Into the Deep Luke 5:1-11 John W. Vest Bon Air Presbyterian Church January 22, 2017 My wife Anna and I have two young sons; they just turned eight and four. This year we spent Christmas with my parents in Northwest Florida, where I call home. It was so warm that on Christmas Day, and on several other days, we went swimming in the Gulf of Mexico. Throughout the years I ve enjoyed watching our boys get more and more comfortable with the water. They both began in the kiddy pool, splashing around in water that was only a few inches deep. But from there, our two sons who are very different from each other took very different paths. Noah, the oldest, has always been very cautious. It was only with the help of a flotation device that he worked up the nerve to venture into the shallow end of the big pool. Eventually, as long as a trusted adult was by his side, he felt comfortable going into the deep end. Today he s a strong swimmer and enjoys swimming across the entire pool, including the deep end. He s no longer afraid. His younger brother, Elijah, has never been afraid. In fact, for several years I wondered if he simply had no sense of self-preservation whatsoever. Twice in the year and a half that we ve lived in Richmond he s jumped into swimming pools without a floatation device, once in the shallow end and once in the deep end. He simply doesn t understand the dangers of the water in an inviting pool. But the ocean is a little different, even for Elijah. The crashing waves inspire a deeper sense of awe and fear. Last month in Florida, Noah went further out into waves than he s ever been before. Watching him play in the surf reminded me my own childhood adventures in the 1
Gulf. But Elijah, as reckless and carefree as he is, was uncharacteristically cautious. Even when I tried to carry him out into the deeper waves on my shoulders he insisted that I bring him back to the shore. He was content to play in the water nearest the beach. Yet even there, knowing what I know about undertoe and rip currents, I found myself filled with parental anxiety. As Bono sings in U2 s Every Breaking Wave : Every sailor knows that the sea is a friend made enemy. In today s scripture, Jesus invites his very first disciples sailors and fishermen out into the deep water. As seasoned seamen, though they were familiar with these waters, I suspect they had a healthy respect for the inherent danger of venturing out into the deep. They knew what it was like to be caught out there in a storm. They d witnessed or even experienced capsized boats. They probably knew people who had lost their lives in the deep water. Yet it was in the deep water that these men lived and worked. This was their natural environment. And it was there that Jesus would change their lives forever. This all takes place at the beginning of Luke s story of Jesus. After the familiar account of Jesus birth and the few mentions we have of his childhood, we read about his baptism by his cousin John, his temptation out in the desert, and the announcement of his mission in his hometown of Nazareth, an event which caused such an uproar that those who had known him since birth nearly killed him. From there he begins to preach the gospel throughout Galilee, beginning in the city of Capernaum. We pick up the story as he is standing by Lake Gennesaret more commonly known as the Sea of Galilee preaching the good news of God s kingdom. The people are crowding in on him so much that he decides to get into a fishing boat to teach the people from a little ways off of the shore. I must say that this always strikes me as a less than ideal public speaking 2
environment: trying to keep your balance on a boat while fighting the noise of the wind and the waves. But, I guess it worked for Jesus. This boat was his makeshift pulpit. I imagine that the message he delivered to the crowds on the shore that day was what we might call his stump speech: his basic message of the emergence of God s kingdom and an encouragement to change one s life and get on board. It was probably a local variation of the same message he delivered in countless venues across Galilee and down into Judea. I m sure it was simple; I m sure it was straightforward; I m sure it was compelling. But then, Jesus does something rather remarkable. The boat he was preaching from was owned by a fisherman named Simon you may more easily recognize him by the nickname Jesus would eventually give him: Peter, the rock. But at this point of the story, he and Jesus are essentially strangers. Yet Simon has already let this carpenter s son from Nazareth get into his boat to preach. And now Jesus asks him to go one step further: Row out farther, he says, into the deep water, and drop your nets for a catch. In the version of the story we have preserved in Luke, Simon responds with respect and civility. Master, we ve worked hard all night and caught nothing. But the subtext may well have been something more like this: Are you kidding me?! Listen, you crazy carpenter: what the heck do you know about fishing? We ve been out here all night long and haven t caught a thing. It s not going to be any better now that the sun is hot and we re exhausted. Why don t you mind your own business and go make a table or something. Or maybe that s just what I would have said. In any event, Simon goes along with it, rows out into the deep water, and they drop their nets. 3
Then, something miraculous happens. Their catch is so huge that the nets were ripping apart from the strain. When all is said and done, they fill up two boats with fish, each so full that they are in danger of sinking. Amazed, Simon and his partners know that there must be something special about this man. Simon bows down before him and confesses his sinfulness. But Jesus, calm and collected, replies simply and profoundly: Don t be afraid. From now on, you will be fishing for people. When the fishermen get back to shore, they leave everything and follow this man they barely know. They become his closest disciples. Fishers of people is such a rich and enduring image. Here is Jesus, bringing to his people a new message of hope, a message of transformation, a message of God s kingdom already present among them and within them, growing to fill the earth and change the world. He s creating a movement. He s starting a revolution. And he wants these men, these simple fishermen, to be involved not just involved, but at the very epicenter of the whole thing. These are the people Jesus chooses to usher in God s new day. You have to pay close attention to the locations and movements of this story because they re really important. Jesus begins near the shore, in the shallow water, delivering his basic message to a gathered crowd. Then, he goes out into the deeper waters with a select few and challenges them to become active participants in the movement he s initiating. Do you see how that works? Jesus is calling these few to leave behind the average perhaps we might even say superficial or shallow engagement of the masses to go deeper. It s a call to stop being a passive spectator, or a consumer, and to wade into the deep waters as a participant. And clearly, for Simon and his friends, it was a compelling invitation. 4
I believe it s every bit as compelling for us in today s world. One of my favorite theological writers is a pastor named Doug Pagitt. A few years ago he wrote a series of books about a concept he calls the Inventive Age, the moment of history in which we are currently living. He traces American society from the Agrarian Age, through the Industrial Age, to the Information Age; and then he describes the cultural shifts we are currently experiencing as we move into the Inventive Age, shifts from being consumers of information to being producers and participants in the sharing of ideas. If the Information Age was characterized by television and the mass consumption of information on the internet, the Inventive Age is typified by interactive web culture and social networking. In Doug s own words, The Inventive Age is one in which inclusion, participation, collaboration, and beauty are essential values. It is the age of ownership and customization and user-created content. 1 User-created content is a relatively recent development. When I was a kid, I loved watching Saturday morning cartoons. I d wake up early, turn on the TV, and watch my favorite shows. It was a special time set apart from the rest of the week. My boys have no concept of that ritual. Cartoons are available all day, every day through cable channels, on-demand streaming, and hand-held devices. They determine their own programming. Watching TV is now a completely user-controlled experience. And not only do they watch professionally produced television shows, they also watch videos that other kids have made themselves and uploaded onto YouTube. They even want to make their own videos to share. User-created content. This never would have occurred to me as a possibility when I was their age. 1 Doug Pagitt, Church in the Inventive Age (Minneapolis: Sparkhouse, 2010), 30-31. 5
Jesus was way ahead of his time. He invited his disciples to be participants in the emergence of God s kingdom. God s kingdom is user-created content. He wasn t just recruiting a bunch of yes-men that would follow his marching orders. He brought these simple fishermen in on the ground floor and engaged them as partners. Don t be afraid, he says. From now on, you will be fishing for people. It s fascinating, isn t it, that he chooses a bunch of uneducated fishermen to be the building blocks of the most radical spiritual revolution in the history of the world? As far as we know, neither they nor Jesus had any formal religious education beyond the basics that every Jewish person of the time received. They weren t trained in the finest rabbinical schools. They weren t the great philosophers, theologians, and orators of their age. They were simply ordinary people called to do something extraordinary. And the image he uses to describe this calling is one that would be instantly familiar to them: Don t be afraid. From now on, you will be fishing for people. I might be reading too much into this, but I want to suggest that by calling them fishers of people, Jesus was implying that these fishermen already possessed all the gifts and skills they needed to accomplish the kingdom work he was calling them to do. They just needed a different mindset. They just needed a different goal. They just needed a different vision of what God wanted them to do with the gifts that God had given them. Don t be afraid. From now on, you will be fishing for people. Unlike those fishermen, I have in fact received some of the best religious and theological education available. Now they even let me teach others at a seminary. For my entire adult life I ve been involved in higher education in the fields of religion, Bible, theology, and ministry. I ve 6
tried my best to make good use of my natural gifts in these areas. So it s easy for someone like me to talk about using my gifts for God s kingdom. It s what I ve been trained to do. It s what I get paid to do. But, from time to time, I also think about what I might have done with my life had I not taken the paths that I did. I could have gone to medical school or law school. I could have been a scientist or an engineer. I could have been any number of things. But right now, if I had to choose an alternative career, I would do whatever it takes to become a chef. I love food. I love eating it and I love cooking it. I love gathering people around a table of food that I ve prepared to share together in the joys of life. I dabble in a variety of cuisines, but my favorite is BBQ. For the past few years I ve honed the skills of slow cooking meat over fire and smoke. I ve come up with signature seasonings and secret recipes. I ve studied the craft, I ve practiced hard, and I ve achieved some success. Had I become a BBQ pitmaster instead of a pastor, how would I use those particular gifts and those particular skills to further God s kingdom? I actually think about this quite a bit. Some of you may know that I ve experimented with BBQ Chruch. While many traditional churches will continue to thrive well into the 21 st century, the same may not be true for the vast majority of mainline churches in the United States. It s time for us to think about developing faith communities in radically different ways as the world around us continues to change. I often wonder what it would look like to gather as a faith community in a BBQ restaurant instead of a sanctuary. How would that cause us to think about our call differently? How would we think about our place in the community differently? How would we think about hospitality 7
differently? How would we think about sustainability differently? How would we think about table fellowship differently? If I did that if I followed my BBQ Church dream I believe that I would become, in my own particular way, a fisher of people. I would be taking my gifts and passions and applying them to God s work in the world. I d be part of Jesus revolution in a different way that I am now. I wouldn t be as reliant on degrees, or titles, or institutions. I d be right out there in the deep water. Don t be afraid. From now on, you will be fishing for people. What about you? What are your gifts? What are your passions? What are your skills? What is your calling? Are you a doctor? A lawyer? A homemaker? A cab driver? A teacher? A cook? A janitor? A mechanic? A gardener? Are you a musician? Are you good with art? Are you good with math? Are you good with your hands? Are you adept in business? Can you write? Are you a fisher? How are you using these gifts? Are you hanging around on the shore with the masses, in the safety of the shallow water? Can you hear Jesus calling you out into the deep water? Don t be afraid, he says. From now on, you will be fishing for people. You already have all the gifts and skills you need to accomplish the kingdom work God is calling you to do. Perhaps you just needed a different mindset, a different goal, a different vision of what God wants you to do with the gifts God has given you. 63% of statistics are made up (including that one), so take this as you will: I d say that 95% of people in our churches are content to stay in the shallow water. They re content to be religious consumers. They re content to be spectators as God s kingdom emerges in the world. 8
But I believe that there s a lot more room out there in the deep water. And I believe that God is calling us to go out there and be participants, to take up our nets or whatever tools we use to do what God has called us to do and make a difference in the world. God is calling us to get into the game. God is calling us to be a part of the revolution, to be a part of the transformation of the world. During this Season of Epiphany, which Janet has called your Season of Hospitality, you are being challenged to answer Jesus call to discipleship, Jesus call to make disciples, Jesus call to let God s kingdom grow within you and through you. Friends, this isn t just the work of professional Christians like me and Janet and Lauren. This isn t something you can outsource. This isn t a spectator sport. You have a story to tell. You have good news to share. You have gifts to use. You have work to do. Don t be afraid. From now on, you will be fishing for people. Amen. 9