February 4, 2007 Isaiah 6:1-8

5^th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Luke 5:1-11

"NET GAINS"

Our Gospel lesson for the morning involves fishing, a subject I know little about. My only real fishing experience was with my grandfather who took me to a local lake to teach me to fish. I must have been about eight years old. Early on a summer’s day my grandfather and I walked to the lake on his farm. I didn’t own a fishing rod, so he cut a young branch from a nearby tree, tied a string on the end of it and a hook on the end of the string. He wanted me to put a worm on that hook, which I absolutely could not do! After he baited the hook—and I grimaced in shock and felt queasy in my stomach!—he told me to sit quietly on the bank so as not to disturb the fish. As he was leaving to go fish in another part of the lake, he handed me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with the instructions that I should eat it at lunch-time.

Well, my grandfather was a man of few words, and his idea of a good time was sitting by himself quietly on the bank of a lake. As an extroverted young girl, I soon found out that sitting quietly by oneself on a bank was torture. Within about ten minutes of my grandfather’s departure I had eaten the sandwich. Since I could not sing or hum or talk to myself, I entertained myself by lifting my rod up to see if the worm were still alive on the end of the hook! I was genuinely worried about that worm, and I was genuinely bored with this inactivity on a bright summer’s day. Needless to say, I caught no fish that day. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I wouldn’t have known what to do if I had caught one.

So I guess on some level I understand the disappointment that Peter, James, and John felt on the day that they caught no fish. Now their disappointment must have been much greater than mine. After all, they were commercial fishermen, and they depended on a catch of fish for their livelihood. Nevertheless, Peter admits, "We have worked all night long but have caught nothing" (Luke 5:5a). They had nothing to show for their efforts, and now Peter and his friends James and John were standing on the shore washing their nets.

Along comes Jesus and a throng a people. In trying to avoid the press of the crowd, Jesus climbs into Peter’s boat with Peter still in it and teaches the crowds who had assembled on the nearby shore. But after Jesus finishes teaching the crowd, he commands Peter to "put out into the deep water [that is, go out into the middle of the lake] and let down your nets for a catch" (Luke 5:4). We can only imagine Peter’s exasperation at this suggestion, since he had been fishing fruitlessly all night long. Nevertheless, Peter responds, "If you say so, I will let down the nets" (Luke 5:5b).

Much to Peter’s amazement his nets are quickly filled to overflowing. What I like so much about this story is the idea of surprise of God. When you least expect it, the unexpected happens. This point was driven home to me on several occasions this past week.

Consider the relationship between two people. What starts out as a friendship blossoms into a romance. All of a sudden, a dear friend becomes the love of your life. That is the surprise of God.

Or consider the person who gets a divorce, thinking that this is the end of the world. At a time of great loneliness, disappointment, and fear of the future, the divorced person is suddenly surrounded by the amazing love, the overwhelming support and the constant encouragement of family and friends. That is the surprise of God.

Or consider the person who knows that something is missing in his or her life, but they don’t know what that something is. Not knowing what else to do, he or she walks into a church and suddenly realizes what has been missing in their life. The sense of peace, the feeling of coming home, the knowledge that one is where they need to be is overwhelming. That is the surprise of God.

What these stories, and the story of the call of Peter, illustrate that the Christian life is expecting the unexpected. When we think that nothing can change or things can only get worse, then God surprises us and shows us that things do change, that things can get better. Our God is not confined to the expected. These stories remind us that our God does what we least expect when we least expect it.

But there is another important point to be learned from this story. When Peter’s boat was filled to capacity, almost to the point of sinking from the weight of the fish, he cries out to Jesus, "Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!" (Luke 5:8). What Peter expresses is what all feel in those unexpected moments of grace, and that is a sense of unworthiness.

We can see this also in our Isaiah lesson. The prophet Isaiah, surrounded by the presence and grace of God, feels a tremendous sense of unworthiness. He proclaims, "Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts" (Isaiah 6:5).

The Apostle Paul also acknowledges his unworthiness when he describes his encounter with the Risen Christ in our epistle lesson for today. In 1 Corinthians 15, after Paul talks about how Christ has appeared to him, he asserts that he is "the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle" (1 Cor. 15:9). A feeling of personal unworthiness and profound sense of humility are always the result of the gracious surprise of God.

But notice that even though Peter asks Jesus to leave him—"Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!" (Luke 5:8)—Jesus pretty much ignores Peter. Jesus remains in that boat with Peter. And that is also an important point of the story. Jesus does not abandon us. While we may experience the surprise of God on occasion, we all live with Jesus in our life-boat. Even if we want Jesus to leave, he pretty much ignores us. We are not rowing alone, adrift on the vast lake of life, working in vain and unnoticed far from the shore of safety. Jesus is in the boat with us—today, tomorrow, and forever. And that is the surprise of God.

The great preacher William Sloane Coffin wrote about this passage: "The miraculous catch was not the haddock and shad and whatever else Peter and the rest of them caught that day, but the fact that Peter and the rest were caught up, even as we are, in the net of Christ’s love" (Credo, p. 25). Truly, we have been caught up "in the net of Christ’s love." And that is the surprise of God.