The famous story about Saint Anthony of Padua, set to music in a song cycle by Gustav Mahler, Saint Anthony, finding his church empty, goes to the river to preach to the fishes who come in droves and enjoy his sermons immensely. However, with the sermon ended, the pike remain thieves and the eels lovers, the lobsters still crawl backwards, the codfish remain stupid and the carp eat voraciously. The fish have not changed at all. According to the translation in my CD notes, ‘The sermon was a success, they stay as they were.’

This is not the first time that the preacher sees no ‘success’ for his preaching. There are times recorded in the New Testament when ‘success’ was hard to achieve, though there was some. Paul’s sermon in Athens (Acts 17: 16-34) produced only a few converts at the time. Jesus had warned of the possibility of limited success in the Parable of the Sower when most seed fell by the wayside, on hard ground or among thorns, with much less falling on good soil, when the rewards were variable, sometimes excellent. In our own time, it is common for churches to remain empty even when the preaching is good. Even when churches are quite full, good preaching can fall on deaf ears when simple inertia robs us of the will to change so that we remain almost immune to the Good News and move on each week until the next good sermon.

Saint Anthony did right in not staying in his empty church, but in going out to seek some who might respond to the Gospel. When people are uninterested or unresponsive, why not go and preach to the fishes? After all, the psalmist believed that they are capable of praising God (Ps 148:7). They too, though they enjoyed his preaching, were ultimately unresponsive and their lives were unchanged.

The good words of the preacher can help, but ultimately are not enough. Even the powerful preachers who have moved thousands in campaigns and missions may see the numbers ebbing away eventually.
Are these hearers upon the path where the seed was eaten up by the birds or withered because it had no root? Or are they among those thorns that choked the seed?

No matter how skilled and well trained a preacher is, unless God blesses the words spoken, nothing will change. Even much prayer may produce no visible results. In the words of the New International Version, ‘I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow.’ (1 Cor 3:6). Perhaps God bides his time, keeps us waiting, chooses the right moment. Even Saint Anthony had to learn that lesson. Seed can be sown and in God’s economy take many years, a lifetime, to grow. Or it may not. It may be God’s wish that the seed should not grow in this instance. So when Saint Anthony sees that the fishes have not changed, he might just have had to wait a while longer or even not see any ‘results’ at all, but he has been faithful to his calling and God has been honoured and glorified. With prayer, the preacher must leave it all in the hands of God and ‘live by faith, not sight.’ (2 Cor 5:7)