There’s this huge crowd who listen to Jesus passively, and hopefully gets the message. When you go to a church and sit in the back and are anonymous, you’re in the crowd. When you love your church and visit it occasionally, you’re in the crowd. These days the crowd mostly doesn’t even bother coming to church. If you get your spirituality from videos and books, you’re in the crowd. It’s OK to be in the crowd. Hard to get close to Jesus, and some people like it better that way. It’s pretty hard around this church to be in the crowd. And that is the blessing of being a small church. What we do makes a difference.
The first thing Jesus said to Simon Peter was, “This crowd is pushing me into the lake. Can I get into your boat?” Probably Jesus has never said exactly that to you, “Can I get into your boat?” But how about…
“Can I get into your car, with some canned goods to deliver to the food shelf?”
“Can I get into your fellowship hall, to house a couple of friends? And would you mind cooking us a few meals too?”
“Can I get you to do some caretaking for this relative or that friend? Can I get you to lend your time and your voice for this nonprofit or that advocacy group?”
“Can I get into your schedule? Can I get into your bank account? Can I get into your life and stir things up? ”
When that happens, you are invited out of the crowd. Jesus’ questions interrupt what we thought we were supposed to be doing. Note the difference between listening to Jesus, that’s what the crowd does, and letting him into your boat, that’s what his followers do. Listening is easy, and cheap, and doesn’t mess with your plans. Letting Jesus into your boat means you really don’t know what may happen next, and that’s OK.
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Brea Congregational United Church of Christ
February 10, 2019
To Be Honest
Luke 5:1-11 Once while Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, 2 he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. 3 He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. 4 When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” 5 Simon answered, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.” 6 When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. 7 So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink. 8 But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” 9 For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken; 10 and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” 11 When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.
Our gospels contain lots of fish stories, well, fishing boat stories anyway. Jesus and his disciples lived on the shores of Lake Galilee, also known as Lake Tiberias (in John’s gospel) or Lake Gennesaret; the first disciples were fishermen by trade. So Jesus calms storms, preaches from boats, walks on water, and he occasionally orchestrates huge catches of fish. And to be honest, I always get a little queasy when I get to the stories that talk about boats full of fish and being “fishers of people” or of “catching people”. You know. Evangelism. I’ll jump into the deep end of the lake with Jesus. But evangelism? It sounds great in theory, but I have no idea how to catch people with integrity. For one thing, the metaphor of fishing lacks the element of choice that I would want for people to come to.
Another thing, the fish are onto us. Either they walk right in the front door of their own choice or they go out of their way to avoid us. I have this clergy collar. I tried wearing it at the Starbucks at Brea Boulevard and Imperial to hang out and work. I had heard from other pastors that they had office hours in a coffee shop, and had strangers come up and chat, and had all kinds of deep and meaningful conversations. That may work in other parts of the country. For me, at a Brea Starbucks, it was like wearing an invisibility cloak. Everyone’s eyes just slid right off me. It was the weirdest experience. This is not an intrinsic property of a clergy collar in Orange County. I can wear my collar to political rallies and I’m not invisible. I’m received with enthusiasm. But I look at that “catch people” invitation, and I do not know how to do that.
And then there’s all the fish. Not at Starbucks, in our reading. So many fish, they started to sink the boats, even though it was the wrong time of day to catch fish. That mind-blowing miracle that proved to everyone that God was at work. To be honest, I’m skeptical of those kinds of showy miracles. Sometimes I do need to be hit over the head before I get the message, but so many fish they sink the boat? Really? This stunt just makes us dubious of our own experiences of the sacred that are much less showy. Even Simon Peter didn’t enjoy this display of overabundance. “Too much, I don’t deserve it, and you’re embarrassing me in front of my friends!”
The story is clearly symbolic. Jesus has a message to get through to a whole lot of people. Who’s going to help him? Simon Peter and his friends did abandon their fishing business and go on the road with Jesus, to catch people you could say. And aren’t we supposed to be helping? Luke was helping, and his was a different world than ours.
It’s hard for us to imagine the Roman beliefs that Luke was trying to transform by his evangelism. In that world gods were amoral powers. They not only didn’t care about morality; they didn’t care about people. If they looked on humans at all, they saw us as pawns, servants for their convenience. Maybe you could bribe a god with a good offering. Just as likely, you would anger one by not leaving the right offering at the right shrine. I know this way of thinking is hard to picture. I met a man who was raised with a worldview like this. He had grown up in rural Laos. Every rock and every crossroads might have a spirit that you could offend, and that spirit could curse you. You never felt safe. He was so relieved when he became a Christian, because Jesus would handle any spirits that wanted to mess with him. He no longer had to live in fear. What a relief!
Rome also had a state religion, but that was just about power, loyalty to the emperor and the civic order, and everybody just went through the motions. Ordinary people could not aspire to heaven; heaven was only for heroes and rulers, and maybe a few people who participated in expensive mystery cults. Ordinary people, when they died, went to Hades, land of the shades, and slowly faded away.
In the book of Colossians, Luke is called the beloved physician. He clearly wanted to heal not just bodies but souls. The Good News for Luke is that followers of Jesus can access the God of the Jews. That ancient and moral and powerful God is now available to all people. And heaven! Jesus opened the gates of heaven and made it available to ordinary people.
That doesn’t impress us at all. Most of us have grown up knowing that we could get to heaven, perhaps with some requirements of belief or behavior. This idea that ordinary people like you and I could get into heaven was brand new in Luke’s time. Ordinary people can be filled with God’s spirit? Ordinary people invited to the heavenly banquet? God cares about ordinary people? And more. Despised minorities, women and children, slaves, all these people (or non-people, as they were thought of) had eternal value. This was news, Good News. This was the message of salvation that Luke helped bring to the Roman world. Salvation means rescue, in this case from Hades— and salvation means healing, from worthlessness, to eternal value. Even if you don’t care about otherworldly things, remember that for Luke it was both-and: both heaven and earth. The heavenly banquet is the template for social justice on earth.
Luke, beloved physician, had a soft spot for hopeless cases. Luke’s is the gospel with the most beautiful stories of love and forgiveness. The Good Samaritan is only in Luke. The Lost Sheep and the Prodigal Son are only in Luke. From the cross, Jesus says, “Father forgive them, for they don’t know what they’re doing,” only in Luke. OK, Luke, I’ll try to stop whining about evangelism and enjoy your good news, even if it’s a little different flavor than our good news. Our Good News is in our mission statement.[1] Salvation? Yes, rescue for those who think that God would exclude them because of who they are. And healing: relationships, and our planet. Good News indeed.
Back to our fish story. There’s this huge crowd who listen to Jesus passively, and hopefully gets the message. When you go to a church and sit in the back and are anonymous, you’re in the crowd. When you love your church and visit it occasionally, you’re in the crowd. These days the crowd mostly doesn’t even bother coming to church. If you get your spirituality from videos and books, you’re in the crowd. It’s OK to be in the crowd. Hard to get close to Jesus, and some people like it better that way. It’s pretty hard around this church to be in the crowd. And that is the blessing of being a small church. What we do makes a difference.
The first thing Jesus said to Simon Peter was, “This crowd is pushing me into the lake. Can I get into your boat?” Probably Jesus has never said exactly that to you, “Can I get into your boat?” But how about…
“Can I get into your car, with some canned goods to deliver to the food shelf?”
“Can I get into your fellowship hall, to house a couple of friends? And would you mind cooking us a few meals too?”
“Can I get you to do some caretaking for this relative or that friend? Can I get you to lend your time and your voice for this nonprofit or that advocacy group?”
“Can I get into your schedule? Can I get into your bank account? Can I get into your life and stir things up? ”
When that happens, you are invited out of the crowd. Jesus’ questions interrupt what we thought we were supposed to be doing. Note the difference between listening to Jesus, that’s what the crowd does, and letting him into your boat, that’s what his followers do. Listening is easy, and cheap, and doesn’t mess with your plans. Letting Jesus into your boat means you really don’t know what may happen next, and that’s OK.
It’s fun letting Jesus into you boat. Hey, we’re making a contribution. But then Jesus challenges us further. “Go do something a little wacky for me, would you? I know you think it won’t work, but humor me.” In Simon Peter’s case, throwing the nets out in the deep, in the middle of the day. In your case? To be honest, I have no idea. In the case of this church? Hmm… interesting question.
A funny thing happens as we compute the cost-benefit of the imposition of following Jesus, the call to generosity, or to compassion, or to solidarity. We discover that our math is all messed up. What should have cost us time and energy and sleep actually blessed us and inspired us. We gave more and we came out ahead. Not in the miraculous fashion of this fish story, but in meaning, in hope, in relationship, in awe.
To be honest, that is not how we have been taught that blessing works. We’ve been taught the bootstrap method of achievement. Either it’s our virtue and diligence and hard work that earns the blessing– no wonder Simon Peter feels guilty– or else we have a mighty big debt to pay off. But God doesn’t work that way. The thing that we need to give to the world gives us inspiration and satisfaction.
We are a little church. By the measure of fish overflowing out of boats, we are not cutting it. Or are we? How many lives do each of us touch in a week? And what little morsels of good news can each of us share? How do we witness gently and respectfully to the salvation, the healing and rescue that Jesus offers, in our work and our caring and our conversation and our giving and our quiet smiles? To be honest, I have no idea. But I suspect it matters more than we realize.
Our culture has taught us that bigger is better. But Jesus never asked us for bigger. He just wants to get in our boat. What a gift, what a blessing, to be the means of sharing the Good News of God’s salvation: that God’s welcome is for all, that God lifts up the oppressed, that God heals and restores and blesses all. Luke did it in his way, and you will do it in yours. So… try letting Jesus into our boat? Make room for healing, inspiration, social justice, in our daily life. Maybe it won’t look like what you think. Maybe you do your best ministry just talking to your neighbors, or at work, about things that seem off-topic. To be honest, I can’t know what will happen when Jesus gets into your boat. It will be an adventure. Amen.
[1]Brea Congregational United Church of Christ is an Open and Affirming hospitality-based community of faith. We welcome in worship and service all of God’s children of any race, origin, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, or ability. We celebrate and trust the transforming power of God, which was manifested through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We work to provide an environment of peace, social justice, personal empowerment, and spiritual growth, and to dedicate ourselves to the care of God’s Creation. Our ethical guides are to honor Christian openness to share our beliefs, doubts, struggles, and growth within the context of mutual respect. Therefore, our purpose is to reach out, taking the risk of opening ourselves to the possibility of making the stranger a friend.
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