Epiphany 5C, 6 February 2022.  The 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.

Whenever our lectionary assigns optional verses, like (the bracketed verses 9-13 in) today’s reading from Isaiah 6, I exercise the option. In this case, including those verses helps keep us from getting too sentimental about Isaiah’s famous call. The verses that follow explain just exactly what Isaiah is being called to do: say to the people, “Listen but don’t comprehend, look but don’t understand,” so they will not turn and be healed. “How long [do I have to do that], O Lord?” Isaiah asks. “Until the desolation is complete,” says the Holy One. “Until there’s nothing left.” Yikes! If Isaiah agrees to be sent, this is what he can expect if he does his job: God’s Word will not be comprehended; people will not repent. I hear echoes of this story in Luke and in our own time. Is this prescriptive or descriptive? I don’t know, but I find it true.

In the portion of Paul’s letter to the Jesus-followers in Corinth, we hear what would be my favorite account of the experiences of resurrection. If only Paul had written, “first to Mary Magdalene, then to Cephas” (that’s Peter). Oh Paul. Anyway, what comes next is a great example of how the Church has never agreed on terminology. First to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then to five hundred at one time, then to James (that’s Jesus’ brother), then to all the apostles. Then to Paul, the least of the apostles, unfit to be called apostle – that is, unfit to be sent – because of his history of persecuting Jesus-followers, unfit except by the grace of God. (That describes nearly all of us, doesn’t it?) Paul concludes, “Whether then it was I or they, so we proclaim and so you have come to believe” and when he says believe, he means belove.

If last week’s Gospel lesson was the story about the day that Jesus became homeless, our Gospel installment for this week is the story about the day when Simon, James, and John decided to walk away from their jobs, the day they decided to leave everything to follow Jesus, according to Luke. In between the passage last week about Jesus getting run out of town and this week’s amazing fish story, 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 Jesus 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, freedom for those who were oppressed. So we can be sure that this crowd was full of people who were hungry, bone-tired, distressed, diseased, and down and out. The story goes that Jesus climbed into a boat to get space between himself and the pressing crowd, and that he taught for a while a little way out from the shore. He’d used Simon’s boat as a platform, a wobbly stage. I imagine that Simon, having worked all night and caught nothing, was hungry and tired. 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.

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 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. I can just see Jesus smiling and saying, “You weren’t expecting that, were you?” 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: “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, but here is a story of walking away from winning the jackpot catch of fish, which, 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 Biblical 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 (and 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 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? How might this scripture help us to better live the words we pray? Here’s some of the advice that I’ve gleaned from this Gospel lesson in Luke. Some of you 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 – the source of your livelihood, your primary resource, your mode of transportation, your shelter from the storm, your sanctuary. Let Jesus use your boat to proclaim God’s favor for those who are poor, pardon for those who are imprisoned, healing and recovery for those who are diseased, freedom for those who are oppressed. Let Jesus use our boats even and maybe especially when we think that we know more than Jesus does about what’s realistic in our context, what’s sensible, or what’s possible (and what is not) when it comes to alleviating suffering.
2. When you feel as though you’ve been laboring in vain, get back out there and go deep, do something foolish for the love of Jesus Christ. I often repeat a story that Bishop Barbara Harris told me about when she was a recently ordained priest and 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 about sexism, heterosexism, or transphobia in the Church. I always think about it when people who do not have the privilege or access to power I have (by virtue of my class, race, health, age, education, national origin, or religion) challenge me to examine and check my own biases and assumptions, my own complicities and complacencies.
3. Remember that when and whenever you experience abundance, there’s a catch! (Get it?) There’s always a catch, and here it is: we have 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?”  Simon Peter said, “Yes, Lord” three times. And each time, Jesus said, “Feed my lambs. Tend my sheep. Feed my sheep.” It doesn’t get any clearer than that.

This Gospel story is about getting caught up in the spirit in spite of whatever we’ve tried that hasn’t worked, or however foolish we feel (or sinful or small or shy or afraid). What is your word that you tell to God about why you can’t show people the abundance you experience? What is the reason you give the Holy One for why you don’t mention your experience of abundance? What is the reason you give the Holy One for why you can’t or shouldn’t or won’t? You don’t believe in God? It’s okay – I’m here to tell you that God believes in you.

Based on my own experience, I don’t think there is a reason that will persuade the Source of All Being. The Bible is chock-full of stories of the Almighty calling on absolutely-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 of the stories this morning. Isaiah is a man of unclean lips living among a people who have unclean lips. Paul says, “I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I 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, inviting people to experience the abundance of God’s grace in this community, is network. It is the work of Christians in community because, as the Gospels tell us, the job of disciples (and we are all disciples, because disciple means one who is learning) is network. The abundance is all around us, and there’s always a catch.