Trinity 5 – July 20th,
2014 – Luke 5:1-11
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit +
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit +
There are times when I will read a text, and thoughts of
all the lousy, horrible ways people will treat that text and preach on it go
flashing through my mind. I read the
Gospel text for today, and thoughts of some preacher droning on excitedly about
how God’s gonna give you a great catch of fish in your own life if you just do
X, Y, and Z zip through my head – as though that’s even the point of the
text. I doubt we can look to this text
to be the “Christian Guide to Growing Your Business” when the last verse is “they
left everything and followed Him.”
If anything, it’s about how your business isn’t the most important
thing, even if you are making ginormous catches of fish. If you’ve grown up in America, you’ve
been surrounded by a culture that gives you all sorts of expectations about
wealth and power and what success means – and it’s always more and more and
more. Bigger and newer and better. We aren’t taught that here in this text. Rather, let’s pay close attention to the
text, and see what is going on.
“On one occasion, while the crowd was pressing in on Him to hear the
Word of God, He was standing by the lake of Gennesaret, and He saw two boats by
the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their
nets. Getting into one of the boats,
which was Simon’s, He asked Him to put out a little from the land. And He sat down and taught the people from
the boat.” The set up here is
completely practical. You’ve got a large
crowd wanting to hear Jesus preach – well, how are you going to accomplish
that? Unless Jesus wants to be shouting
at the top of His lungs all day, you need to do something. So what do you do? You bring them up on the shore – where you
have that downward slope to the lake creating a little amphitheater – plus if
you go out on the water you get a nice acoustic advantage – and so Jesus drafts
Peter. Let me borrow your boat. And out they go, and Jesus teaches.
“And when He had finished speaking, He said to Simon, ‘Put out into the
deep and let down your nets for a catch.’” Alright – the sermon is done. Wer’e about to go home! Right?
Wait… fish… work? Now? Peter is confused – “Master, we toiled all night and
we took nothing!” And Peter is
possibly cranky. He’d been up all night,
and it had been a lousy night, they hadn’t caught anything. And now this Fellow who had drafted his boat
and made him listen to a long sermon when he was already tired tells him to
fish now… in the day light, when the fish – if there actually are any in this
stinking lake – are all going to be much lower, and all you’ll catch are a
bunch of weeds, so we’ll have to clean the nets again and it will be an utter
waste. Jesus tells Peter to do something
which to all the world seems utter foolishness.
But Peter continues, “But at Your Word I will let down the
nets.” And when they had done this, they
enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking. They signaled to their partners in the other
boat to come and help them. And they
came and filled both the boats so that they began to sink. Christ’s foolish plan pays off. It’s a humongous catch – one cast of the net
topping what you would get for two boats in a full, busy good night. The other boat has to hurry on out there,
they are swimming in fish – almost literally, as in if they don’t hurry to
shore the boats are going to sink.
So – what ought Peter’s reaction be to this? Should he give loud praises to God for God’s
abundance? Or maybe he ought to try and
offer Jesus a job – you know, You’re pretty good at this finding the shoals of
fish gig. We could make a killing with
You. Or should Peter just marvel at how
wondrous this is – isn’t that the nice pious thing we are supposed to do? Sigh and say, “Oh, wasn’t that nice”? That’s not Peter’s reaction. “But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down
at Jesus’ knees saying, ‘Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.’” There’s Peter’s reaction. When the enormity of what is going on sits in
– when he doesn’t have to scramble to just keep the boat afloat, what does
Peter do? He confesses his sin. He confesses his sin and asks Jesus to leave,
to go and never come back. He confesses
that Jesus is Lord – this is God here in your boat, this is the Messiah… and
sinners are not worthy to be next to the Messiah. Sinners are not worthy to be in God’s
presence – there is no worth or merit in Peter, nothing that God would want or
should want with him. So… just go… go before
my sin gets me killed. Let me at least
live, let me just get back to the normal, everyday life at hand with nights of
frustration and empty nets. Do not smite
me, a sinful man.
What Peter says here is wise, wiser than most of our
reactions would have been. There is
power and might in that boat, power and might in Christ Jesus – and you don’t
mess with it. We teach our kids not to
play with matches – you certainly don’t play with them around a gas
station! Things could go boom – and
right there, in that boat, is God Almighty – and you don’t play around with
God, you don’t treat Him all casual. You
don’t mess with that – you don’t gamble with God – know when to fold ‘em, know
when to walk away and when to run.
Depart from me, for I am a sinful man.
That is fantastic earthly, human wisdom there on Peter’s part. But Jesus has something else in mind. “And Jesus said to him, ‘Do not be afraid;
from now on you will be catching men.’
And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and
followed Him.” I’ve got
something else in store for you, Peter – oh, and you too James and John. You are going to be disciples, you are going
to be My students and servants, and I will use you to catch men.
So what now? Shall I
go then into the 5 practical things you here can do to catch men? The 7 simple steps – here’s when you let down
those Gospel Nets to make sure you just pack ‘em in! Oh, there is so much clap trap out there that
misses the point, the object of the lesson.
First Corinthians nails what the point is – “For the foolishness of God is
wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” You know what the point of the Gospel lesson
is? What God does, what Jesus does looks
and seems stupid. Apart from faith,
Jesus looks like the world’s biggest idiot.
He does. Fish in the middle of
the day – dumb. Look, you’ve got the
secret to fishing, but instead of making money hand over fist – walk away. Dumb.
Seriously, Jesus, spend two weeks fishing and finance Your preaching for
years – not what He does. You know what
that would be like – “Oh look, it’s a gusher – eh, I’ll not pump that well,
I’ll just walk away.” By worldly
standards, that is dumb. And using Peter
– calling James and John to be disciples?
Dumb. Now, don’t get me wrong –
Peter, James, and John aren’t idiots – you don’t run your own business if you
are stupid. But if you were going to
start the new religious revolution – why not get some well respected Pharisees
to be your disciples, or some people who are already popular? Instead, fishermen from Galilee.
Jesus, you could have picked better disciples – these were weak.
This is what Paul calls the foolishness of God. In fact, this is what you see from Jesus
constantly. Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you. Don’t worry about what you eat or what you
will wear. Behold, I am sending you out
like lambs among lions. And then to tick
off the leaders, to remain silent before Pilate when falsely accused – to the
world, rank stupidity. And it leads to what
the world thinks is the dumbest, most foolish thing in the world – the
Cross. “For the Word of the Cross is
folly to those who are perishing” – thus the wagging tongues at the
crucifixion! “He saved others; He cannot save
Himself!” It seems utter folly.
And the utter folly seems to continue in Christ’s Church to
this very day. What do we see when we
look around? A small church that’s smaller
than it was a decade ago, in [a wheat field that stopped being a town 100 years
ago/ a rural community that is shrinking], with a preacher whose got a speech
impediment and a lisp. Well there’s a
crackerjack idea! And if we think like
the world, like the mighty and haughty – this right now seems like a silly
thing. Nothing new with that. What does Paul write to Corinth – “For consider your calling,
brothers; not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many
were powerful, not many were of noble birth.” But that worldly standard misses the
point. “For the word of the cross is folly
to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of
God.” Do we see, do we realize
what happens here? Christ Jesus died
upon the cross, He rose again, He atoned for the sins of the world. And what happens right here in this
place? The power of God is exercised for
you, you who are being saved, right now, this instant. This font, right here – the baptisms that
take place here overthrow the powers of Hell, cast Satan out. The world out there doesn’t get that – but it
is the power of God for salvation, for your salvation. A simple liturgy, a short sermon – Lord have
mercy – I forgive you – peace be with you – and what happens? The fall itself is undone, and you are no
longer merely sinners doomed to death, but you are forgiven and given life,
life everlasting, you will rise again even if you die because of Christ. The world doesn’t get that. Or the Supper, Holy Communion. What does the world see – nothing but a bit
of bread and wine and a pastor doing some hand waving mumbo jumbo. Yet what is it – it is Christ Jesus Himself
giving you His own Body and Blood for the forgiveness of your sins, for the
strengthening of your faith, so that when you rise to eternal life on the last
day you will reign with Christ forever when all the stuff of this world is
turned to ash and forgotten about.
Because Christ Jesus will not depart from you, o sinner. Instead, He comes to you today in His Word,
and with that Word of the Cross He forgives sinners and makes them to live, to
see and have a life beyond what the world blabbers about – this is the wisdom
of God – to save you, here, now to catch us men and women for eternal life. And if the world doesn’t get it – oh well. The world never has.
We get a wonderful truth taught and shown and given to us
in our Gospel lesson, dear friends. It’s
not a promise of earthly wealth or power – it’s not the secret for more
prestige, whether personal or for this congregation. It’s a truth that the world just cannot
fathom. Though you are a sinner and
deserve nothing good from God, God in His Wisdom has sent Christ Jesus to the
Cross, so that He can forgive you, come to you in His Word, and bring you,
forgiven and resurrected, to be with Him for all eternity. This foolishness of God – where by He takes
poor miserable sinners like us and makes
us to reign eternally with Him – it is for your good and benefit. God grant us faith to see this and cling to
Christ ever more! Amen. In the Name of the Father and of the Son and
of the Holy Spirit +
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