Fish Story

A Sermon based upon Luke 5: 1—11

By Charles J. Tomlin

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership

5^th Sunday after Epiphany

February 7^th, 2010

Most every fisherman loves to tell a “fish story.”   Fish stories are filled with the unexpected, with adventure and sometimes, great exaggeration.  Sometimes the stories are even about the fish.

One fish story tells of a couple of young boys who were fishing at their special pond off the beaten track.  All of a sudden, the Game Warden jumped out of the bushes.    Immediately, one of the boys threw his rod down and started running through the woods like a bat out of Hades.  The Game Warden was hot on his heels.   After about a half mile, the young man stopped and stooped over with his hands on his thighs to catch his breath, so the Game Warden finally caught up to him.

"Let's see yer fishin' license, Boy!"  the Warden gasped.

With that, the boy pulled out his wallet and gave the Game Warden a valid fishing license.

"Well, son,"  said the Game Warden.  "You must be about as dumb as a box of rocks!  You don't have to run from me if you have a valid license!"

"Yes, sir," replied the young guy.  "But my friend back there, well, he don't have one."  (From www.fishingjokes.net  . )

Today’s Scripture text is also a fish story.  Jesus invites Peter and his expert fishing crew to relaunch their boats immediately after a very unsuccessful night of fishing.  With protest, Simon Peter hesitantly follows Jesus’ command to launch out into deep water.   When reach the right spot, Jesus instructs them to let down their fishing nets.   The result of the catch is so large that not only are the fishing nets near to breaking, both boats very near to sinking.  

Fish story, right?   But there’s something else going on here.  If you read on, the story ends up having little, if anything to do with fish.  Peter and some of the other fishermen colleagues get so excited, they even forget about the fish.   They are ready to put down their nets and give up their fishing trade altogether.   That’s not normally where most fish stories go.  

So, where is this fish going?   To understand this, we need to begin where the story began.   Our text begins with Jesus standing near the Lake, in the middle of a crowd, with the people “listening to him preach the word of God “ (5:1).   At the close of Luke for we are given more details.  Jesus has been from Synagogue to Synagogue “preaching the God news of the kingdom” (4:43-44).  So, this fish story begins with preaching, and it’s a particular kind of preaching about God, about good news and about the coming of God’s rule into people’s lives. 

In our Baptist tradition preaching has been at the center from our historical beginnings 400 years ago in England.   We have been so serious about “preaching” most of us didn’t grow up calling the service we are participating in right now “worship”, but we called simply it “preaching.”   “Aren’t you going to stay for preaching today?  You’ve heard that.   Whether or not Preaching means as much today, many Baptists still see “preaching” as the main event.   We come to church to worship, but the center of the worship event has been the message from the Word.   During the Reformation in the 16^th century, most Protestant churches moved the altar under the pulpit and placed the pulpit in the center of everything, both visually and ritually.  Our forefathers felt it critical, for the sake of the gospel, to refrain from the dead religion of the Latin Mass, which few understood, and to focus mostly upon the preached Word which could be understood,  taken to heart, and would bring people into a right “faith” experience and relationship with the living, true God of the Bible.   Paul’s own words paved the way for the great reformers, who worked to renew the church through “preaching.”  Quoting the great prophet Isaiah, Paul wrote to the Romans:   “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?   ¹⁵ And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!.... ¹⁷ So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.  (Rom 10:14-17 KJV)

This where it all gets started, with preaching; but it’s not supposed to end here.  If Jesus had just gone  from synagogue to synagogue preaching only, everyone would have heard the message, either accepted or rejected it in their minds and then probably went home unchallenged, and for the most part, unchanged.   Sound familiar?   If this would have been all that happens, then preaching, even the preaching of Jesus would have just been another “fish” story: interesting perhaps, hopefully sincere, sometimes embellished, but having actually having little to do with what happens next in our lives. 

So, how different it is for us?  Preaching is at the center, but is it just an ornamental decoration of what looks good, or is it, as it should be, the starting point of what comes next?   Do we have a Jesus religion that just goes around from Sunday to Sunday preaching, making us feel good, think good thoughts, and go home with the blessing to keep on doing the same thing, or could there be more?   Of course, preaching the “word of God” is a needed, necessary and a very important part of worship, but it’s not supposed to all there is.  There is, indeed more to the story.   In fact, we’ve missed the miracle of the story if we don’t go beyond hearing and listening to the sermon.    This is the “more” Jesus would take us to in this text.  He wants to take Peter and these fishermen beyond the sermon and beyond even the nicest words about God.  

To take Peter beyond the sermon, the first thing Jesus does is to get in Peter’s boat.  This is an arresting development in the story.   We might even say, as the expression goes, that this is the part of the story where Jesus moves from “just preaching to meddling.”   While Peter and the fishermen are out of their boats cleaning their nets, Jesus invites himself to get on board.  It is not Peter and the fishermen who invite him, but Jesus invites himself.   And that’s not all.   The next thing Jesus does is to invite other people to join him onboard and after a giving them a few more spiritual lessons, then Jesus asks Peter, who appears up to this point to be a perfect stranger to him, to take the ship a little ways out on the water.   Jesus sure has become quite is a pushy little preacher, hasn’t he?  He’s moved from talking to making demands and requiring response. In the same way, for us spiritually and religiously, you don’t get beyond the sermon until you let Jesus get into your boat and when you let him in your boat, he doesn’t just want to ride, he wants the wheel.        

Let me stop and ask you what kind of Jesus you’ve gotten used to in the preaching.  Do you know a Jesus who likes to talk, tell you a lot of nice stories, fill your heart with all kinds of good feelings and maybe even confirm what you were already thinking or who you think you are already, or do you know a Jesus who makes has some new, arresting demands to put on your life?  If we know anything about the Jesus of the gospels, he wasn’t all talk.  If we know anything about the Jesus of the Bible, he wasn’t one who told “fish” stories, simply to tell us nice stories to guide us through life.   The biblical Jesus is a Jesus who makes the words, ideas, and thoughts of God come alive.  And he does this, not on our terms, but on his own terms.     

To reveal the full intentions Jesus has for each of us, did you hear how Peter responds to Jesus in this text?   After getting on Peter’s boat, after teaching the people, and then after asking Peter to take up anchor and launch his  boat back “out into the deep” so he could let his nets down once again, listen to how Peter answers in his first word of response to Jesus:  “Master”.   This is no casual, feel-good, friendly relationship getting started, where Peter gets to call the shots and make the rules as he goes.  No, this a relationship where Jesus “takes the wheel” and is called recognized first and foremost as “Master” and “Commander” of life.   From now on, Jesus will be both the “commander of the ship he has boarded and will determine the direction the boat will sail.

What I am wondering as we move beyond preaching to considering the full implications of this story for our own stories, we need to ask ourselves:  Is our journey with Jesus just another “fish story” or is there some substance to his presence that makes real, lasting and even dangerous demands upon our lives?    As the great German Dietrich Bonhoeffer said when he was encouraging his own people to move beyond the preaching of the word, to standing on the word,  and stand to with Jesus and not with Hitler; he gave us these unforgettable words, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him to come and die”….to move beyond “cheap grace, to costly grace….”  Bonhoeffer went on to describe cheap grace as the “preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, the practice of baptism without the practice of church discipline, the celebration of Communion without commitment to personal confession….. Cheap grace,”  he said, “is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living, incarnate,” and real in our lives."  (As quoted from www.theopedia.com ).   

So, taking this demand of the Jesus seriously, this Jesus who wants to get into our boats, you’ve got to consider not only what Jesus says, but how you have and will actually respond to what you are supposed to do next.    And like Peter, if you are going to let Jesus set your life’s direction, you’ve got to launch out away from the shallow splashing pools along the safety of the shore and move out toward the deeper waters and resources of God’s full possibility for your life.   

Where do you see yourself?   Are you sitting in the boat all nice and comfortable, still listening to the sermons, but actually going nowhere?   Are you out there very busy with your life, taking pains and care to maintain all you have, yet knowing full well that what lays before you is nothing more than the same kind of empty nets which laid before Peter, all exposed before the Lord of Life, lying on the shore?  Or can you, could you, truly visualize yourself, really responding to the call of Christ and to the demands of the gospel which will take you of the discipleship voyage with Jesus?   

Where do you see yourself going, what about this church?   Do you see us going on maintaining empty nets, or can we hear him calling us to pick up anchor, walk on board under his command, and launch out into the deeper waters and follows God’s call for our lives?  Do you picture yourself and our churches as made up of shore-huggers, or a ship launchers?  Which image best describes our current spiritual relationship with Jesus?  Is Jesus just another “fish story” or is he the captain who sends us on the voyage of our lives, lived in obedience and faith?   Or are you now, so much the “master of your fate” and the “captain of your soul”, that when the voice of God’s call comes, you have skillfully learned how to bounce the words right off the edges of your heart?

Jesus commands Peter and he is still commanding those who hear him: If we want to make the catch of our lives, living on a level that goes beyond  the everyday grind for survival, which only leaves our souls feeling empty----if you want a life that brings your more,  you’ve got to “launch out into the deep.”

  

How do we do that?   Can we see how it could look?   What would it mean for you and me, today move beyond listening to preaching, to launching out into the deep waters of discipleship with Jesus?   

This can certainly mean lots of things to different people at different times.    Everything in our lives that has value also places demands upon us asking something important from us.   Think about it this way: What would a home be, if someone didn’t stay home long enough to build it?  What would our country look like, if people didn’t pay the price of freedom or take part in the requirements of civility and the responsibilities of morality?   And what will this church look like, if those who belong to this community of faith, don’t have deep and dedicated commitment to it, but are content to stay in the shallow waters watching and listening to what only a few others do?  With everything that gives us the blessings of fullness and the richness, “the catch” comes in our willinginess and readiness to answer Christ’s demand with the payment of our own sacrifice and obedience.   If we don’t launch into the deep waters of obedient faith, we don’t get the abundant catch that feeds the emptiness and hunger of our souls.   

So what are the demands of the good news and the responsibilities of our discipleship with Jesus?   What does it look like for you and for me, in this time and in this place where we live and serve God together in the church that is a boat that belongs not to us, but to Jesus Christ?   What is the direction of our sailing toward the deeper waters Jesus wants for us, so we will can find abundant and limitless spiritual resources of God?

         

What I can see with Peter, is also true for us:  We won’t launch out into God’s deep, until we face and feel the pain and emptiness we have without it.  When Jesus called Peter to accept the challenge “to launch, he protested.   But his honest protest also brought him face to face with the emptiness of his own futile efforts.   “Master we have toiled all night, and have taken nothing”  (vs. 5).  This was Peter’s own confrontation with where he was in that moment.   Do you hear what he was saying, when he said,   “Master WE HAVE TOILED ALL NIGHT….AND HAVE TAKEN NOTHING?”   Until we have to face our own “nothing” without God’s abundance, we’ll probably will never even consider the riches of a life lived further and deeper with him. 

This past week, I was watching the morning news, as I normally do, to gain some overview for the demands of my day.   In this news spot, Meredith Vieira was interviewing the cast of MTV’s new controversial hit show,” Jersey Shore.”   From the very graphic description, it’s the kind of show that both rocks and shocks so that people who tune in, will either love it, or hate it.  Many have already been offended by its demeaning and degrading depiction of Italian Americans.   After reporting on the low-life characters and the sleaze content of the show, which displays youth in the most animalistic and base forms of hedonism,  bigotry and sexuality,  Meredith made this comment, which has been made by others elsewhere: “Even my teenage kids watch your show and they found no redeeming value in it at all.”   At this point, the cast just smiled, as if is was exactly this “nothing” which they were all taking to the bank of their own television success.

When we pay nothing, when we care nothing, when we live nothing, and when we promote lives that are base and nothing of lasting value, except the feeding of our own selfish desire and lowest pleasure, when the way we live our lives ends up having “has no redeeming value at all”, do you think there can be any redemption left for anyone at all?   If “Jersey Shore” is the future of Cable Television, or even a realisitic look into American culture and our moral shallowness, and when Jerry Springer and all the other outrageous reality shows become the “settled-for” shallow, carefree or careless reality of our lives…and when we are content to live for no other demands, than we want and demand for ourselves, seeing no higher value, no higher calling and no deeper catch to our lives---where will this take us?   How will it feel to have lived your whole life, but in the end, to have “toiled all night” and finally caught and lived for “nothing?”   Isn’t it when we begin to feel pain and loss of our “nothing” that we find some inner desire to launch into the greater moral and spiritual “deep” God has for us?

But there’s something more to the launching of true discipleship with Jesus.   We not only have to see what we are losing or have lost without him, but we also have to know what it means to trust God enough that we can actually follow and go where he is leading.   However you visualize what it means to “launch” your life into God’s deeper waters of commitment and faith, there is real no movement off the shore of your own emptiness until you trust him and his directing your life, even when you can’t see exactly where he is leading in the moment.   

Most of the reasons we hold back on God is because we can’t trust.   Just as there are so many reasons for the emptiness we can feel in life, there are also all kinds of reasons lose the ability to trust and give ourselves to God’s call.   But whatever the reason for our doubts, but there is only one way we can regain trust.   Trust can only be built by trusting.  Only when we are ready to entrust ourselves to Christ and are willing to both ‘trust and obey’ his words in daring ways, can we see that trust grow and develop.    With discipleship with Jesus there is no possibility in the attitude one who only “waits to see” what might happen.   You don’t gain trust nor go deeper until you start trusting.   You have to listen and find his words “trustable.”   Isn’t this what capture Peter’s trust, when he answered, even with his own personal doubts about it all, “Nevertheless, at thy word, I will let down the net.”

How do we know to trust God’s word to when there are so many charlatans’ and even sharks in the waters?  How do we know that Jesus will be true to what he teaches and demands in his call to us?    How do we know that when we go in to the deep with him, there will be a bountiful catch that fills our deepest longings and satisfies our hungriest souls?   How will we know?   How did Peter know?   He didn’t, except that there he was, already knee deep in water and listening to the voice of one who “spoke like never a man had ever spoken,” but at the same time, spoke as if he was the fulfillment of everything God has been saying and he had been in hope for all along.   The only way Peter knew to trust was to start obeying and giving Jesus his heart in ways that would “test the waters.”    Only trust builds trust, and there is no trust until we begin to entrust ourselves and start building it.  

Finally, just as there is no following Jesus into the deep waters of faith without realizing the nothing of our lives without him, and as there is no building trust without placing it in the hands of the Christ who commands and demands our heart first of all, there is one important move we can make toward the deep God has for our lives.   We must, at last, answer his command to “let down our net” for the catch of our lives.    We can begin to let down our nets when start to ask ourselves, right now, what are we really fishing for?    What is it that you feel you need to catch in your net, for your life to be abundant and full?

Could you think of anything that could cause you to change what you have normally focused your life upon?   I can think of something.   I could see how tomorrow, or even next week, or maybe a day in the not too distant future, you go to the doctor for a routine physical and he comes back into the room and suddenly says, you need to come back for more tests.  Then you go for some more tests and they come out positive, or negative, whichever way you want to express it, and suddenly your whole life will change.   Or perhaps, you’re like a young naïve solider who goes off to Iraq or Afghanistan, and if you do make it back home, nothing is ever the same---all your priorities have changed and how you see the world is so different.   Or maybe an opportunity comes to you never expected, right out of the blue, or there was a moment, you took a risk or you followed your heart, and it had dividends that have enriched your life, forever, so that you are never the same.    

Don’t tell me this kind of miraculous “catch” can’t happen to you!  The miracle of making the catch you never expected happens every day to people.  Someday it will happen to you.  You will see the deep God has for you, in a way you’ve never seen it.  And you will be called to entrust yourself to God in way you’ve never trusted him.  You will see life, not just through the stuff you can have or the things you can do for yourself, but you will see your life through the great resources God has, and through, not what you can claim for yourself, but see a greater calling and you can lose yourself in the needs of the all people who have needs around you.  You will see this, but the question is when?  Will it be now, while you still can, or will it come on the day you realize it is too late?

What we might consider is making that launch into the deep today.  It could bring in the miracle catch your soul has been longing for.   The miracle of the great catch can still happen.   In fact, I saw this kind of miracle last week, on the WXII special, “The Counter”,  when they were commemorating the Greensboro “sit-ins” from 50 years ago, February 1, 1960.   Four guys decided to trust God and to trust what was right enough launch out into the deep of immoral segregation in the south.   They decided to walk up to the counter and ask for service at the “white’s only” Woolworth diner, had no real clue what the catch that was going to happen.   All they knew to do was to trust their hearts to where they knew faith had to lead them into the deep of fear, injustice and prejudice.  What that simple act of faith did, however, was bring in an unbelievable catch.   It lead to sit-ins all over the south and brought  together an entire people who had been far too long oppressed and condemned as “have nots” in a country that had enough.    Ironically, it was an older white woman also at the counter, who was the first witness to what was happening, when she saw what those four young black students were doing.    She saw it even before they could.   She saw the miracle taking place and walked over to them and said, “I wish you’d come in here and done this weeks ago.  This has been going on far too long.”  (As told on the WXII Special Aired on Monday, February 1, 10:00 pm.)  

Those of us, who have never felt the pains and indignity of oppression and prejudice, can’t fully appreciate the miracle in Greensboro, but if you’ve ever been released from any kind of weight of sin or evil,  or if you’ve ever trusted God enough to make your own launch out into the deep before you, you might at least get a glimpse feeling Peter had when he looked at all those fish and cried out, “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.”   Perhaps we’ve all been here, full of doubt, but arrestingly amazed at what God does, with or without us, but this is not where Jesus would leave us---any of us.  He wants to take us to the greater miracle---to the miracle that leads us beyond where we were, who we were, to who we can we and where we can go from here.

The last reflection I have on the miracle----the real miracle in this text---which is not the catching of all the fish, but is of who God wants to catch in the net of his love.   The point to ponder is not will it happen, but when, “how” and “where” will it happen?   Of all things, I hope this miracle of God’s abundance comes to you before you have only a few days left to see it.  And I hope you don’t have to go through a sea of regret and failure before you learn what is out there before you.   I hope that even right now, today, you can decide in your heart to see where the emptiness is, to entrust your life to the Jesus who still calls us to become new people, and who still dares us to launch out to the deep of what God can do right before our own eyes.    This is not just another fish story.  It is God’s story and I hope you can put yourself in it, somewhere, somehow, right now, and today.   Amen. 


© 2010 All rights reserved Charles J. Tomlin, B.A., M.Div. D.Min.