Epiphany 4 2008

Matt 4: 12-23

Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee and saw some men fishing with nets and when Jesus called to them to come and follow him, they did. Amazing. No hesitation, no concern about their father, no questions about where he was going, nothing about packing a bag, no conditions, just left their jobs, their families, and followed Jesus.

When I read about the disciples fishing, I think of a rod and reel or a fly rod and my equipment, it takes preparation just to go fishing, and I fish for fun not for my employment. It is so easy to read our experience into the text. There is a reference in Matt 17:24-27 where line fishing was indicated, but that is not the reference in Matthew 4. Here the kind of fishing they do is net fishing. You could net fish from a boat or from shore. The net was circular, with heavy weights around its perimeter. Fishermen on shore would repeatedly cast their nets into the water. The work took skill and strength, required long hours of toil and often may have yielded only a small catch if anything. Jesus connects their occupation of fishing for fish with a new vocation of fishing for people. What are we to draw from the analogy?

Is evangelism strenuous like net fishing?

Is the work ethic required for both linked to skill?

Is persistence and dedication to the task, regardless of the catch, important?

In the physical and social geography of Galilee, the inland waterway is known by many names in antiquity, but most commonly as the Sea of Galilee. The body of water is currently 7 miles wide and 12.5 miles long. Fish were important in Palestinian society, signaled by the naming of several places: Jerusalem had a fish gate (Neh. 3:3), the town of Bethsaida meant “fishing village”, the Greek name for the town of Magdala was Tarichaeae meaning “processed fishville”. Four of the traditional 12 disciples were fishermen.

Fishing was important in the economy of the first century. Fishers who owned their own boats were part of a state regulated, elite-profiting enterprise, and a complex web of economic relationships. Political and kinship systems were controlled in order to support the hierarchy. The largest part of the population was peasant farmers and the family functioned as a producing and consuming unit. During the rule of Herod Antipas, a Roman client, the situation was one of an “aristocratic empire”. The aristocratic families primarily collected taxes and conducted warfare. The peasant families were kept at a subsistence level, exploited by high taxation, unable to gain power enough to rival the leaders. Taxes funded infrastructures e.g. roads and harbors but were the benefit of the more mobile aristocratic families.

Since fishing created a product and used the infrastructure around the lake the Roman leaders benefited from selling fishing leases, taking taxes on products and processing of products, extracting tolls on cartage and shipping. In addition, the wealthy had a monopoly on the fishing industry. In some cases the rich man owned the boats that the workers used. The fish were caught and sold and part of the sale went to pay for the rent on the boats. When the fish were processed, there was no refrigeration as we know it and so the fish were salted, another monopoly controlled by the rich. An ancient source lists the following taxes: salt tax, crown tax, grain tax (one third of all produce), tax on fruit and nut trees (1/2 all produce), toll tax, tithe, tribute, and duties. Records also indicate that in some locations there were fishing police (game wardens) who made sure no one was fishing illegally, without a contract, or selling to unauthorized middlemen. Taking all but the bare survival minimum from the workers, the elite prospered. Historians estimate that the annual revenue of Herod Antipas was 200 talents = 1.2 million denarii. Herod was known as a “lover of luxury.”

Fishermen could form cooperatives in order to bid for fishing contracts or leases. The Zebedee family may have been a small collective. In Luke 5 …”they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats…for he [Simon] was astonished and all that were with him, at the catch of fish which they had taken; and so too were James and John, Zebedee’s sons, who were cooperative-members with Simon”.

Perhaps the families of Peter and Andrew, of James and John, were of some moderate means, owning the boat, fishing equipment, and could release their sons for a year or so to go off with Jesus (Mk 1:166-20). Here middle means is not middle class for us. If the families owned boats this would say no more about them than it would about a peasant farmer who owned a yoke of oxen or a flock of sheep.

Without minimizing farming, herding, or fishing, all the parables, teachings, metaphors, anecdotes and social networking surrounding Jesus were heavily influenced by the Sea of Galilee. In MML, at least six of the towns named as places where Jesus taught were associated with fishing; four of the disciples were fishermen, the crowd was fed with a small offering of fish and bread, one of the parables is about a net, and after the resurrection, Jesus ate broiled fish with the disciples in Emmaus (Luke 24).

It does not seem to me to be an overstatement that Jesus’ proclamation of the Reign of God had its primary audience in Galilean fishing-villages. This at least in part accounts for the attraction of crowds from fishing regions of Tyre and Sidon. Making his residence in Capernaum during his ministry, Jesus traveled up and down and across the Sea of Galilee, spending time with real fishing families who experienced the burdens of hierarchical oppression.

From this viewpoint it may be easier to imagine leaving fishing to follow Jesus. In a real sense they left the work of oppression to be in the company of the LIBERATOR. Think about the fact that John the Baptist has just been arrested by Herod Antipas. Rather than hide for security, Jesus “goes about all of Galilee” (Matt 4:23). He does not wait for people to come to him and ask to be a disciple, he chooses them, directly, and they respond.

One of us went to work at Camp Coast Care last week and you will hear about Pete’s experience when he returns. One thing he shared was how grateful the families are for the help they receive through this project. Peter said, he did not want to leave, because the work was so meaningful. When we hear Jesus call us and we follow where he leads us we find that we are led to help those who suffer the injustices of our day so they too can be liberated from oppression.