I began to write this on St.Patrick’s Day – 17th March 2001 – the anniversary of that great missionary’s death about 460 A.D.

Patrick was one of the greatest Christians who ever lived – a man of prayer, a man of the Scriptures, and with incredible faith and evangelistic energy, and above all a deep love for God. Thirty years he tramped the roads and forded the rivers of Ireland to see men and women ‘reborn in God’ and come to know the Christ he loved so much. An amazingly effective missionary, he baptized tens of thousands of people and established hundreds of churches throughout that green land. Within a century this once pagan land became predominantly Christian.

You’ve all read Angela’s Ashes or seen the movie and of course the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland is very different from the churches Patrick planted. But you can say that for every church over time – even the churches of your own denomination. I’m a Baptist – and our Anabaptist forbears would be astonished at some of the goings-on in Baptist Churches around the world today!

‘We ought to fish well and diligently, as our Lord exhorts,’ he wrote. ‘Hence, we spread our nets so that a great multitude and throng might be caught for God.’ So let’s hear one of St. Patrick’s favorite stories: ‘When Jesus had finished speaking to the crowds, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” Simon answered, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.” When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. So they signalled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken; 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.” When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.’ (Luke 5:4-11)

This gospel reading is about three discouraged men – four actually if you count Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother who appears in other accounts of this – or a similar – story. They were fishermen – not recreational fishermen, but workers whose families went hungry if there was no catch. It was a very bad day. They had fished all night and caught nothing. Now it was morning, the morning after a night of failure, and they were washing their nets to be ready for the next night’s work. There was a crowd on the beach near where they were working. A big crowd. They were listening to Jesus – pressing in upon him. Jesus is in the water – out a way from the crowd. Suddenly Jesus steps into Simon’s boat. “Put out a little way from shore”, he asks Peter, and he does. From the boat Jesus continues to teach the crowds. Finally he is done. The crowd goes home.

1. [WORSHIP]. JESUS INVITES US INTO A LIFE OF RADICAL OBEDIENCE AND COMMITMENT.

Jesus turns to Simon. ‘Put out into the deep water’, he tells him, ‘and let your nets down for a catch.’ It was really quite audacious for Jesus, a carpenter and a ‘landsman’, to tell a professional fisherman how to do his business. They were ‘the experts in the trade’ so Peter answers Jesus immediately by explaining some fishing facts to him. Peter and Andrew, James and John – they were not stupid men. They knew the lake, the ledges where the fish congregated, the kind of weather you had to have to bring in a good catch. Their families had been working the lake for generations. They knew the time to fish – and where to fish, and they had gone fishing – at the right time – and at the right place – and come up empty. (I was in a fishing boat on that lake in Galilee last year and they told us that the fish come from the deep water to the shallows during the night…)

‘It won’t do any good,’ he says, ‘We have worked all night – and have caught nothing. There is no point to it.’

Have you ever been there? You do your best. You work hard. And the results are zero. An important relationship goes sour and there is nothing you can do. You watch a marriage dissolve and you can’t save it. A project you have worked upon just will not work out. The harder you try, the less you produce. And all your wisdom tells you to just give up. I have, and the last thing you want to hear are the words ‘Try harder’. ‘Try over there’, Jesus says. ‘Over there in the deep water – let your nets down for a catch.’

‘Master, we have done everything we should have done, everything we were taught to do by our fathers and their fathers before them, but we have caught nothing… We tried our best all night, we tried it and it didn’t work. Yet – if you say so – I will let down the nets.’

Why Simon agrees to row out into the deeper water we do not know. Perhaps he was learning to trust Jesus; perhaps he did it to humour him; perhaps it was because of something in Jesus’ tone of voice; perhaps his mother (suggested one preacher I read) taught him to respect religious teachers. Whatever the reason, Peter agrees to do what Jesus asks of him.

King Amaziah, says the Hebrew chronicler (2 Chronicles 25:2) did what was pleasing to the Lord, but did it reluctantly. Peter too obeyed the Lord, but reluctantly.

You know the story from here. They threw the nets out from Simon’s boat and engulfed such a great shoal of fish with them that the nets began to break. Indeed they caught so many fish that when John and James came alongside and helped load the boats, the boats began to sink.

It was an amazing catch. A catch made in deep water. A catch taken where there should have been no catch. A catch taken at a time of day when there should have been no catch. So these fishermen go out during the night because the fish are closer to shore. These men were used to just catching fish that were near them. They were comfortable in staying safe near the shores rather than risk than stormy winds that usually hit in the middle of the sea. They were used to fishing according to one particular paradigm (at night – near the shore).

Sometimes as an individual or a church the Lord will invite you to do something different. Simon Peter’s so like many of us. We are reluctant to set the familiar aside; we’re afraid to try new waters.

The four last words of the church: ‘THAT WON’T WORK HERE!’

The seven last words of the church: ‘WE TRIED IT BEFORE – AND IT FAILED ‘

The motto of our little counseling practice: ‘It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.’

RISK

This is the great risk of faith. ‘To laugh is to risk appearing the fool. To weep is to risk appearing sentimental. To reach out for another is to risk involvement. To expose feelings is to risk exposing our true self. To place your ideas, your dreams before the crowd is to risk loss. To love is to risk not being loved in return. To live is to risk dying. To hope is to risk despair. To try at all is to risk failure. But risk we must, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing. The man, the woman, who risks nothing does nothing, has nothing, is nothing.’

YOU MUST OBEY GOD EVEN IF IT DOESN’T MAKE SENSE TO YOU (5:4-5)

Have you ever wondered why at times God has asked you to do some strange things? To go somewhere you don’t want to go? To talk to someone you don’t want to have anything to do with? To do something you really don’t feel like doing? What could God possibly be thinking of? For what reason would He want us to speak about this, to do that, or to go there? Why does God do what He does? Why does Christ ask of us some times for the strangest things? I’ll tell you why I think he does. Jesus is searching high and low, here and there, up and down for those people who can recognize the divine within the common. The movement of the Spirit among every day events. To put out into the deep and let down their nets… For Peter, doing things his own way had failed him, so He gave God’s way a try, even though it didn’t make any sense to him at the time.

Let’s look now to what happens when Simon Peter tries things God’s way (6-7). They catch so many fish that their nets began to break and even the boats began to sink! Now that’s a lot of fish! They probably caught more fish in that one cast than they had caught in the entire previous month..

Who would ever dream of amputating his own leg? Nobody– unless that person had lost his mind or was faced with the grim choice of losing either his leg or his life. That was Bill Jeracki’s terrible predicament, according to The Denver Post, when he was out fishing alone in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. He was trapped when a boulder fell on his leg, and he was unable to free himself. Knowing that as night came on he might die of exposure, Bill did what he knew he had to do. Relying on his skill as an assistant to a doctor at a Denver hospital, he took a nylon rope out of his tackle box, tied it tightly above his knee, and cut off his leg with his knife. He then dragged himself to his car and drove 10 miles to the nearest town. He not only survived the trauma, but with an artificial limb he is out fishing again.

What a decision–your leg or your life! But what if the stakes were even higher? Suppose you had to choose between giving up some habit, ambition, or relationship, and giving up ‘the kingdom of God’. The Lord made the issue of following Him that decisive. He said, ‘What profit is it if you gain the whole world, and lose your own soul?’ (Matthew 16:26). It’s a question you and I must answer. [from Our Daily Bread, January 12, 1995]

So everything in the life of faith begins with encountering the living God. Our nets may come up empty for many days in a row but we are invited to be open to God; to listen and to try the new things he suggests; to be willing venture out to the deep water; to be willing, because he asks us, to do over again some of the things we have tried before and given up on…

Then will our nets be filled? Not necessarily. Think of Jeremiah. We are invited to trust the living God and leave the outcomes to him.

2. [FORMATION]. JESUS CALLS US TO AN ATTITUDE OF CONFESSION AND SURRENDER

Simon was afraid, for he knew that compared to this teacher sent from God he was a wretched sinner not worthy to be in the same boat. He fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; henceforth you will be catching people.” Peter reacts to the miracle. Jesus is called “Lord.”

In the famous Jesus Prayer we pray ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me a sinner.’

Spiritual Formation is the process whereby the Word of God is applied by the Spirit of God to the heart and mind of the child of God, so that he or she becomes more and more like the Son of God. Early in that process is an experience of contrition and repentance. I recognize that I am not God, and have failed to live up to God’s standards in terms of faith, hope and love, and the distance between where I am and where I should be is greater than it ought to be. In the presence of the Holy, one pales and shrinks at the inconsistency.

I am a sinner. That admission does not diminish my worth. It simply announces a spiritual reality. I am still made in the image of God and loved eternally. It’s just that I’m soiled by the world, the flesh and the devil’s incursions into my being.

Every great spiritual leader has this experience – Abraham, Moses, Job, Isaiah, and now Peter. And you!

Sometimes, like the disciples we too have a religious experience of wonder in the presence of an event that could not be explained. Sometimes God helps the process of repentance and formation by providing a Damascus Road experience. Sometimes – for reasons best known to God – He does not.

Simon Peter walked away from this incident a different man. His life would never be the same.

3. [COMMUNITY]. JESUS CALLS US INTO A LIFE OF DISCIPLESHIP – BEING WITH HIM.

Verse eleven tells us they left everything. They left the greatest catch they had seen in their lives, a fisherman’s dream. What a great “fish story” it would make! They walked away from it all, all that success! They walked away from everything else besides. They detached from their old ways and attached to Jesus alone. The awesome power of Jesus overcame their occupational, fishing, difficulties. Following his command overcomes the difficulties of renunciation in order to follow him.

A South African missionary society once wrote to David Livingstone, “Have you found a good road to where you are? We want to know how to send some men to join you.” Livingstone wrote back: “If you have men who will come only if they know there is a good road, I don’t want them. I want men who will come if there is no road.”

An Episcopal pastor was having a coffee in the restaurant across the street from the church. He was reading his paper when the fellow next to him noticed his clerical garb and asked what church he was with. He pointed across the street to the Episcopal Church and the fellow said “Why that’s the church I go to myself.” At this the pastor perked up and said, “That’s strange. I’ve been preaching there for five years and I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you.” The man responded, “Come on now, preacher. I didn’t say I was a fanatic.”

“No man,” said President Roosevelt, “is worth his salt who is not ready at all times to risk his body, to risk his well-being, to risk his life for a great cause.”

Suddenly there is nothing more important to Peter than Jesus. Jesus now is the number one priority in his life. He walked away from secure job and everything he knew and loved. He left everything to follow Jesus.

When Jesus calls you to follow him, saying ‘Yes’ is the best answer.

The bottom-line was stated well by Jim Elliot who wrote: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

4. [MISSION]. JESUS COMMANDS US TO GO INTO ALL THE WORLD AND ‘CATCH PEOPLE’.

When they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him. Why did Jesus get into Simon’s boat that day? Why does Jesus enter at the strangest times into your life and into mine? Because Christ is traveling about this world fishing for those who recognize him for who he really is and therefore are willing to ‘catch people’ for him.

As many commentators say, here’s the birth of the church. From this point on Peter and the disciples will begin a new life, taking in not fish but humans. They will “catch” for life not for death. Of course, no Christian could read this without thinking of the image of the Church as a boat, a solid, if mobile, island of safety in the midst of the stormy waters of chaos and humans being pulled by attraction to safety and salvation by the ministry of the followers of Christ. Peter is now part of Jesus’ mission to the world. He is called not merely to a life of worship-in-church, or studying Jesus’ theology, or reading books about contemporary lifestyle choices. There are lost people out there, and Peter is to be sent to save them. This is the essence of the ministry of ‘mission’.

This is the prerogative of every Christian. I sometimes ask a congregation ‘How many ministers are here?’ If only one or two people at the front (dressed differently to the others) put up their hand I ask another question: ‘How many have been baptized into the Church?’ Then most hands will go up. Then follows: ‘If you have been baptized into the Church you are a minister.’

Some ministers are pastors. But all Christians are ministers, missionaries.

You’ve often heard preachers tell you that the highest calling of all is to be like Simon Peter and Andrew and James and John and leave everything behind, all our ordinary concerns and worries and frets and cares and focus on winning people for God.

Well, to be called by God to the ministries of ‘Word, Sacrament, Pastoral Care and Leadership’ is a very high calling. To be set apart by God’s people to such a calling is a very great privilege… But every vocation of every Christian is a ‘calling’. Worship is essentially the offering of our lives – our work, our words, our relationships, whatever – to God so that we can be a blessing to others.

Before many church services I hear a good deacon or elder pray, ‘Lord help us to leave our weekday activities, our concerns and worries behind us as we come now to worship you.’ Rather, I’d like to suggest you bring those activities and worries and concerns. Jesus the Lord is involved in our everyday lives. In the Lord’s Prayer is the petition, ‘Give us this day our daily bread.’

In his brilliant little book Eyes Wide Open, subtitled God in the Ordinary, Michael Frost emphasizes that God calls us to serve in our work – that’s our Divine vocation, our ministry. Sometimes God calls someone to leave their so-called secular vocation – selling or teaching or nursing or fishing – and be a pastor, or cross-cultural missionary. Sometimes God calls us to serve others via our vocation, and stay where we are.

Have you heard of the black cotton-picker who looked up to the heavens and prayed fervently ‘ O Lord, de sun am so hot, de work am so hard, de cotton am so grassy dat I believe you callin’ me to be a preacher!’

The key here is commitment to God in our current vocation. All vocations are sacred if you’re called by God. And let us not forget our vocations as parents or children within a family. Ministry begins inside our front door. (A first grader became curious because her father brought home a briefcase full of papers every evening. Her mother explained, “Daddy has so much to do that he can’t finish it all at the office. That’s why he has to bring work home at night.” “Well,” asked the child innocently, “why don’t they put him in a slower group?”)

Martin Luther understood this when he wrote, “The maid who sweeps her kitchen is doing the will of God just as much as the monk who prays – not because she may sing a Christian hymn as she sweeps but because God loves clean floors. The Christian shoemaker does his Christian duty not by putting little crosses on the shoes, but by making good shoes, because God is interested in good craftsmanship.”

He is, indeed. Scripture says, “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.”

But our might is not enough. ‘Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord.’ Actually, these disciples never caught a single fish in the gospel accounts without the help of Jesus! Some fishermen! Without Jesus their efforts are in vain.

The catch – of humans – will be enormous, ‘from every tribe and nation’, universal in its scope. But not universal in its results: not everyone will believe. There will be both success and failure.

FAILURE

Let us think for a moment about that. Many a miracle does not happen because we give up too soon and do not try one more time. In verse ten, ‘do not be afraid’. When divinity is revealed the message always begins with encouragement to not let fear – either awe, as here, or terror – paralyze us. It is meant to free us. It also communicates forgiveness.

For Peter, it had been a very long shift. All night long, he had fished the waters of the Sea of Galilee, hoping for a substantial catch. It was his livelihood. He had worked throughout the cool night – the optimal time for fishing – in the most profitable portion of the lake. And at the end of his shift: nothing.

You’ve probably had times like this in your work, and in your church. Long hours, good instincts, no short-cuts. but also nothing to show for it. If so, you can appreciate the sentiments of Alexander. Alexander is the main character in Judith Viorst’s children’s book, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. His story opens with these words: I went to sleep with gum in my mouth and now there’s gum in my hair, and when I got out of bed this morning I tripped on the skateboard and by mistake I dropped my sweater in the sink while the water was running, and I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. I think I’ll move to Australia. In the car pool Mrs. Gibson let Becky have a seat by the window. Audrey and Elliott got seats by the window, too. I said I was being smushed. I said, “If I don’t get a seat by the window, I’m going to be carsick and throw up!” No one answered. I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. And, that’s just the way it turned out. That night I told my Mom, “It has been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. My mom says some days are like that. Even in Australia.”

These two stories about Peter and fishing – here and the post-Resurrection story in John 21 – are all about making a new beginning after failure. Failure is defined as making a mistake or error in judgment. But failure is not determined by the mistake you made. Failure is based upon how you respond to that mistake. Failure is determined if and when you give up on something you’ve been attempting to accomplish. Being a teenage or unwed parent does not make you a failure. No, failure is determined in how you will now care for that child. Getting hooked on drugs or alcohol doesn’t classify you as a loser. But refusing to get help or treatment can cause you to lose out on reality. Your failed marriage is no reflection on your ability to love. No, failure is determined on how you now used that love to reach others. Your response to failure determines your level of success and accomplishment.

Successful people know how to handle failure. Those who left significant strokes on the canvas of time knew how to deal with major disappointments. Come on now, it took Albert Einstein to fail at math before he realized e=mc2. Michael Jordan had to fail at making his high school basketball team before making the NBA. It is your response to failure that determines your destiny.

And that’s the message of today’s text. We, as a people, need to know how to handle risk and failure. In order to mount up on wings as an eagle we have to leave the comforts of the nest. And God is like a mother eagle that pushes his young eagle off its nest in order to teach it to soar. Here Jesus uses one of life’s ordinary routines.

We sometimes feel that nobody can tell us about our situation unless they’ve been where we are. ‘Unless you’ve walked a mile in my shoes, don’t tell me anything.’ I’d rather listen to someone who’s been in touch with the Wisdom of the Ages. I’ve never experienced what it’s like being a woman, but in my little counseling practice more women come back to talk – to this mere male – about being a woman… Amazing, that!

When these folk perceived tragedy Jesus saw triumph. When it seemed that all had failed and they’dd done all that they could do, Jesus saw opportunity.

A healthy church is a community of worship, caring for one another, growing into Christ and following Christ, a group of risk-takers who believe all their life’s work is a holy vocation, and who are out to ‘seek and to save the lost’.

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PRAYERS OF THANKSGIVING AND INTERCESSION

Loving God, like Peter and Andrew, and James and John, we sometimes feel discouraged – we work hard at what we do – we care for our boats – we tend our nets – we batten down the hatches when the seas get rough – yet sometimes our labour seems to be in vain. Help us to not be discouraged – but rather grant that we might hear your voice and accept your direction and venture forth again in obedience to your word. Guide us to the deep waters where the catch you have for us lies waiting – and strengthen our hands for the work it requires…. Lord hear our prayer…

As you filled the nets of the disciples, O Lord, so we ask you to fill the nets we cast at your direction. — grant that our prayers for healing might be answered… — grant that our work for justice might lead to a more equitable sharing of what this world affords — grant that our words of forgiveness might bring reconciliation — grant that our acts of compassion might satisfy those who are in need — and grant that our way of being might prompt others to praise and glorify your name… Lord hear our prayer

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St. Patrick’s ‘Breastplate’:

I bind unto myself today the strong name of the Trinity, by invocation of the same, the Three in One and One in Three. I bind unto myself today the power of God to hold and lead, his eye to watch, his might to stay, his ear to hearken to my need. The wisdom of my God to teach, his hand to guide, his shield to ward, the word of God to give me speech, his heavenly host to be my guard. Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me, Christ beside me, Christ to win me, Christ to comfort and restore me. Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ in quiet, Christ in danger, Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

Rowland Croucher

July 2001