Epiphany 5C

The scene in the gospel reading has shifted from the synagogue where we have spent the past two Sundays, to the Lake of Galilee, otherwise known as Gennesaret, a lake about as big as Lake Winnepesakee in New Hampshire. In between the teaching in the synagogue and where we pick up again in the narrative, Jesus has healed a man with an unclean spirit, Simon’s mother suffering with a high fever and many others. The gospel reports that the next morning, Jesus withdraws to a quiet place, but people follow him. Jesus answers: ‘I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other cities also; for I was sent for this purpose.’ Off he goes to other synagogues in other towns.
And then Jesus comes to the lake.

There are many ways we can come to this well-known story. We can call it a ‘pronouncement story,’ because there is a declaration at the end; we can call it a ‘nature miracle’ because of the provision of fish. We can call it a ‘gift miracle’ story because of what is provided. And we can call it a ‘commission narrative’ because at the end of the story, Jesus commissions the disciples to follow him. All of these takes on the story are possible and all of them speak to us. But for today I am going to focus on the commissioning part of the story and what it takes to get there.

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It is obvious by now that Jesus has become a popular figure; people are following him around and the gospel has just finished telling us that Jesus has been teaching the crowd. Indeed, despite the one attempt to throw Jesus off the side of a cliff, most of what Jesus has done and said thus far has met with little resistance. The crowd by the lake presses in on Jesus, hoping to hear the word from God. But Jesus is looking for a place to get away form the crowd and spots two boats. The men by the boats have come in from fishing at night — a time when the catch is better and the conditions easier for the fishermen. It is surprising, then, that Jesus — a carpenter’s son — tells the men they should get back into the boat and go out again. It is even more surprising that they oblige, but Simon responds out of faith and gives the order for the men to go back out into the lake.

So they do and, as we know well, they catch more fish than possibly imagined. The implications are immediate: Simon Peter — the first time he is called this full name in the gospel — immediately realises that this catch is of God, not of ordinary circumstances. Jesus commissions him and, by extension, the others, by saying: Do not be afraid, for you will become fishers (really ‘catchers’) of people. And, once the men are back on shore, they leave their miraculous catch behind and follow Jesus.

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What really grabs my attention in this story is Jesus’ invitation to the men to go back out in the lake and their response to it.

Jesus says to Peter, Put out into the deep water. And they do. Why?

It is frightening to put out into the deep water, to go far from the protective shores, to get in over one’s head. Jesus is asking the disciples to stretch themselves further than they imagine possible. Tired, frustrated, worn out, the last thing they want to do is get back into the boats and go out further than where they were before.

But sometimes we are called to do just that, at those moments when we feel the most fragile, the weakest, the most tired.

What does it take to go out into the deep waters, to get in over our heads? Trust... lots of it. Trust that the boat is solid, trust that those with us can help us if we feel we are in it too deeply, trust that we can get back to shore. Without a safe framework, it is too difficult to leave the protective edges of the shore to go out to those deep waters, to go where we have not gone before.

Having companions on the way is essential for going to those deep places in our lives. The voyages that take us into deep waters are not just those that we take by ourselves but also as a community, and as a congregation.

As a congregation we are also asked to stretch ourselves in ways beyond what we think possible. And that can be as scary as undertaking a journey by ourselves. But the gospel this morning leaves few doubts. Three things are clear from what happens to Peter and the disciples when they get into the boat and follow Jesus out into the middle of the lake.

• First, by getting into the boat with Jesus, they indicate their willingness to be open to the wholly Other — to God. They go, not knowing or understanding where following Jesus will lead them, but they go, open to encountering high mystery, the power of God when God breaks into our lives.

• Second, they allow themselves to become vulnerable, and with that vulnerability comes the recognition of the limits of their humanity. That recognition of inadequacy is echoed in Peter’s: Leave me, for I am a sinful man. His cry is less one about particular sins, but rather the recognition of his creatureliness and his limitations as a human being.

• Third, the moment we recognise our inadequacy, our sin, and our smallness before the greatness of God, then we are capable of truly being called out of ourselves. When God calls us, saying, ‘Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?’, we — as the prophet Isaiah has done — can answer: ‘Here I am. Send me.’

It takes a lot of work to overcome the natural human resistance to bumping into the Holy. It is scary to get too near to God. God wants too much. God knows too much. God is too single-minded. Bumping into the Holy can mean sinking to the depths. Bumping into the Holy means losing one’s life as one knows it now. But in losing our life, we gain a new one, touched by God. So, it takes a lot of work to overcome these fears in order to trust that we truly can go out into the deep waters. But once we come to trust, we see that God is there guiding us.

And there is a reason for putting out into the deep waters that goes beyond our own needs. There is a reason why we risk being touched by God, caught by God. It is simply called: Mission. Evangelism. Vocation. Words that carry so much baggage by themselves that I hesitate to use them. But that is what God calls us to do: go out further and cast deeper, stretching ourselves, allowing ourselves to be sent out to spread the Good News. Called by God, we hand down what we have been graced to receive. We are called to proclaim the mercy of God’s grace, God’s love, the gospel. When we do that, we find life.

How can we, the people of Trinity, as individuals and as a congregation, be touched by God? How can we put out into the deep waters? What will putting out into the deep waters look like for us? Where will God lead us? Right now, we are happily casting our nets, content with our life. What will our lives look like when God comes to us? How will the peace of God turn our lives upside down? How will we, as individuals and as a congregation, respond to God’s call? How can we say, ‘Here I am. Send me’?

This Saturday, some folks are going to put out into the deep waters and trust in God’s direction. We are going to have a soup luncheon open to anyone and everyone. Maybe it means that we will end up feeding ourselves... but maybe, some of the people who come to the office weekdays looking for assistance might hear about it and get a hot meal. And if that is the case, who knows where God will take us? Sara Miles says, ‘Anywhere there is food, spirit and matter intersect.’ We are about to go on a huge ride.

Miles, whose first book Take This Bread we’ll discuss in the second half of Lent during a Lenten series devoted to outreach, writes in her second book, Jesus Freak, ‘If Jesus is about anything, it’s the inconvenient truth that a spiritual life is a physical life’ (xvi). And that physical life means putting out into deep waters and seeing where we will go.

Yes, some of it can be scary… but the boat is solid because it is Christ, there is Christ in the boat with us, there are good people in the boat with us and there are good folks on the shore. So let's push off to the deep. We can do it… with God’s help.

photo from here