Gigging

I am getting ready for to perform the wedding ceremony for a wonderful couple tomorrow night. After a pre-marital counseling session with this couple a few weeks ago, the groom invited me to go “gigging” later that week. I accepted the invitation, then asked what “gigging”actually was. He explained to me that flounder come in to the bay from deep water in the Gulf for a short period of time during the colder season. The flounder will hide themselves under the sand just a few feet off the bank of the bay. They lay there incognito about to devour small sea life, when other hunters rudely interrupt the flounder from their hunt. This is where we come in. In a little boat with two large lights placed on the water’s surface to illuminate the late night dark water we stand with twelve foot bamboo poles with a Triton-ish three pronged tip. We troll just feet off of the shore until we come upon on these sand covered flounders. When we are above them, as my friend says, we “stab the (stuff) out of the them.”
Within five minutes of being on the pitch-black water I saw our first flounder of the night. He laid there with little sand hiding him, and with little expectation for his little life to come to an abrupt ending. I stood waiting, hearing in my head William Wallace repeating, “Hold, Hold, Hold,” until I was perched directly over top of this flounder. With all my might I attempted to “stab the stuff out of him.” He was stabbed. I was hooked. This soon became my favorite type of fishing (or is it hunting?). We continued “gigging” successfully for a few hours. We later got a 4.5lb flounder that required each of us to gig him to lift him into the boat. And the fun continued later that week when he and his family invited Lindsay and I over for dinner to feast on our catch.
(Insert preacher analogy here) Is this the type of “fishing for men” that Jesus imagined? Waiting for people to be vulnerable and then violently assault them. I think the fishing analogy, like all analogies, does break down. Jesus doesn’t want us to trick people into biting onto something that will kill them. He wants us to give them something that gives life, not takes life. But this violent attack seems to have been our mode of evangelistic operation in the past instead of a compassionate invitation to join a journey of faith. As unsuspecting people enjoy their lives they are asked, “If you died tonight, do you know where you would end up?” Hoping to “stab the stuff out of them” we tell them that they are sinners and the fires of Hell await them. Instead of using our lights to find the unsuspecting victims, we could use our lights to give direction, meaning and guidance as we all try to navigate a world that can be so dark.