable ones; they heard the cry of those who couldn’t see hope. They fished for people who were living in deep water. They healed foreigners and outcasts, raised the dead, casted out demons, met people where they were, and taught them about God’s salvation.
He led his disciples through thick and thin. They walked miles and miles, meeting people from North to South between Narareth and Jerusalem, visiting towns and villages around the Sea of Galilee. His patience, persistence, and commitment of disciplining his followers for the sake of God’s people was a living legend, which was implemented by his disciples in the first century. That was the only reason that the movement of fishing for people continued and multiplied even in the midst of persecution.
Fishing for people is not a project, a program, a job, or a hobby but a baptismal vocation. Because it has to do with our own lives that are intimately connected with our Lord Jesus Christ whose body and blood were also given and shed for the rest who are lost and waiting to be found. Fishing for people is definitely not about fixing people or their problems but is a companionship vocation. In order to do so, the first step is to read people well by entering their lives as Jesus did.
Entering the lives of others is easier said than done. It is a ministry that is packed full of various emotions. It wasn’t easy for me during my early ministry. My own vulnerability was often easily triggered while ministering those who were suffering. While comforting those who were grieving, I comforted them as if I was grieving my own loss. While assisting those in conflicts, I took those cases as though I was dealing with my own conflicts.
While I was in seminary, one precious lesson that I learned from the Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) Program is self-differentiated care practice. It is the ability or capacity to manage one's own feelings and to resist reacting to the feelings of others. My CPE supervisor explained it to me in this way: remember to keep one foot in your own life well grounded in Christ while stepping another foot in the life of others that you minister to so that when you weep, those tears are for their pain not your own, and when you celebrate, the joy you have is from them.
Then soon I learned that if I want to last long in ministry, I have to keep practicing self-differentiated care. I found it helpful to subject both my life and the life of care receivers to God while I enter the lives of others. I let God be God and let myself be a vessel or an instrument to convey what God offers to them. Whenever I’m feeling overwhelmed in the deep water, I remember the assurance Jesus had promised in Matthew 11:29, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” May God bless and guide you and me as we fish for people like Jesus did. May we not be afraid while casting our nets into the deep water to meet people where they are, for we have a God whose steadfast love endures forever. (Psalm 136:1) AMEN.
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