Luke 5:1-11

 

I.        Have you gone deep-sea fishing?  or been fishing in a large lake where you might lose sight of land in a bad storm?

A.       The first time for a land-lubber can indeed be a humbling experience!

1.       Joe Nettekoven was my best friend. He and I were seniors at Whittier High  School in Southern California in 1963. We decided to go deep-sea fishing out of San Diego after school was out for the summer. We made a side-trip to Tijuana on a Friday night, then we arrived at the dock and boarded the chartered fishing boat around 10 PM. The crew told us we would not leave the harbor until 2 or 3 AM, so Joe and I spread our sleeping bags on the deck and lay there listening to the anglers pop the tabs on beer cans and play cards.

2.       By 8 the next morning we had long since left the sight of the California shoreline. It was cool and foggy. I loved it; Joe did not. I went up into the galley with Joe.  I was used to a tossing boat on a rough sea; Joe was not I ordered hot coffee, bacon, eggs and toast. When the smell of breakfast reached his nostrils, Joe had a sudden need to dash out and lean over the railing. A school of whales popped up and accompanied us from a safe distance, but even at 200 yards, they dwarfed our boat with its 40 anglers. Until mid-afternoon Joe and I fished. We had the luck of Peter, not so much as a nibble on our hooks. 

3.       When we got back into port, we made our way to Joe’s VW in the parking lot. We had to wait–dirty, tired and sunburned– for the people parked in front of us to take pictures of each other with their catches, then have it weighed and cleaned and loaded in their vehicle before we could move. On the 100 mile drive back up coastal highway 101, Joe got a speeding ticket.

4.       Something from that trip convinced Joe that he was not cut out to be a commercial fisherman. Today Joe is a Catholic priest.

 

B.       If you find yourself hopelessly out to sea, or far from shore in a deep, cold lake, take a good look around you.

1.       You are at the mercy of the elements, at the whim of Mother Nature.

2.       Who is fishing alongside you? How well do you know him?

a.       What one person would you pick to trust in a sudden emergency?

b.       Do you remember the block-buster from the 90's, “The Titanic?” 

3.       How sturdy is the boat you are in? Do you know anything about the crew?

 

C.       Start seeing the fishing boat as a metaphor for our church.

1.       Like the disciples, we are all in this together; we sink or we swim; we try and catch fish, and we usually end up helping each other.

2.       The story of Jesus and the storm at sea is a parable for the church.

3.       There is a simple prayer I like for fishing folk up off the eastern coast of Breton Canada:

                                      “Protect me oh Lord for my boat is so small

                                      My boat is so small and your sea is so wide

                                      Protect me oh Lord.”

                                                          a.       Even deaf children learn this prayer in sign language.

4.       Jesus did not just show up on the waterfront one morning. He was after four fishermen he had been watching. He understood the character of those who go fishing, their devotion; their skills; their obsession.

a.       These 4 had potential to be kingdom people, in many respects they had the same qualities of good sheep herders.

5.       The small boats of  Galilean fisherman, powered only by oars or a small sail in the lakes or rivers.  These were not sea-faring vessels, but the tiny, bobbing skiffs which Paul uses in Ephesians 4 for an analogy of Christians who waver “...children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the cunning of men...” as opposed to those in the church who grow up into Christ, joined and knit together in full love.

 

II.       In Herman Melville’s novel, Moby Dick, on a cold December night before the men shipped out in the Pequod, a whaling vessel,  the citizens all gathered to pray in the New Bedford village church called “the Bethel” or the Seaman’s House of Prayer.  What were they praying for?  For safety on the voyage, for revenge against a bull whale, Moby Dick?. Still Today, those in “the fellowship of the fishermen,” pray every Sunday night for those who go out on the seas.

A.       How would you pray for those who fish...for the men and women Jesus calls to follow him? ... [pause]                                 ones whom

1.       I found many prayers for fishermen,  but few which were serious, very few of an intercessory nature.

2.       My favorite is found in the words of this hymn:.

a.       “Eternal Father, strong to save,                                          

whose arm has bound the restless wave,                                   

Who bade the mighty ocean deep                                              

Its own appointed limits keep;                                                   

O hear us when we cry to Thee                                               

For those in peril on the sea.”

b.       Our Navy Hymn was written by Englishman William Whiting in 1860 for a friend of his who was embarking on a ship for America.

c.       It is also the official hymn of the British Navy.

 

B.       In my prayer for those who go deep-sea fishing, I must include 5 petitions based on Luke’s text...

1.       I will pray that those whom God calls will “‘put out into the deep.’”

2.       I would pray that they say, “‘at your word I will let down the nets.’” 

3.       Then, third, I am going to pray that they will need to “beckon to their partners in the other boat to come and help them.”

4.       Fourth, I must pray, for them to fall down and say, “‘Depart from me, O Lord, for I am sinful.’”  

5.       Then what is my final petition? That these who know only how to fish will leave their boats, leave everything behind to follow him.      

 

C.       When God calls us, he does not leave us walking in solitude along the shoreline. Nor is God satisfied to let us fish in familiar, favorite spots, but says to us, “‘Put out into the deep.’”  

1.       I will pray that those of you whom God calls to be in his boat that you will boldly put out into the deep in your small church boat.

2.       Christ requires of you an abrupt shift in direction like the wind swirling over the water, new strategies and paradigms, new leadership, to be those who are fearlessly reformed and always reforming.

3.       To follow Jesus is never a conservative, traditional choice.

a.       Imagine if Simon Peter had said instead, “Now just a minute, we have worked all night long, and we never find fishing good in mid-day. It is best to stick to the shallows. Besides, I don’t swim.”

b.       Do you think Jesus does not know Peter cannot swim when he invites him, in a moment of embarrassing impulsiveness,  to come to him walking on water?!   (page 2)

4.       Jesus told you in this church, “‘Put out into the deep...’” and you did it. A few did not, but stayed on the shoreline as bystanders. Others found it to fearful to embark. But you have successfully navigated the currents and sandbars.

 

D.       Next, Simon Peter answers Jesus with what is a confession of faith, “‘at your word I will let down the nets.’” This is my second prayer request.

1.       Like the begging Syrophoenician mother, a fishing person’s prayer has to be, “‘Lord, I believe; even so help me in my unbelief.’”

2.       Peter says, “‘But at your word’” – this is his prayer for guidance from God’s Spirit,

a.       the creative power of God’s Word brings order and purpose over the face of the chaotic waters.

3.       And what are these nets, if not the tools of the church’s mission and witness, our reaching out to the needy, the poor, the lost, the lonely?

a.       The psalmist also laments about the wicked who have seized the poor and dragged them off in their net (Psalm 10:9).

4.       We come to church for no other reason than to let down our nets in service to Christ and others.

 

E.       In this text, Jesus calls one individual for a certain task, yet Simon realizes he cannot do it all alone, though his pride might tempt him to try. My third petition for those who are called to a vocation out at sea is that they will call to their partners in the other boats to help them.

1.       These fishermen must spend as much time mending and drying their nets as using them to fish.

a.       You and I do not enjoy fixing, sewing up our nets, cleaning and calking our boat.

b.       If we do not invest the time doing so, we will never haul in a load of fish or be led to that great shoal.

2.       On the Southern California coast, near the Newport pier, we used to go early in the morning to watch the dorries come in from as far as 20 miles out to sea with their catch, which they sold to those eagerly waiting on the beach.  These dorry fishermen would get up and go out at 3 a.m. When they were done selling their fish, it was around 10. Then it was time for the women to go to work, wash down the boats, help their men clean and hang up the nets.

3.       This call to their partners in another boat is an indication that we are involved in a group venture, our whole church, each with different tasks.

a.       Before they were shipwrecked on the island of Malta, in Acts 27, Paul warned everyone onboard their Mediterranean ship not to abandon ship; all would survive together as one.

b.       Then Paul broke bread and gave thanks to God; he presided over the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.    

                                      4.       This is an ecumenical summons, for churches to work together and pool our resources.  For we each have a different boat.

 

F.       Fourth, this leads Peter to fall down and confess that he is a sinner, and he asks Jesus to depart from him. My fourth petition is for Christ’s fishermen to be the same kind of person, always in need of being on our knees before Christ, confessing our unworthiness.

1.       So much more powerfully this same image is driven home in Peter’s trying to walk on water: his initial reaction of boldness, but then fear sets in,

                             (page 3)

doubt comes, he fails, begins to sink, he cries out desperately, “‘Lord, save me.’”

2.       Notice here in our fishing story, the unbelievable success comes after the frustrating night. Only then Simon realizes his sinfulness and confess.

a.       Only in retrospect do we realize Christ’s gift on the Cross and the wonder of his Resurrection. Only after we know we are completely forgiven and loved, are we able to confess our total depravity.

3.       In the Easter story in John 21, immediately following the miraculous catch, John announces his resurrection faith and jumps ship, leaving the others. Thus, the John 21 episode is a total reversal– of one eager to be about his new mission.

a.       a new paradigm for an Easter church, for a church with a new pastor and a new pilot of their boat!

b.       “‘Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men and women and children.’”

c.       A promise, a commission, something to celebrate with joy!

 

G.       But this confession of sin is absolutely necessary before the final petition. Because without confession and each of us claiming God’s forgiveness personally, our church can never leave the nets behind, leave everything we have ever done there on the beach and follow him.

1.       Imagine how radical and total that is.

2.       The final scene...and yet not a final scene, it is a new beginning in Luke.

3.       Father Daniel McCarthy, in a June, 2009, article, reflects on his walk along the lower banks of the Tiber River in Rome, and how fishing the eddy and the currents of the Tiber even from the banks, offers a great challenge.  He writes “Gone Fishin’ for a Prayer,”as this Catholic priest prepares to consecrate the sacramental meal of the Holy Eucharist.

a.       “ What unites us on this fishing trip is our reflection upon the mystery of life in Christ. We may see others’ hopes within ourselves and make their prayer our own... Our meditations on these prayers benefit people today, because it takes the skill of a fisher to appreciate the prayer’s words and to recite them so that in the hearing they become the prayer of the assembly (the whole church)  capable of bearing our hopes before God.”

 

 

                             May all of God’s fishing people say... “Amen!”