Community Church Sermons
February 4, 2007
The Fifth Sunday of the New Year
Luke 5:1-11
Listen to this Sermon!
I’m glad the snow event of this week didn’t amount to much. Although Bob, Tim and I were in Florida and not directly affected by the storm, I was concerned that the white stuff here at home might last into the weekend, and you know what happened the last time we had snow on a Sunday.
Being a hearty, snow-savvy New Englander, I drove down to the church early that morning to check on conditions. The roads were pretty slippery and the parking lot was even worse. After consulting with our lay leaders and the Public Works people, we decided to cancel services. So I got back into the car and drove home, laughing under my breath about how we had saved all the snow-naive Southerners from the danger of having to drive in the snow. I mean, East Tennesseans are people who call off school and strip the supermarket shelves bare on Tuesday when a 10% chance of snow is predicted for Friday.
So I drove home. But turning from the Parkway onto Ritchie Road, I evidently had a little too much speed. The car began to spin and I – the snow-savvy New Englander – marshaled all my finely honed snow-driving skills to wrestle that car back to straight and level.
Thanks for playing!
So there I was in the ditch. Stuck as stuck can be.
So I called the police and they sent a tow truck. Moneymakers. What a name for a tow truck company! Half-hour later, a rugged young East Tennessean was putting a chain on the car and getting ready to drag it out of the ditch. I said, “Man, its pretty bad out today, huh? I bet there’s a lot of people off the road.” He looked at me with this look of utter contempt and said, “No, you’re the only one.”
Well… once the car was back on the road, he told me what the bill was. I said I didn’t have enough cash on me and would he take a credit card.
“Sir,” he said in his finest twang, “does this truck look like a bank? Do you see a credit card machine anywhere in there?”
“Well, no, but…”
He asked if I had an ATM card. I did. He said he’d follow me to the bank. So off to the bank we drove…slowly. Well, I got the money out and gave it to him. He counted it up and then stood by the open driver’s side window of my car and, for the next ten minutes, this good old Southern boy stood there and gave me – the snow-savvy New Englander – a lecture – in his finest East Tennessean dialect - about how to drive in the snow! And I deserved it, so I had to just sit there and take it.
And nowadays, when snow is predicted for the weekend, Bob Puckett always calls me up and rubs salt in that old wound by asking if I want him to come pick me up on Sunday morning.
Don’t you just hate it when people come along and tell you how to do your business? You work hard at raising your children and then your unmarried sister who never had any kids of her own shows up and starts telling you everything you’re doing wrong! You -the pretty-good golfer - hit a couple of bad shots one round, and the new guy in your foursome who doesn’t know diddilysquat about golf starts telling you about what you’re doing wrong and what you need to do to fix it.
Don’t you just hate it when people who don’t know anything about your life, your family, your job, your hobby, your experience, or whatever, have the nerve to come along and tell you that you’re all wet and they know how to do it better?
Well, I think that might be one reason some people didn’t like Jesus.
Did you catch the tension in the Gospel story we just heard? Jesus, the itinerant preacher, goes down to the commercial fishing port and after preaching a sermon to the tourists there, is evidently so caught up in his own sense of self-importance that he starts telling the professional fishermen how to do their job! Do you know some preachers like that? I know some preachers like that – Bob - NO I don’t need you to pick me up!
“Push off your boats and go out to the deep water and throw your nets
in!”
Jesus is acting like that guy in the TV commercial who suddenly knows how to fly a helicopter or perform heart surgery because he stayed last night at a Holiday Inn Express. So far as we know, Jesus never in his life so much as even held a Zebco fishing rod and reel in his hands, let alone stuck a hook through a nightcrawler and went fishing with his dad.
But here he is telling fishermen how to fish.
“Push out into the deep water and throw your nets in!”
“Oh sure, Jesus, we’re gonna do THAT! Right! We’ve been fishing these waters all our professional lives and know them well. We’ve been out all night long, and haven’t caught anything! It’s just one of those bad days when they’re not biting. Get over it! It happens! We’re just gonna put away these nets and go get us a couple of beers and some fish and chips. Tomorrow night, things will be better!”
“Push out into the deeper water, and throw your nets in.”
Jesus often offended people by telling them how to do their business. And even today, he offends us. He offends me. Jesus gets me so mad!
Today, in the face of the war in
which our world is bitterly embroiled, Jesus comes along and says something
really stupid like, “Love your enemies
and pray for those who hate you.”
And “Do not repay evil with evil, but overcome evil with good.”
And “If they strike you on
the left cheek, offer them the right cheek, too.”
When Jesus is arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane, the disciples take up arms. He tells them to put their swords away as if to say, “ Don’t even use violence in self-defense.”
And as Jesus faces certain death, he has the ability to call upon all the angels of heaven to come down and destroy the Roman legions.
But he does not. He will not.
Jesus remains committed to a life of non-violence, forgiveness and reconciliation from the moment of his baptism all the way to his last breath. He trusts completely in God to win the battle of his life.
And he calls me to do the same. And I don’t like it one bit.
“Push out to DEEPER water, and throw the nets in for a catch.”
I guess I’m like the disciples
when I hear Jesus saying things like this and telling me how to do my business.
I don’t much like it! Do you? I can well understand the frustration of Peter
the fisherman when he stands up to Jesus and says, “Look, Jesus, we’ve been fishing all night long and have caught nothing.
What do you know about fishing?”
And that is the controversial reality that frames our relationship with God. We human beings have been living this life for a long, long time and we sort of know the ropes and don’t need some know-it-all itinerant preacher to come along and tell us to start doing things differently.
He can tell us all he wants about non-violence, but we know that violence and even war are sometimes necessary; he can tell us to love our neighbors as ourselves, but he doesn’t have to live next door to MY whacko neighbor. I’m saying that metaphorically, neighbors.
“Put out to deeper water? Not on your life! Cast the net on the other
side? Why, we like this side of the boat just fine, Jesus!”
That’s how I often feel about Jesus and his teachings. How about you?
But then we judge ourselves with our own words.
“We have fished all night and have caught nothing,” says Peter.
Exactly.
You’ve fished all night.
And caught nothing.
For all the wars we have ever fought, and all the heroes who have ever served, and all the kids who have laid down their lives, have we caught lasting peace? For all the wealth we have accumulated, are we truly happy, are our families stronger, and our schools better, and our cities safer, and our poor lifted out of poverty? For all the advances in modern medicine, are the basic needs of every citizen cared for? For all the food we grow, does every child have enough to eat? For all the guilt we have carried because of some mistake made years ago, are we emotionally free and mentally whole? For all the developments we have seen in technology, communications and transportation, has the world family been brought closer together in understanding and harmony? For all the forgiveness we have not been able to give to those who have sinned against us, have we found a way to reconcile with those who have hurt us?
We’ve fished all night. And caught nothing. You see, the realities of the world as it is, our nation as it is, our families as they are, and our individual lives are the true measure of our success. How things REALLY ARE with us is the ultimate judgment of how things are going with us.
We’ve fished all night. And caught nothing.
And even though Peter knows it is pointless to get his crew back into the boat and shove off one more time, he reluctantly does it. And I love the tone of what Peter says.
Why do you suppose Peter said that?
Clearly, he has had some previous experience with Jesus. Jesus is not a stranger to him. And the words he speaks suggest that Peter trusts Jesus enough to go and do this seemingly stupid thing.
That sounds to me like a trust born out of love. When you know someone loves you and seeks the best for you, you trust that they are calling you to the deeper waters of life because it will be helpful and make your life better.
It is Jesus’ love that calls Peter to fish the deeper waters.
“Let down your nets for a catch!” Jesus hollers.
And this is what Luke writes:
“When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they almost sank!”
Have we been fishing all night and caught nothing?
Maybe its time for us, our nation, and our world to
trust in Jesus’ love and:
“Push out to the deeper water, and let your nets down for a catch!!”