Year C

Luke 5:1-11

The Rev. Denise Vaughn

God Knows We Cannot Do This on Our Own

Almost fourteen years ago, I was sitting alone in a courtyard at a retreat center outside of Austin, TX. It was orientation week for about 24 of us new seminarians. One of our first tasks after arriving, and receiving instruction, was to write the first of many papers that would be required over the next three years. As I feared, I had not done as well as I would have liked and even though I wasn’t the only one that had trouble as many of my fellow classmate’s papers were picked to pieces also, I felt discouraged and somewhat defeated. Given it had been 25 years since I graduated from college and even though ten years earlier, I had written quite a few papers during the three years of study at the diocesan school required for ordination to the diaconate, this was different and I began to wonder what God and I had gotten myself into. This is a question I would ask myself many times over the next three years.

So, I’m sitting in this courtyard, close to tears, feeling very inadequate wondering how I was going to be able to do what I and others thought God wanted me to do. Crying out to God like the psalmist often did, when I had this Epiphany moment. I began to remember all the difficult times before when I needed God’s help, and had cried out to God and was given strength, or peace or wisdom.  So I said to God if this is what you want me to do, please help me because I know I cannot do this on my own.  Those in the text’s today are also very aware of their limits. The Psalmist credit’s God with strengthening his soul that he might “sing about the Lord’s ways” Isaiah, Paul, and the disciples confess their feelings of inadequacy by confessing their sinfulness. Isaiah says in response to his vision of the Lord, “I’m ruined! I’m a man with unclean lips.” Paul says “I don’t deserve to be called an apostle, “because I harassed God’s church.” And Simon Peter, overcome by that overflowing net says “Leave me, Lord, for I’m a sinner!”

Every one of us has had feelings of failure or inadequacy at one time or another, possibly thinking, I’m not good enough.  Jesus just happened one day to come upon a trio of defeated men. He had met these men before, when they were associated with John the Baptizer. Now they were about their work of fishing. But this had been a very bad day. They had fished all night and had caught nothing. Now, when we fish for recreation, this would be frustrating but when it’s your life occupation and the source of your daily bread, a night of empty nets is devastating and defeating.  All this occurred just south of Capernaum near the shores of what Luke calls “the lake of Gennesaret.” The other gospel writers call it the Sea of Galilee.

Jesus had left Capernaum early in the morning and planned to spend time by the sea praying and meditating. But soon a considerable crowd of people, knowing his reputation, gathered to hear him teach “the word of God.” There were no public address systems in those days, so Jesus asked Simon, the owner one of the boats there at the sea shore, to put out a little ways from the shore. The surface of the sea would serve to carry his voice and this would have also enabled Jesus to look into the faces of the multitude as he taught. While Jesus was teaching, the fishermen, after a night of failure, were washing and tending their nets so they’d be ready for the next night’s work.   We have no record of what Jesus said in his message, nor if Peter, James and John had even paid much attention to what he said. We only know that when Jesus finished he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.”

Simon was resistant at first. “Master, we have worked all night but have caught nothing”.  It could have been that because of seasonal factors fishing at night this time of year was more rewarding or that it was quite bold for Jesus, a Rabbi, to tell three professional fishermen how to do their business. Perhaps Jesus was counting on the fact that they were so defeated that they were ready to receive help from anyone or that they would have confidence in him from their earlier experiences with him.  By the time Jesus gets to the beach in chapter five, he has already visited Simon Peter’s home where Peter’s mother-in-law, suffering from a high fever was healed by Jesus along with many others that day.  So we hear Simon quickly add, “Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.”

And as we read, the men did and there were so many fish in the net, the boat began to sink. They had to call in reinforcements to help. Their dark night of failure was turned suddenly into greater success than they had ever known in their fishing career. If this is where the story had ended the miracle might feed our desire for a gospel of success in business and in life, gee Lord you need to come fish with us every time! But it would hardly be worthy of our Lord Jesus Christ. Fortunately, Simon Peter and the other men saw more than just the miracle. Instead of responding as a winner, Simon Peter pleaded for forgiveness. Lord, get out of here. I am not good enough to have you in my boat. And Peter stands in a long biblical tradition about who is good enough to serve the Lord. None of us are good enough, but God wants us anyway.

Jesus dismisses their fearful apprehensions, “Do not be afraid” and challenges them with a life-changing invitation. Come let me make you fishers of people. I want to invite you to give up fish to go fishing. They left everything and followed him.  But they didn’t immediately become fishers of people. Simon Peter for example, spent three years with Jesus and at the end of that time was so bewildered and afraid, he denied he’d ever met him three times. It wasn’t until after Jesus’ death when Peter and the other disciples were able to follow the instructions given by Jesus that they began to catch people. But, before they could catch anyone, their faith had to grow. They had to be willing to move out of safe waters, huddled together behind locked doors and into the dangerous depths, into the midst of real life where the people God loves are to be found.

The good news is the disciples didn’t have to do anything themselves to catch people. God knows we cannot do this on our own. All they had to do was to let down the nets. It was Jesus who made sure the nets were filled. The disciples simply then had to haul them in. The One who calls us is the One who knows that he only has imperfect, inadequate people to call. For our part, we simply have to decide if we are going to move out of safe waters, let down the nets and then get out of the boat once we land on shore. The invitation to serve and follow Christ is greater than any one of us can fulfill. Yet, God calls us and helps us to move beyond our feelings of inadequacy so we can grow into the role and to invest ourselves in Christ’s future. It’s a future of fishing not in our own power, but in Christ’s power. We simply need to be ourselves; to be loving and accepting, Christ followers who care enough about others to want to help, and to believe enough in God to tell others, don’t worry God is faithful. He will fulfill his purpose for us, we just need to follow Jesus and he will fill the nets.