Rev. Dr. James Goodlet…Biblical Odyssey: The Real Catch

Sunday Worship - FPC LaGrange - July 12th, 2026

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When I spent a summer in Yellowstone twenty three years ago serving uh with a Christian ministry in the national parks, which is what some 20 years ago. Maggie Asbel Loibel did, and that's where she met Peyton. And now Kate Asbell is out there with them. And she's going to seminary in the fall. I was out there serving with them. I would work all day as a housekeeper at the old faithful snow lodge because that's why I went to Furman University, was to serve as a housekeeper. But then I would head out to the streams of Yellowstone for some fly fishing. It was an unspeakably happy time in my life, one that had quite the effective call, uh effect, formative effect, rather, effect upon me and my call to ministry in many ways, more ways than one. There was a time when I was out there that I tried to teach my friend Robert, he was on our ministry team with us. I tried to teach him how to fly fish. It was a beautiful day on the Firehole River. If you've ever been out there, the firehole is a river that weaves and winds its way through the upper and lower Geyser Basins, kind of close to Old Faithful. And I showed him how to cast. And so when I felt that we were ready for the actual fishing event, I took him out to the fire hole. And there came a point when he was casting into the river. He was false casting. So if you know anything or you've ever seen anything about fly fishing, it's kind of that motion where you're doing this, and it's not just because it's really pretty to look at, it's practical. You're trying to get more line out. So he was false casting. He went forward and back and forward and back and forward, and then he went back again, and all of a sudden there was tension in the line. Real tension. And I thought to myself, man, I'm really good at this guiding thing. He's already got a fish on. The rod tip bent dramatically. But then there was something I realized this that didn't add up. I didn't see when you when you hook a fish, you usually see some sort of turbulent ripple underneath the water, some sort of disturbance there because the fish has obviously been hooked. I didn't see that. And then as I look closer at the fly line, I noticed that it wasn't actually aimed at the water, but it was coming backwards. And usually what that means then is that you've hooked a tree, a branch, something like that. There's a lot of dead wood out there by the fire hole river, and I thought, yep, he's we've already hooked into something. But then I followed the line. And I realized soon that the fly had not snagged a piece of dead wood and wasn't in a bush or a tree or anything like that. When I turned around to inspect, I soon saw that the fly hook had lodged itself in the scalp of my friend Robert. And there were two things that became readily apparent after that. The first being that Robert would never go fishing with me again. And the second being, fishing can be fun. Unless, of course, you are the fish. By the way, Robert's fine. I haven't talked to him in 20 years, come to think of it. Maybe that has something to do with it. I suppose that experience has somewhat fed my interpretation, my understanding of today's scriptures, and the ones that are like it. Fishing can be fun, unless, of course, you are the fish. On the surface, to be fishers of people, to catch people, as Jacob was talking about with the children. It is a poetic, metaphorical, striking kind of way to suggest that we are in the business of recruiting and gathering and netting people, so to speak, for the kingdom of God. We are in the business of catching, to use the verb for today, catching people for God. But I gotta tell you, I have a problem with that interpretation. I think it falls short. I don't think that's entirely what Jesus meant. If you take that literally or over simplistically, fishing in that time and context, and really any time and context, was good for the fishers and bad for the fish. It meant food for the fishers at the expense and price of life for the fish. If you view it through that lens, then you can interpret Jesus' metaphor as meaning that to be fishers of people, to catch people, as it is said in today's text, meant gathering people at the price of their life. And yes, we do give our lives up quite often for our faith. But if you look at it through the lens of the story, that means that to be the fish in the story means that you lose your life in painful ways, in traumatic ways, in ways that leave the fish gasping for air and longing to swim in the waters of home once again. It's not really a flattering image when you think about it. But when you also think about it, it's also been the approach, I will say, to so-called evangelism of spreading the so-called good news for many a Christian and many a congregation in years past, to cast as wide a net as possible and to drag as many fish into shore as possible so you can say to your fellow fisher folk, hey, look at this incredible catch. Look at how great a fisher I am, without any regard or little regard to the fish, to their lives, to their livelihood, to what they might be experiencing in that scenario. To be a fisher of people, to be involved in a great catch is really and truly, all too often in my experience, about the fisher and not the fish. And I don't think that's what Jesus meant. That wasn't his way. He was a fisher who cared deeply about the fish. So then what's the story really about? What's what's the real catch? And if it's not about fishing at the price of the fish, what's what is what are we doing? Well, you may know that just over a year ago I graduated uh with a doctor of ministry degree, four-year course of study, but what you may not know is that the title of the thesis that marked the end of my studies was this. It was Teach a Child to Fish. How adaptive leadership might transform local church mission. It focused upon our congregation's continued role in early childhood education, but the thesis kind of continuously drew upon a proverb, you've probably heard it, that goes something like this give a man or a woman or a person a fish and you feed them for a day, but you teach them how to fish and you feed them for a lifetime. Yep. Y'all know it. And the idea for the thesis actually took root from an experience that I had at Camp Viola, which, as you heard, we hosted this last week, but this was a couple of years ago. And yet again, in this case, Judd Newman and Leighton Parker asked me to be a fishing guide to teach the kids how to fish, which, given my track record, was a harrowing experience. But I decided to do it. My student, the first student that I had, she was a late elementary-aged girl. And we were not, we were not fly fishing. She was using a Zebco rod and reel. She'd never used one before, the one with the button. And I said to her, the key is to not let the button go until you're ready to send the line out into the water. So I showed her how to do it once and reel it in, and then the next turn was hers. And so she did it. She took the rod back, she put it level with her waist here, she slung it forward, let go of the butt at the precise time, and the line zoomed out into the water. And I thought to myself, if nothing else, she now at least knows how to cast a line. But that wasn't all that happened. Literally, on her first cast, the bobber went down. And I screamed in a not so pastoral way, lift, probably overzealous. But she did it, and as she pulled up, boom, rod goes down. And I'm telling her, real, real, real. And she cranked and she cranked and she cranked. And that fish came in and she said, I got one. I got one. And she was that poor fish, but she was showing it to everybody that she had this fish. And that fish was wriggling and writhing on the bank of the lake. But her spirit went from no confidence whatsoever that she could do this to soaring. Peter said to Jesus, Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man. All who are with him were astounded that the catch that they had taken, including James, John, and others. And Jesus said to Peter, Do not be afraid. From now on you will be catching people. Here's what I want to tell you. This story isn't about the fish. It isn't about the great catch in the net. This story is about Simon Peter. This story is about the person, the people doing the fishing. This story is about you and us. It's about getting someone like Peter or like that little girl who did not have much in the way of confidence in themselves to believe that they could in fact make a difference. It is about empowering Simon Peter and us to believe that we are capable of doing the impossible, of teaching people how to fish so that we can feed others for a lifetime. That is the work that we do in the church. That is our calling. We don't only believe that we are those who can possibly make a difference in the world, minister to others, but we also are called to equip and empower and make other people believe that they can participate as well. It is about teaching others how to fish, how to participate in the work that we as the church do. Our role and our calling is to teach and show others how to fish so that they can feed others for a lifetime. And let me tell you, church, that I saw that happening each and every day that I was out at Camp Vile this week. I saw our people, our youth spending time with these kids and making them believe that they can fish, that they can make a difference. And the reality is that that was a mutual thing. These kids were teaching our kids that they could make a difference, that they could fish. We do it at DeSell. We do it on Thursday mornings. We do it in our children and youth ministries. We do it in our small groups. We do it when Andrew Harry calls upon his youth to come up and play so that maybe one day they can take the seat of Callie and Tessa. That's a high level. And we see what they can do. And her spirit changed. The children at Viola this week learned about the fruits of the spirit so that they could teach them to others. A little girl this week who could barely speak a word of English. Bubbled over with enthusiasm. And took that home to her family. If we're to be like Jesus' church, then we have to be adept in the arts of teaching others and getting others to believe in their capacity to fish wherever it is we go. In our homes, in our schools, in our workplaces, in our community, wherever it is the tide takes us, whatever deep waters we are called to fish, I am telling you that when it comes to this story is the real catch.