Rocky Cape Christian Community

Peter Hoover, 1989

Flying in a small plane off the coast of Belize I could hardly believe my eyes. I had heard of the cays on the barrier reef, but I had no idea there could be so many. Like the pieces of a puzzle not yet put together, hundreds of islands spotted the glass-green waters below me—hundreds and thousands of jungle draped dots in the coral sea. Villages stood, clusters of tiny tin roofs and once-gaudy weatherbeaten paint on the edges of palm-fringed lagoons.

Belizeans fish.

The warm waters around their offshore reefs shelter some of the richest marine life in the Atlantic Ocean.

But I knew that in the green fog-and-jungle-draped world below me lived more than just fishermen. Every so often a cay revealed signs of habitation: the island resorts of wealthy vacationers who come here to relax, to drink, and to let the music roll as their backs turn brown on the beach, and their drugged or drunken minds seek to “get away from it all”.

Hard-working Belizean fishermen and lazy bare-bellied vacationers, I saw them both after we rumbled through wisps of fog and landed on strips of dirt in the jungle that morning. They were a strange combination—fishermen and island tourists—on this isolated fringe of the Caribbean Sea. Then it dawned on me that isolation and island both come from the same Latin root: insula.

Ever since I became converted in l975 isolation has been a danger to me. Ever since I got fished out of the sea of sin by Jesus’ disciples, I have been tempted to take a “vacation” on some isolated island instead of letting me work on the boats as a fishing disciple myself.

The twentieth century in which we live resembles the Caribbean Sea: millions and billions of unfished fish (unsaved souls) swirl around us among the coral reefs (the hidden perils of the world). And where are we? Have we become Jesus’ “fishers of men?” Or have we gone on island vacations?

Belizean men and boys, while the sun beats down and a stiff breeze drives the salt-spray over their dories’ hulls, labour with their nets in the Caribbean Sea. Do we know the satisfaction that shines from their faces when they bring their catch into coastal towns? Or have we become vacationers? Fat land-lubber tourists stuck on island beaches to brown our backs in the sun while others do the work?

Many times, I fear, I have taken “vacations” from my Christian duty just like that. Satan loves to see me sitting on some little denominational “island” while the fish go unfished about me.

Little island denominations bring vacationers’ cays to mind: luxurious resorts, deck chairs sprawled in the shade, clean, sandy beaches on which to relax, and ample facilities to eat, sleep, and enjoy oneself—far away from the cares and realities of life in the world.

In blissful isolation we vacationing Christians like to sit on our islands, suffering only from the effects of our own carnality, our own bickering, biting, and devouring of one another (like one has to bear with sand flies on the beach).

But, more than just sandflies harm us at our island retreats. If we refuse to go out with the fishers of men . . .

1.     our minds shrink. In blissful isolation from the radio, TV, newspapers, and popular literature we not only ignore the world. We actually forget it exists.

2.     our speeches and written articles become trite, powerless, and stuffy. What we say becomes loaded with religious clichés and the “great issues” we think we face are merely nothing but petty disagreements within our own microscopic denominations.

3.     our visions become island-bound. We think, we move, we have our being only in the affairs of our own island. No matter how many brothers and sisters we may have, nor how good they may be, if they do not live on our island we forget about them.

4.     we become lazy and passive. With nothing to do but to eat and sleep and lie on the beach, our thoughts lead us on to lust and sin. Idleness is the devil’s workshop. If we can’t go out fishing we soon find ourselves toying with evil and we feel to lazy to resist.

5.     we become envious, hateful, and bitter. Stranded on our islands, we have much time to meditate on nasty things people have said about us. We rehearse all the injustices we have lived through, and each one expands with each revolution of our hate-soaked brains.

6.     we lose sight of Christ in the hazy distance beyond our island realities and our exotic property takes his place as the object of our devotion.

7.     we become lonesome, fretful, and discouraged, as our lives become a senseless waste—and if we don’t wake up, get propelled into action by the Holy Ghost and “launch out into the deep” with Jesus’ disciples we simply lie there and rot.

Jesus and his first disciples had no time for island resorts nor back-browning tourists. But they could have readily identified with Belizean fishermen who ply the waters of Lighthouse Reef, Commerce Bight, and Chetumal Bay. Peter, James, and John were fishermen too, until Jesus told them: “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men” (Matt.4:l9).

What happens when Jesus calls us?

What happens when the Holy Spirit shakes us awake, pulls us to our feet, and opens our eyes to see God and the ocean of humanity around us?

1.     God strikes us with a life-changing sense of reality. Suddenly we become deeply, hurtfully, conscious of the soul-needs of our fellowmen. We cannot close our eyes to their wounds (like the priest and the Levite) any longer. We set sail and cast in the net where the Master commands.

2.     The Holy Spirit throws our own spirits wide open to the power and presence of God. Alive, awake, fully conscious in him, we see everything in a new light. We become so keenly aware of finding our place in God’s spiritual realm that our own bodies, our fingers as we work, our own clothes and earthly surroundings no longer feel as if they were a part of us. We look out across the sea and up into the starry heavens at night, rejoicing in our spirits because we belong to God.

3.     So vividly do we come into contact with God that private prayer loses all semblance of formality. We find it easier, day and night, to talk inside with God than to audibly converse with those around us.

4.     God lets us see and feel the woes of humanity. Every day he hits us anew with the weight of our brothers’ trials in eastern nations, with the terror of deception and mass turning away from God in our own continent, with the cries of starving innocents in Eritrea and Nicaragua, with the unspeakable horror of youths in the occult and drugs, with the blood that flows in Iraq, in Chad, in Mozambique, and with the screaming injustices of racism and pornography.

5.      Once off our “islands” and in fishing vessels with Jesus’ disciples, we find fulfillment in life. We remember how we got fished out of the sea, and it becomes our pleasure to fish others out as well. We know that every despondent or discouraged Christian, every lonely single or elderly person, erring brother or searching sinner, shipwrecked child of God or needy orphan, needs help from a “disciple” before they drown. We have from God what it takes to reach them and we can no longer let them go under in front of our eyes.

For too many years after I professed Christianity I lived on an island . . . blissfully sheltered and blissfully unaware of what went on in the world. For too many years I believed in insulation and kept my ears and eyes closed to “non-islandic” events.

Because I believed that social injustice and world political problems were not for me to solve, I pretended they did not exist. Because I knew I would never join the army, I ignored the fact that armies fight today . . . and that numberless men my age lose their arms and legs, have their faces blown off, and die for causes which should not exist. Because I could not personally relieve the suffering of the hungry, the homeless, the orphans, the widows, and the nations in distress, I simply forgot them. And for too long I avoided the disciples’ boats because they looked flimsy and I was afraid to drown.

But Christ came walking by. He said something and I had to get up! He did not let me, nor will he let the rest of us brown our backs in the sun, ignore the plight of the lost and suffering, and spend our time throwing sand at each other—while billions of unfished fish teem in the reefs around us.

We will yet see the word fulfilled: “I will send a fire on Magog, and among them that dwell carelessly in the isles, and they shall know that I am the Lord . . . all the inhabitants of the isles shall be astonished . . . and the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces. . . Behold my servant whom I uphold, mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth, I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgement to the Gentiles . . . and the isles shall wait for his law” (Ezekiel 29:6, 2735, Isaiah l3:22, 42:1-4)

“Howl ye inhabitants of the isles . . . according to their deeds, accordingly he will repay, fury to his adversaries, recompense to his enemies; to the islands he will repay recompense. So shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him. And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the Lord” (Isaiah 23:6, 59:12).

The word says the day is coming when the heavens shall depart as a scroll and every mountain and island shall be moved from its place (Rev. 6:l4).

Where shall we be then: scared to death on rumbling, moving, islands . . . or safe in fishing boats at sea?