17th Sunday After Pentecost – Orthodox Homily on Being Fishers of Men

We see before us today another miracle of our Lord that bears particularly and personally on your faith, on my faith, and on our church. Christ once again reveals Himself as God incarnate in this calling of His foremost disciples: Peter, James, and John to become “fishers of men.”

It’s interesting to note that Christ doesn’t call these fishermen in the Synagogue but on the water, in their boats, while fishing! In other words, He calls them where they’re at, where you’d expect to find a pious fisherman—on the sea, fishing! The Gospel is brought to them. And what does He call them to? He calls them to follow Him, that is, to grasp hold of Life—the life that He is; but it’s not enough for them to change their own lives and become followers of the truth, followers of Him who is Life. Christ God calls them to share that newly discovered Life with others, saying, “Do not be afraid, from now on you will be fishers of men” (Luke 5: 10).

In other words, from now on, the same energy and passion with which they’ve devoted themselves and become proficient through experience in fishing, they are now to wholeheartedly devote to ‘catching’ men and women for the Gospel, for new life in Christ, so that others too may have eternal life with God. Having just seen the miracle of the great catch of fish by Him who called those fish into being where there weren’t any before, they’re ready to leave all else behind to follow Christ. Such is faith!

All of us as baptized Orthodox Christians are certainly likewise beckoned to follow Christ, to become inheritors of true and everlasting Life, that is life in Christ. The reality is though, that this journey of salvation, what we call deification or theosis in the Church, our increasing participation in the Life of the Holy Trinity, is never though just about ourselves and our own salvation. Part of that growth in participation in the life of the Holy Trinity is achieved only by coming outside ourselves to love and to serve Christ by witnessing to His truth in this world around us, to becoming a ‘martyr’, in the original sense of the word, a “witness” to the truth of Christ in our own age and in our own culture.

Listen to what St. Paul says, “Anyone who is in Christ is a new creation… Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.” (II Cor. 5:17,20). By virtue of our putting on Christ in baptism, becoming a new creation in Him, we’re made His ambassadors to the world around us. For this reason also, this Gospel reading from Luke 5 is read every year that we may be reminded of what is our calling in Christ to evangelize, to witness, in His holy name.

Our living out of our faith is our response to that calling as ambassadors. So, it’s incumbent on us to examine how we live our lives, how we speak, how we think, what we do, how we love, how we prioritize our worship and our time with God and with each other, but also how we perceive our fellow man and woman. Are we perhaps indifferent toward their plight? Do we fear witnessing or being more open about our faith for fear of rejection? Are we somehow ashamed of Christ and His Church in what Christ calls, “this sinful and adulterous generation”?

What gift from God compels us to model our faith before others? The verse we hear in every Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom gives us the answer: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him, may have eternal life” (Jn. 3:16). This truth is the basis of our evangelistic efforts. It’s for love for our fellow man that we strive to be a good witness of what it means to be a Christian. St. John’s Gospel urges us to such love: “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” Love means this, we desire for others what God desires for them. And the first thing that God desires for all men and women is to come to the knowledge and love of Him that they too may have eternal life.

We who are in Christ in His Church are called to grow in that same love, to share that same love and hope of new life. This love is a love for the truth of God, for the fullness of life with God, because Christ proclaims and demonstrates Himself to be that Truth.

If we’re in Christ, the same desire to save the lost, to witness and speak the truth of God that Christ did, that the holy Apostles possessed, that we see in evidence in all the Saints, also needs to be in us. Following Christ, the Saints overcome their prideful fear of rejection and even martyrdom; they dared to love God to such an extent that they followed Him and became great “fishers of men,” drawing thousands to the knowledge and love of God and new life in Him “through water and the spirit” (John 3).

St. Tikhon of Moscow asks in this regard, “But who is to work for the spread of the Orthodox Faith for the increase of the Orthodox Church? Pastors and missionaries, you answer. You are right; but are they to be alone? St. Paul wisely compares the Church of Christ to a body, and the life of a body is shared by all members. So it ought to be in the life of the Church also…The spread of Christ’s faith ought to be near and precious to the heart of every Christian. In this work every member of the Church ought to take a lively and heartfelt interest.”

So, if you find yourself indifferent or your love growing cold because of the evil around us in the world today, just as Christ warned us about (Matt. 24:12), or have let yourself be convinced that evangelism is someone else’s job in the Church, then repent and begin to pray that Christ will give you His love, to help you to learn to love with His love, and look with compassion on those who do not know Christ or who reject Christ. Most don’t know what they’re missing.
While we may understand the “why” of witnessing the Gospel and Orthodox Faith, it doesn’t take away from the fact that to many, coming outside ourselves to witness to the truth of our faith is daunting if not frightening. It demands humility, overcoming over-sensitivity and fear of rejection. Remember Christ’s four words when He tells the disciples that they will now be “Fishers of men: “Do not be afraid” (Luke 5: 10).

Nevertheless, sometimes our witness to the truth that Christ is will be rejected. We may be greeted with indifference or even scorned. St. Paul puts it this way: “We preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness” (I Cor. 1:23). There’s no doubt that it’s easier just to remain silent, to get along, but this is not love. Instead, Christ calls us to love sacrificially, to witness to the truth that He is in a world trapped in hopeless darkness.

We as parishioners and attendees of Holy Archangels Orthodox Mission have an inherent interest in following Christ’s call to become “Fishers of men.” A mission is, by definition, a missionary enterprise. A new mission begins not just so those Orthodox who live close to the new church don’t have as far to travel to worship. No, a mission means that the Church (with a capital C) is putting its flag down, saying, “this is a place that needs the Gospel and Orthodox Faith, this is a place where people need to hear the Gospel and find purpose to their life or return to the ‘safe harbour’ of the Church after being so “storm-tossed” by the world around us and all its winds of doctrine. The Church is a “spiritual hospital” for all who are sin-sick and looking for growth in Christ. The Sacraments and all the tools Christ’s lovingly entrusted to us through His holy Church are here—whether in a mission or in the largest of cathedrals.

Growing a Mission, like founding a Mission, inherently involves ‘risk.’ As Christians, we call that risk, faith, because it’s grounded in trust that God will grow His Church, that He deeply loves the people of Annapolis and this region, and that He “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (I Tim. 2:4). We trust that God will provide and bless the hands through which He provides. We are participants in this work and in its fruit: those who grow in their faith in Christ, those who return to their faith in Christ, those who come to the fullness of faith and life in Christ through His Church. All because those before us were not afraid or ashamed to be “fishers of men,” to heed Christ’s call to love and desire the salvation of others just as the disciples Peter, James, and John do in today’s Gospel:: “Do not be afraid, from now on you will be fishers of men” (Luke 5: 10).

Fr. Robert Miclean
Holy Archangels Orthodox Church
September 27, 2015
13th Sunday after Pentecost

Epistle: II Cor. 6:16-7:1
Gospel: Luke 5:1-11