Sailors

"Come and follow me. I'll make you fishers (or, sailors on the sea) of men."

When I was in youth group (yes, there was a time I was in something called youth group), I went on this annual ski trip with the church I was a part of. By this time, I'd already experimented and became quite familiar with a thing called tobacco. 

It was normal to get a sheet of paper when these trips came up. And on this sheet of paper would be two lists. One of them would say what to bring and the other would have the rules on it. And one of those rules was No Tobacco, Under any Circumstances.

What kind of junior high kid who smokes and chews is going to follow that rule?

Long before I ever looked at the rule sheet, I'd already developed my plan of how I was going to evade my church authorities. I would carry several cans of Dr. Pepper in my carry on bag. The reason I chose cans of Dr. Pepper are twofold. One, you couldn't see through it. Two, I could drink the Dr. Pepper and then use it as a spitter, and the people around me would naturally think I was still drinking Dr. Pepper. 

What I didn't plan on was the dramatic change in terrain.

Being a Texan all my life meant not being around hills and mountains. And we were on a Greyhound bus. And the thing about these buses is, the floor is flat and hard, making it easy for stuff to roll around. 

And so, I made sure to wait until it was dark and everyone was just about dozed off, and I made my move. I chugged one of the Dr. Peppers, slipped a can of dip from my bag, packed it quietly, and packed it into my lip. I was sly as a snake. 

Everything was gravy. 

Until, the next morning.

I awoke to the sound of the camp counselor interrogating each of the passengers as he held a Dr. Pepper can full of my spit. 

I hadn't accounted for this. This wasn't supposed to happen. 

As he interrogated, I waited silently, trying to come up with some solution to this very unexpected problem. The closer he got, the more I could hear the sound of my dad on the other end of the phone line. 

When he finally got to me, I knew I was screwed. He asked me if I was the owner of the can of Dr. Pepper, and I said yes. I knew I wasn't a good liar (I had a few more years to go for that). The counselor inquired as to why I was dipping on the bus, and to me that was like asking why I had a mouth. I don't know.

Although he threatened to send me home if it happened again, I felt like I'd just been condemned to the edges of camp, probably some grove of trees where all the bad kids went, where they were left to watch as all the other kids had fun. 

If my camp counselor was supposed to be a "fisher of men," I wasn't going for the bait he was throwing out. For years, I was resentful at him for embarrassing me in front of all the non-tobacco-using-kids. And, for the first time I thought I knew what Jesus meant when he told all his disciples to follow him.

But things have changed since, I think. 

When I think of the fishermen who Jesus gave his invitation to, I think about the men on Deadliest Catch. They're not your run-of-the-mill grandpa sitting on the banks of the crick with grandson, wastin' time under the sun. 

They're roughnecks. They're crude. And they're putting their lives on the line to put food on the table. And, they smoke. 

Whoever wrote that Jesus story must've not been a fisherman, because it's pretty lame if you ask me. It's pretty vague. I mean, what kind of guy goes up to fishermen going out to the Bering Sea and tells them to drop their crab boxes and follow him?

Fishermen may not be the best word to capture what Jesus was trying to say. Sailors might be the better word, and according to the Greek, it sounds much more relevant. 

And if the first disciples Jesus was after were sailors, what kind of message was he trying to get across? 

Go make more dirty-mouthed, crude, smelly sailors?

Not quite, because after all, the culture of Jesus was infused with all sorts of religious quirks. Judaism was mostly the only game in town besides Hellenism, and I'm pretty sure Jesus wasn't a Hellenist. 

Judaism was like the Christianity of today. If you were one of the lucky ones who happened to have the resources to get to a rabbi, and follow a rabbi, learn to read and write the Torah, make it to synagogue, and have the financial means to make an offering, you got in the club. 

Everyone else was resigned to going after crabs, or fish in this case. 

The message of the Jewish times went something like this: God loves you if you're a good Jew. Today, it would sound more like, You're saved if you're a good Christian. 

But the problem is, most of us on our good days are at a minimum apathetic to the world. We're tunnel visioned. We just don't give a rat's ass what's going on with our neighbors. 

And I think that's exactly who Jesus was inviting. Jesus wasn't your run-of-the-mill televangelist. He was a revolutionary. He was tired of seeing the same old song and dance, and he was ready to start something new, something big, and something completely out of the Jewish norm. 

Follow me, and I'll make you fishers of humanity.

What previously was limited to the elites of the Jewish class who had all the resources to join the God club was expanded to include everyone, all of humanity, even the cast of Deadliest Catch. 

And who was going to lead the expedition? 

You got it. The roughnecks. 

Jesus didn't care that the fishermen he was trying to get out of their boats had drank all night. He didn't care that they were on their way to the local bar to sulk about their unsuccessful fishing trip. He wanted to start a revolution with people he knew would be excited about that sort of thing. 

There are some circles of Christianity today that put out this vibe of bad ass. They're the Jesus-was-a-bar-fighter type of people. You know who they are (cough, cough, Mark Driscoll). Just google him if you don't know who I'm talking about. They're putting out this message that Jesus was some sort of biker gang leader who wanted to recruit more bikers in his mission of filling the world with religious brawlers. But that's not the Jesus I see or believe walked the Galilean shorelines. 

This Jesus had the tolerance level of a grandmother, and the fiery personality of a master chef. 

He had all the makings of a man's man without the aggressive condescension of the Jesus-was-a-bar-fighter preacher.

Come follow me, and I'll make you fishers of men. 

Basically, Jesus was saying to his comrades, Are you tired of watching all those religious pricks hustle people into buying their religion? Well, let me show what the God I believe in is like. And then, let me show you how to show other people what God's like.

And the show started. The revolution of God-is-for-everybody began. The good news of God loving and saving and rescuing and caring and calling and redeeming and restoring and moving everybody started. From the fringes to the elites, it was a game changer. 

Screw the religion. I want fishermen and sailors because they understand more about what it means to follow God than these hard-nosed religious priests with Torah verses coming out of their nostrils.