St. Charles' Episcopal Church – St. Charles, IL

The Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany – Epiphany 5 – Year C

Sunday February 4, 2007 – Boy Scout Sunday

Judges 6:11-24a -- Psalm 85:7-13 -- I Corinthians 15:1-11 -- Luke 5:1-11

Rev. William R. Nesbit, Jr.

In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

"Put out into the deep water and let your nets down for a catch."

Do those words frighten you a little bit? I've always been a little bit uneasy with fishing as a metaphor for mission. If you think about it, what happens to the fish when they're caught? They get pulled out of everything that sustains them into a hostile world where they die of asphyxiation and then are eaten. Now there's good news for you!

Thankfully, Luke, I think, feels the same way I do and so he uses a Greek word for catch that means catch alive, more like snare. So it appears anyway that this morning, at least, we can leave the dying part out. It is with these words, "Put out into deep water and let your nets down for a catch," that Jesus catches himself a fisherman, three actually; Simon, and his partners James and John. Just like those fish that were pulled from the lake, Jesus pulls those fishermen from the Gennesaret lake and all that has sustained them in the past -- they leave everything and follow him. Why? Isn't it obvious? Because Jesus said, "Follow me!"

Wait a minute, that's the other version. There was no command to "follow me" this time. So why did they follow him? Was it because he showed them when and where to catch a huge haul of fish? I could understand maybe trying to hire him as a fishing consultant, but why would a miraculous catch of fish convince someone to give up fishing? Why would they do that? It's a miracle that's why!

And that's the real miracle. In these later days in which we live, we are very skeptical of miracles. We go out of our way to investigate them, to explain them away. Miracles are too often associated only with tent revivals and charlatan preachers. They're not real. Not really. Well I'm here to tell you that if that's what you believe, you got it all wrong. Are you ready for a miracle? We are going to push this boat out into deep waters and let down the nets. The best part about this is I can almost hear you all thinking, "Uh oh, here he goes again. He's going to talk about encountering mystery and how it changes us, but what does that have to do with getting up every morning and going to work and trying to keep food on the table?" I hear you. I feel that way some times myself. Let's go fishing anyway. Who knows, we might just catch something.

What is a miracle? Excuse me for a bit while I make use of some of my seminary training. The word Miracle comes from the Latin word mirari, which means "to wonder at." So then a miracle is something that makes us wonder. That means if we are going to look for miracles we have to be ready to wonder. Now a days, wondering is something that one rarely has time for. We're just so busy. As soon as we start going to school we have to give up wonder for the rigors of learning. It's a shame really. It was so easy to wonder when we were children. Almost everything was a wonder.

That's why it's so important to have plenty of children around, especially in church. They remind us to wonder. I wonder if that's why Jesus said the children shall lead us into heaven? I really believe that's why Sunday school teachers are so wise. It's not because they start out that way, it's because children ask them wonderful questions all the time. In the midst of all that wonder, they can’t help but get wise! To wonder is to be able to see things differently. From a different outlook.

Luke has been hammering us with wonder all through the beginning of his Gospel. We start with Elizabeth, barren and too old to have a child, and yet she gives birth to John the Baptist. Mary, who has never even been with a man, and yet she gives birth to Jesus. And now we meet Simon Peter, who fishes all night long and can't catch a thing, and yet at the request of Jesus he lets down his net and catches enough fish to nearly swamp two boats.

Alas, that was then. But what about now? Like Gideon questioning the angel of the Lord, we too ask for miracles now. Are you ready for a miracle? Are you ready to wonder? I give you a fish. At one point in our lives my wife Beverly and I were told that we could never have another child. After all the help modern medicine could provide, it just wasn’t going to happen. Within a year of being told this sad news, our youngest son Sam was born. Now does he look like a miracle to you? He does to me. And lots of people have told us similar stories of friends who have had the same kind of thing happen to them. Does that make it any less of a miracle, or does it make it an even bigger miracle. Would it have been any less of a miracle if Simon Peter had caught only enough fish to swamp one boat? Or for that matter is my other son Nate any less of a miracle? I don’t think so!

The truth is we do live in a time of miracles we just don’t know it. With the proper vision we are surrounded by miracles. Sam is after all only one fish in the sea. The sad truth is that we are so surrounded by miracles that we don't even notice them. We don't have the time, or more correctly we don’t take the time. And that, my friends is what hits Simon Peter right between the eyes as he is scrambling to gather all those fish into the boats before his net breaks and he loses the incredible bounty that has been given to him. It's about taking the time to see the miracles around you.

That's what conversion is; a new outlook, a new perception of reality, a new perspective. The problem with this new perspective is that often it isn't very flattering. We suddenly become aware that we are not the center of the universe; that we have been crashing over, around, and through the most wonderful riches, like the proverbial bull in the china shop. That is why Simon's first response is, "Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man." The first thing he sees with his new perspective, is the tremendous gap between who he is, and who God wants him to be. Notice also, that the miracle doesn't stop there. A new perspective demands a new response. When the boat gets to shore, instead of running away, Simon Peter and his associates James and John leave everything, and follow Jesus.

In the other gospels, where they are commanded to follow, they leave only boats and nets. In Luke’s Gospel it's a miracle. He is very specific. They leave everything. They are responding to a few brief words by Jesus."Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people."Their response comes from the realization that in spite of the gap between who they are and who they should be, God loves them. For Peter, James, and John this happens all in an instant of miraculous conversion, on a boat in the middle of a lake. It is one of the few advantages of being an apostle.

For us however, it can be a longer and more circuitous journey. We get lost in our sinfulness and never make it to redemption, like a boat adrift in the middle of the sea, never finding the shore. Or we try to get to redemption without accepting our sins, walking straight off the end of the dock with our boat safely pulled up on shore. Either way we get lost falling back on old patterns, casting our nets in the dark, working all night long and catching nothing. But do not be afraid, morning will come. (It always does.) And a stranger may come along and ask to borrow the boat for a bit. (He always does.) And if by chance you are asked to put out into the deep water, do not be afraid. Say a quick prayer and row like your life depended on it. Do what the master says, and be ready to wonder. Be ready for a miracle. Amen.