C Epiphany 5 BFC
2019
Luke 5:1-11
February 10, 2019
We know how the big fish stories
work. As we talk about our magical
experience out on the water, the catch gets larger, the danger gets more
deadly—“The thing almost pulled me into the water with it!”--and the singular
fish becomes larger and larger as a way of conveying not only our skill but
that we experienced the epic, maybe even that good fortune or the Divine was
with us or just escaped us. Regardless of catch, fishing stories rarely
are re-told when the nets come up empty or with a small haul. So we exaggerate.
Calvin Coolidge used to go fishing in the cold,
clear streams of the upper peninsula of Michigan. Once he was asked how many trout there were
in his favorite creek, and he replied, ‘about 45,000. I haven't caught them all
yet,
but
I've intimidated them.’ Fishing lends
itself to such stories.”[1]
It was the great English writer G. K.
Chesterton who said, “exaggeration is the definition of art.”[2] And that is what the gospels are, a form of
art, a poetic, rather than a literal, historical accounting of what
happened. They were written for meaning
rather than historical accuracy.
Today we are witness to one of those big fish
stories from the gospels. Jesus has been
out and about preaching and teaching in the local Galileean faith communities. He expels demons and heals the sick. When the crowds try to make him stay, he
shares that he has to continue his barnstorming tour proclaiming the good news
of the community of outcasts gathered he calls the Empire of God. He heads south on his barnstorming tour to
Judea. When he returns north to the
homeland, he comes upon Lake Gennesaret.
It is not the first time he has
met Simon, the fisherman. Earlier Jesus
has healed Simon’s mother. This will not
be the first time Simon sees the miraculous happen in and through this
guy.
Jesus expects and assumes spirituality. The air is thick with it. The earth is abundant with it. Fisherfolk should have no reason to expect the
activity of God in their midst. The
Roman politician philosopher Cicero says, “And the most shameful occupations
are those which cater to our sensual pleasures: fish-sellers, butchers, cooks,
poultry-raisers, and fishermen.”[3] They would fish naked, smelling like fish,
fishing at night because there was no way to keep fish fresh. The fish would be sold in the morning and
eaten that day. Being away from home and
family at night contributed to the low honor status of fisherfolk. Even more so, in Rome’s extractive and
exploitative economy, taxes would have left the vast majority of fisherfolk
leasing boats and nets, most of their profits siphoned off with only the very
wealthy able to afford a regular diet of fish.[4] When they left their boats and nets to follow
Jesus, to be his disciples, they also left that extractive and exploitative
economy.
Jesus calls these low-lifes, these
people from a dishonorable profession, and assumes their spirituality, assumes
God’s activity in their lives. Simon
protests. “Go away from me, for I am a
sinful man.” He believes his life’s
vocation, his dishonor, must be a result of his sinfulness. As I have shared in a previous sermon, too
often Christian teaching is focused on sin and forgiveness because Jewish
prophets had told the people that their sin of violence and injustice would
lead them back into slavery, occupation, and oppression. They were to rightly fear God and God’s
judgment. So conversely, many people saw
the suffering in the status quo as something they or their ancestors must have
done. Their low status was a signpost of their sin.
Jesus will have none of it. Do not fear.
I’m about to teach you to fish differently.
And Jesus isn’t interested in doing
this as a miracle for miracle’s sake. He
is foreshadowing. He says to those
strapped to this economy there is a new way of fishing that yields abundance
but you have to leave your wading and do some underwater diving into the
deep. Jesus is not in the entertainment
business. He is in the discipleship
business. The old tools of the trade are
left for a way and a path that is vastly different.
This is the last time Simon, James,
and John will fish in this way, the old way.
Jesus is asking them to think differently about what it means to fish
and to re-imagine who the fish might be.
As people of faith, Simon seems to believe that they must keep fishing
in the same shallow waters and trust that one day God will fill their
nets. Jesus sends them out to the deep,
where it is riskier and a little bit more murky, and asks them to begin
thinking who the fish are now, what are the nets.[5]
Sisters and brothers, sisters and cousins, is this
not the challenge we face in each age:
to constantly re-learn who the fish are now and what are the nets? But that is so hard, right? Even if we know that the way we are doing it
now just leads nowhere. At least we know
the old way. We know the repetitive,
grinding down of our souls, the lack of energy and life where we just assume we
are strapped to our past, defined by the wider culture, and not worthy of God’s
activity. And Jesus steps through all
that, assumes that you and you and you are places where abundance can be
found. Jesus says, “Fear not. Go deep. Follow me.”
Now our big fish story has been transformed into a
“get people into the church story” where we can put the fish in the same barrel
and club them into the sameness of submission.
The boat, so often a symbol for
the church to later be founded upon Simon “The Rock”, is not meant to be
hugging the shore, safe in harbor, like the church so often does, clutching for
safety, often performing maintenance tasks, wringing our hands over the nets
when the deep calls. Christ wants us out
in the deep where his message and life can be seen in the great world.
We get often caught on bended knee, declaring our
sinfulness, when Jesus assumes all the while that we are spiritual beings
called to deep discipleship. God does
not spend time inventorying our past.
There is too much work to be done.
So that is my question for all of you, not worrying or being anxious
about your past, or our past, “What are the deep places to which God is calling
to us? Maybe full of risk? Maybe a little murky? Maybe places of chaos and a little
unsafe? I want to give you a minute to
think about that. Please do that
thinking about where you yourself are called.
But also, where are we as a church called to the deep? If Jesus assumes that God is already at work
to create our own big fish story, where, with whom, and how might that be? How does that happen? Take a minute to think about it and then I’ll
ask you for your reflections.
(Pause to ask)
We are called to the deep because Jesus always
assumes that God is active in your life even when you feel like your nets are
empty. Jesus assumes your own
spirituality and calls you to discipleship.
Praise God. Amen.
[1]
Grant Gallup, “Epiphany 5C,” Homily
Grits, https://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~lcrew/homilygrits/msg00007.html.
[2]
Gilbert Keith Chesterton, The Collected
Works of G. K. Chesterton, Vol. 15: Chesterton on Dickens (San
Francisco: Ignatius Press), p. 48.
[3] KC
Hanson, “The Galileean Fishing Economy and the Jesus Tradition,” Biblical Theology Bulletin 27 (1997)
99-111, Quoting Cicero, On Duties 1.42, http://www.kchanson.com/ARTICLES/fishing.html.
[4]
Bruce Malina and Richard Rohrbaugh, Social
Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels (Minneapolis, Augsburg Fortress,
2003), p. 353.
[5]
David Ewart, “Luke 5:1-11,” Holy Textures,
https://www.holytextures.com/2010/01/luke-5-1-11-year-c-epiphany-5-february-4-february-10-sermon.html#NRSV.
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