Epiphany 5C, 9 February 2025. The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Isaiah 6:1-8 [9-13]. Keep listening but do not comprehend.
1 Corinthians 15:1-11. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.
Luke 5:1-11. Put out into the deep water.

O God of the deep, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

Our Gospel lesson for this week is the story about the day when Simon, James, and John decided to walk away from their night jobs, the day they decided to leave everything to follow Jesus, according to Luke. Just before this, Luke tells us that Jesus went down to Capernaum, a town on the shore of the lake of Gennesaret (also known as the Sea of Galilee), where he had been teaching. Jesus had exorcised an unclean spirit from among the people, and he had healed Simon’s mother-in-law by rebuking her high fever! He had been healing all kinds of diseases by laying his hands on sick people. Large crowds had begun to follow him wherever he went. In fact, even when he went to an isolated place to get away for a bit, Luke tells us that the crowds came looking for him; and when they got to him, they tried to keep him from leaving them.

One time, Luke says, Jesus was standing along the shore, and the crowd was pressing in on him. They were desperate to hear what he had to say, hungry for the word of God. Do you remember what he was teaching? He was proclaiming God’s favor for those who were poor, pardon for those imprisoned, and freedom for those who were oppressed. So we can be sure that this crowd was full of people who were hungry and bone-tired, distressed and diseased, and down and out. The story goes that Jesus climbed into a boat to get space between himself and the pressing crowd, then he taught for a while a little way out from the shore. He’d used Simon’s boat as a platform, a wobbly stage, while Simon and the others were washing their nets. I imagine that Simon, having worked all night and caught nothing. was hungry and tired, too.  When Jesus finished teaching, rather than thanking Simon and sending him home for a meal and a rest, he instructed him to put out again into the deep and let down the nets for a catch (the same nets that had just been put away).

Now this is a crazy idea on at least two levels. The first is that the fishermen have just come back in, presumably having tried everything during the night to catch fish. (Nighttime is when fishing happens there because in the daytime the fish can see and avoid the nets). They’ve just washed their nets. Going back out is a lot of work, and fishing in the daytime on Lake Gennesaret is just dumb. The next level of craziness is the idea of going into the deep, because the deep represents chaos. Put out into the deep, the chaos, Jesus is saying, in broad daylight, where everyone can see how foolish you are.

Simon Peter does not refuse, but he does signal his characteristic reluctance to believe that Jesus knows what he’s talking about. They then catch more fish than they can handle in a classic case of “Be careful what you wish for.” Exhaustion, chaos, and frightful excess – enough to sink a boat. I can just see Jesus smiling and saying, “You weren’t expecting that, were you?” But if exhaustion, chaos, and excess are what happen when we let Jesus instruct us on how to do our jobs, many of us would (and do) demur. No wonder Peter responds, “Go away from me because I am sinful. I don’t deserve or have any idea what to do with this kind of abundance.” Jesus’ response is: “No worries, I’ll show you.”

And then, according to Luke, Simon Peter and the sons of Zebedee James and John, left everything to follow Jesus. I don’t know about you, but I find considerable irony in their walking away after their most miraculous catch of all time. I can imagine walking away from a failing business, when there’s nothing left to lose. I actually have walked away from a position in a company that was doing immoral work, more than once. But this is a story of walking away from winning a jackpot catch of fish, that salted and preserved, would have provided sustenance for family and friends with more to export. In Luke, Jesus doesn’t say, “Follow me”; he says, “From now on you’ll be catching people”; and they left everything and followed him.

You know, the story of this catch is told as a post-resurrection story in the Gospel of John. Some New Testament scholars postulate that either Luke took a well-known post-resurrection story and placed it toward the beginning of his narrative; or John took a well-known beginning story and placed it at the end of his narrative to signal new beginning. This debate reminds me that none of us can really ever know what happened, or what any of it meant before the disciples experienced the radical and abundant new life given to them in the years after Jesus’ crucifixion. Every experience got remembered and reinterpreted, told and written down after their experiences of resurrection, in some cases generations after. Once Jesus’ followers experienced the radical and abundant new life given to them after Jesus’ crucifixion it changed everything!. Everyone who had a Gospel story to tell told the details differently. As you know, I love the theological elbow room that gets created by those kinds of differences.

The question for me is always, what does scripture have to say to us that might make a difference in the way we enact love in our lives? (Enacting love is a Biblical understanding of doing justice.) What might we learn today to apply to our own lives, as individuals and as a parish? How might this scripture help us to better live the words we pray? Here’s some advice that I’ve gleaned from this Gospel lesson in Luke. You may have heard it before, but since it’s my advice, I think it’s worth repeating! It’s advice I follow, and I highly recommend it to you.

1. Let Jesus use your boat, that is, your livelihood, primary resource, mode of transportation, shelter from the storm, and sanctuary. Let Jesus use your boat to proclaim and enact God’s favor for those who are poor, freedom for those who are imprisoned or oppressed, healing and recovery for those who are diseased. Let Jesus use your boats even and maybe especially when you think that you know more than Jesus does about what’s realistic in your context, what’s sensible, or what’s possible (and what is not) when it comes to alleviating suffering.
2. Whenever you feel as though you’ve been laboring in vain, get back out there and go deeper into the chaos; do something foolish in plain sight for the love of Jesus Christ. I often repeat a story that Bishop Barbara Harris told me about when as a recently ordained priest she went to see an important mentor of hers. She sat down in his office and said, “I am sick to death of teaching white people about racism. I’m done. I’m not doing it any more.” And he said to her, “You’re not done. You’re never going to be done. Get back out there.” I think about that every time I feel tired of teaching people (out there) about sexism, heterosexism, transphobia, or the case for reparations in the church. I also think about it when people who do not have the privilege or access to power I have challenge me to examine and check my own biases and assumptions, complicities and complacencies, or small views about what is possible. But the most important thing about this Gospel advice is, don’t go alone and do observe Sabbath. Then get back out there, taking a witness, being a witness. Gospel ministry is collaborative; go deep.
3. Remember that when and whenever you/we experience abundance, there’s a catch!.  (Get it?) There’s always a catch, and here it is. We are obligated to share the abundance. When we experience abundance, we are called to gather people around us, people who need relief from hunger, disease, imprisonment, or oppression; and show them the abundance of grace. When Simon Peter, James, and John walked away from their business after a haul of fish that threatened to sink their boats, what do you think happened to all that fish? I bet it fed that big crowd on the shore and then some. In the version of this story in John’s Gospel, when the miraculous catch had been hauled in, Jesus asked three times “Simon Peter, do you love me?” And three times Simon Peter answered, “Yes, Lord”. Each time, Jesus replied, “Feed my lambs. Tend my sheep. Feed my sheep.” It doesn’t get any clearer than that.

 Based on my own experience, I don’t think there is a reason any of us could give that would persuade the Source of All Being that we can’t share more of our abundance or enact more love. The Bible is chock-full of stories of the Almighty calling on the least-qualified people to enact Love’s impractical or impossible work: to sing impossible songs ,pray impossible prayers, and walk impossible paths. We heard three such stories this morning. Isaiah is a man of unclean lips living among a people who have unclean lips. Paul says, “He is the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because he persecuted the church of God.” Simon Peter says, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful person.” Moving beyond our reluctance and making those connections, we are called to invite people to experience the abundance of God’s grace in this community. The abundance is all around us. 

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