Summary: For Christians, mending nets is important but sending is even more so.
The theologian Emil Brunner once said, "The Church exists by mission, just as fire exists by burning."1 Mission is not some program of the church. It's not one activity we do, among many. Mission is the church - and the church is mission!
Nowhere do we see the truth of this more clearly than in today's Gospel lesson: the calling of Jesus' first disciples, from the Gospel of Matthew. No doubt you've heard this story many times before: how Jesus is walking along the seashore and comes upon two sets of brothers who happen to be fishermen: Simon and his brother Andrew, and James and John, the sons of Zebedee. To all of them he says, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of people." Astonishingly, both sets of brothers get up and follow him - on the basis of that mysterious invitation alone.
When Jesus comes upon James and John, they're not engaged in the act of casting their nets, as Peter and Andrew are. They're sitting on the shore, mending those nets.
In biblical times, net-mending was just as much a part of the work of fishing as casting nets into the water. It wouldn't do to cast a net that had gaping holes and tears in it! That's why, on a regular basis, fisherfolk had to pull their boats up onto the shore and retie the dozens of knots that had loosened or come undone. It was slow, tedious work. It didn't bring in any fish. But this routine maintenance had to be done for the fishing to continue.
There's an image, here, for the church - if we're ready to see it. Much of what goes on inside the walls of this or any church can be considered a form of net-mending. Once a week, we gather up the members of Christ's body and bring them together in this room. We bring people in here, whatever state they're in. No matter how bruised or battered or bleeding their spirits may be from the struggles of life, we bring them in here for mending. There's something about the whole worship experience: scripture, sermon, music, prayers - not to mention the wordless power of the sacraments - that offers healing and restoration.
But that is only the half of it. There's also the journey back outward after the mending is finished, to cast the nets into the sea. As there is the mending, there is also the sending.
That sending doesn't come so easily to us, does it?
It doesn't come easily to most churches. Most churches pursue an attractional method of evangelism. We create the most welcoming worship space possible. We offer high-quality music and educational programs. We keep the building in good repair. We hope the word gets out there in the community that there are some pretty good things happening here. We hope neighbors who are "looking for a church" will find their way through these doors and will like what they see.
Sounds like a plan, doesn't it?
There's only one problem with that plan. It's not what Jesus tells his disciples to do.
Remember how he approaches James and John, as they're mending their nets? He comes up to them and says, "Follow me."
Jesus doesn't say, "Practice your net-mending until it's a fine art, then stretch those beautiful, perfect nets out upon the beach. Then, just sit back and wait till the fish see them. They'll want so badly to get into those nets, they'll jump right out of the water!"
Not exactly how it happens, is it?
So why is it, then, that we put so much of our energy and resources into the mending - and so little into the sending?
It's always been the case that the way most people make their way into a congregation is not by going out shopping for a church - though there are always a few who are doing that. The problem is, these days, there are fewer and fewer people in our culture who are seeking a worshiping community at all.
That may be hard for some of us to really grasp - especially those of you who've been members of this church, or another like it, for 20 or 30 years or more. When you first sought out membership in a church - whether it happened through Christian nurture, or through some spiritual experience - it was during a time when American culture generally smiled on church membership.
Those days are long gone. Reggie McNeal, who writes books about the future of the church, put it bluntly: "The culture around us does not wake up each morning thinking they would go to church if only there were a good one to attend."2 That may have been true at some time in the distant past - but it hasn't been true, here in America, for a good long time now.
Why, then, are we - along with so many other churches like our own - still pursuing our evangelistic work using Field of Dreams methods?
Remember the movie of that title, starring Kevin Costner and Amy Madigan? It was about an Iowa farmer - a fanatical baseball fan - who had a mystical experience. In that experience, a disembodied voice told him, "If you build it, they will come." So he plowed over a portion of his cornfield and built a baseball field. Sure enough, people started coming.
"If you build it, they will come" may make for an engaging movie premise, but it's a terrible way of growing the church in this present culture. It doesn't matter what you build, or how well you build it: they won't come (or at least, very few will).
In that respect, the cultural situation in which we now find ourselves is a lot more like the days of the apostles than it's been for a very long time.
So, how do people not already connected to a congregation find their way into the life of the church in this present culture?
They come because somebody invites them. And not a stranger, either - not someone handing out tracts on a street corner. It's someone they know and respect. Someone who knows them well enough to listen to their tale of personal struggle: and, at the right moment, to say "I know a place where your heart will find rest and healing. It's my church community. Why don't you come with me next Sunday?"
It's hard to turn down a kindly, well-meant invitation like that, if it comes from a trusted friend - a trusted friend who's been sent by the Spirit to do the work of an apostle.
It's useful for us to think about the word, "church." Well, not the English word that has origins in the Old English tongue, but the word the Greek New Testament uses. That word in the Greek language is ekklesia. You may recognize a descendant in the English word "ecclesiastical."
The literal meaning of ekklesia is "those who are called out." That's what Jesus is doing with those fishermen, beside the Sea of Galilee. He's calling them out: out from their homes, out from their villages, out from their daily labor of mending the nets. He's calling them out of all those familiar places, and right into a hurting world. That's the idea behind a definition of evangelism you may have heard before, that "Evangelism is just one beggar telling another where to find bread."3
It can seem like an uncomfortable endeavor for any of us to reach out to another person and share something of our faith. Yet, it's a blessed endeavor. And it's clear - from this story of Jesus' call to those fishermen to leave their nets and follow him - that this is precisely the mission he intends for us.
You, too, can become a part of that mission. Not just because you love this church and want it to thrive, but because you love Jesus Christ even more!