Discerning a New Comitment
Sermon by: Rev. Mary Alice mulligan, Ph.D.
Scripture: Isaiah 6:1-13, Luke 5:1-11
In worship last Sunday, we heard the call of Jeremiah and today we heard the call of Isaiah. In the New Testament Gospels, we hear call stories, too. In Mark and Matthew, after his first preaching experience in his home synagogue, Jesus immediately signals to some fisherfolk to “Follow me.” These are call stories.
We know the Bible teaches us about God. We aren’t given a history or science book here. The writers give us theology, to nourish our faith. So we don’t have to worry when stories don’t match up into a consistent whole. Different authors depict different scenes to feed our faith.
In Luke, after Jesus is baptized and spends 40 days in the wilderness, we see a number of ministry scenes resulting in increasing crowds following Jesus, clamoring after him. After lots of teaching and healing, we see Jesus walking by the sea where he teaches great crowds again. His ministry is expanding exponentially. No wonder Jesus is ready to call people to assist him. Then finally here, Jesus calls 3 fisherfolk to switch from catching fish to saving people. He already knows Simon, because he healed his wife’s mother and joined them for a meal (4:38-39). So, to a certain extent, Simon knows the rabbi/teacher who stands before him. And then a miraculous catch of fish. No wonder Simon is shamed by his own sinfulness. But when Jesus invites him to drop everything to join the work, he does. Take time now to read Luke 5:1-11.
Notice, the first step here is to listen to Jesus. The Chosen One of God initiates contact; he always reaches out to you first, to teach you God’s ways. So your first step is to receive, to hear the Word of God from Jesus. Luke depicts Jesus always teaching. Sometimes he uses words; often he uses actions to teach, like healing people or providing food when they are hungry. But in this passage, Luke doesn’t even offer CliffsNotes to tell you the substance of Jesus’ verbal teaching. However you already know many of his big ideas, like that the Creator of the Universe has unconditional love for all people; which means each person who ever existed or ever will exist, and includes even each of you. Every person is divinely loved.
For lots of people, the idea of God’s unconditional love is a little nebulous – a little loosey-goosey. So what if the Creator loves you? Lots of people seem to live perfectly normal lives without any sense of the divine. However, Jesus claims God’s unconditional love for you is not some empty sweetness. God’s love provides an abundant wholeness in your life which you cannot receive anywhere else. Jesus talks about a life with purpose and fulness and joy. Then just to make sure you get the point, Luke tells you that Jesus directs Simon to put out into the deep water. This is the very same water on which those life-long, expert fisherfolk spent the whole night with their nets out; then hauled in not a single fish, yet because Simon has an inkling about Jesus, he is willing to dirty up his nets once again to follow Jesus’ direction. And you know what happens. Jesus guides the fisherman into the deep and shows him what true abundance means. Following Jesus results in such overflowing abundance, one person cannot handle it; in fact, one crew on one boat cannot manage it. They have to call their partners on another boat to help. And even then, the catch is beyond belief. Both boats strain under the weight of the abundance. Ahhh! The lesson is obvious. You get shown that following Jesus results in receiving more than you can imagine. Before anything else, you have to hear what Jesus is teaching.
But then, we see our emptiness. When we look back at ourselves, we see our proverbial nets are empty. Once Simon Peter sees the nets are bursting with abundance, he realizes his own sinfulness. Someone at St. Andrew recently told me she hates the word “sin.” It is so heavily laden for her. There are other words people use instead. Isaiah used other words, admitting he was “lost” and a person of “unclean lips.” And lots of progressive Christians substitute the word “broken.” We are broken people. Sinful, unclean, broken, lost, empty. These are all words recognizing our lives are less than what God would have them be.
Jesus’ teachings show us that when we acquire what we want in life, even when we get everything, we can still feel empty. When our behaviors keep being guided by our appetites for “more,” no matter how much we attain, a little voice in the back of our heads may very well say, “Not enough... There must be more than this!” So we set a new goal – a fancier retirement, a younger or richer spouse, or at least a new convertible.
No matter how much people have, anyone can feel their nets are actually empty. When Jesus takes Simon out into the deep and fills his nets to the breaking point, he shows us that in our old life, our efforts to feel full will always fail. No matter how much we accumulate, it’s never enough. Of course, Jesus is not showing us a lesson about nets; he is showing us about our souls. The lessons he teaches about God’s loving generosity throw a painful light on our interior life. God wants everyone’s soul to be abundantly full, so no wonder we respond to his lessons sensing our own failures. Simon throws himself at Jesus’ feet, admitting he does not deserve God’s love. He is a helpless sinner. Not only was the net from all his hours of fishing the night before absolutely empty... He realizes, his whole life is empty. So with each of us. Living our old ways – Our nets, our lives, our souls, will never be full.
So, Jesus will guide us someplace new. He offers an entirely fresh way of being in the world, which can be a bit terrifying – leaving everything familiar behind because with Jesus, “new” means completely heretofore-unknown new. But Jesus starts the trip letting us know we are forgiven. We aren’t worthless. He plans to use the gifts we already have. Jesus showed Simon what he could do with the talent he had for fishing. Jesus uses Simon’s abilities to catch an amazing haul of fish, and then turns those talents toward the future.
When Jesus gives the direction that his followers are going to be “catching people,” he doesn’t mean we will trap them. We are not casting a net out to catch and kill them. The goal is not to get them converted and that’s all. “Catching people” is more like what a bystander at a housefire did some time ago. He was willing to stand underneath the window of a burning building to catch a toddler when a desperate parent called for help and dropped their child. He was willing to catch a person.
A biblical scholar says a better translation is not “catch,” but “rescue alive.” The one who catches another, rescues them alive, rescues them to live life in a totally new way. As we look to our future, we might ask, what window is God calling us to stand under to catch someone? More exactly, where is God calling us to use the talents we already have? When we make our talents available for Jesus’ purposes, he is able to do abundantly more than we can imagine.
Next Sunday we dedicate our pledges for the next program year at St Andrew. But answering the call of Jesus isn’t only about money, although it does involve our financial giving. Answering the call is about our being willing to hand over our abilities, our gifts, our talents, in order to let God hone them. And then the call will guide us each to be essential parts of the abundant life bubbling up and out from St Andrew. If we are willing, we need to get ready because Jesus is about to take us someplace new.
Each of us can be ready to step into a new day with our arms outstretched to rescue alive whatever Jesus drops into our arms. Jesus says, “Do not be afraid. Get ready to catch people.”