A Fishing Story
Casting Starboard
By David Sanders
We are ministers. We are fishers of men but as of late our catch has been small. We have labored long into the night for what seems to be no avail. We are weary.
We are fishing the way we have always fished; casting our nets in the manner we were taught. We are perplexed at the apparent futility of out efforts. We are discouraged by what seems to be wasted energy, pointless struggling. Why? We are weary.
Do we need new boats or more expensive nets? Should we try contemporary bait or an extravagant lure? Perhaps we should simply pull our ships into shore and put our nets away. We are so weary.
So we find ourselves at the daybreak. As we ponder possibilities and debate decisions the light of a new sun tints gold the still waters of the lake. We lift our heads towards heaven in search of the answer. Continue or quit? Fight or concede? Stay or go? Should we be so weary?
We remain steeped in reservation not noticing the dawn. Then, from the shore, there rings a voice of passionate authority. “Cast your net on the right side of the boat.” It is a whimsical suggestion. An impractical suggestion that would be quickly cast aside except that the voice is that of the Master.
He is endowing the answer for which we have petitioned and it is profoundly simple. Christ is bidding us to cast our nets in a different place. Instead of the port side, which we are used to, which we are comfortable with, instead of the port side on which we have been taught to cast, Christ is calling us to cast our nets starboard.
And so the call goes out to all who have labored into the night;
. . . to those perplexed by the ineffectuality of the way it has always been done,
“Cast your nets starboard.”
. . . to those steeped in reservation,
. . . to those not noticing the dawn,
. . . to those who are weary,
“Cast your nets starboard.”
And so Christ calls to the weary,
“Cast your nets starboard.”
Starboard Nets . . .
