Sermon for the 5th Sunday after the Epiphany (Year C)
Saturday, February 07, 2010 at St. Andrew’s in Montevallo, Alabama
Isaiah 6:1-8, [9-13] Psalm 138 1 Corinthians 15:1-11 Luke 5:1-11
The Rev. Steve Shanks, Deacon

Let us pray:
Beloved sisters and brothers, let us look to the Lord.
May only God’s word be spoken,
May God’s word be heard.
In the name of Jesus, I pray. Amen.

So, today we’re putting out into deep waters with this great story about how Jesus calls the fishermen to follow him on the path to discipleship. This Gospel story from Luke the Evangelist, a physician from Antioch and a sometime companion of Paul, has three particular parts that I’d like to reflect on.

First, we hear how they’ve been out fishing all night on the Sea of Galilee and they’ve caught nothing, how Jesus borrows Simon’s boat and teaches the crowd on the shore and when he is finished, he turns to Simon and says, “Put out into deep waters and lower your nets.” That seems a pretty incredible statement, and one worthy to spend some time with. Of course, Simon Peter is at first resistant and tells how he knows all about fishing, and Jesus couldn’t know anything, and there are no fish to be caught… but then he gives in and does what Jesus says. In a poetic way, we probably all feel like we’ve spent our whole lives out on the water all night and haven’t caught anything, and along comes Jesus telling us to put out into deep waters. That’s God, always pushing us out to go farther than we think we can go, into the unknown, into uncharted waters. So the question becomes: how is Jesus pushing you these days out into deep waters? How are you going to respond to his call?

Then, they make a big catch and both boats nearly sink because of the great number of fish, and how does Simon Peter respond? He falls at the knees of Jesus and says, “Depart from me Lord, for I am a sinful man.” There is a great mystery here. I think the Gospel is telling us that whenever we enter into the presence of God, whenever we realize that we are in the presence of Christ, we suddenly recognize not only his light and holiness, but our darkness and sinfulness. So the Gospel calls us to recognize our sinfulness before Christ, to realize that we are sinners. But Jesus does not condemn Simon Peter or us. He loves us, forgives us and calls us. We are sinners but we are also greatly loved by God, and we need Christ to help us and save us. For me, I want to change Simon Peter’s plea to say, “Never depart from me Lord, for I am a sinful man and I need you.”

Finally, Jesus says this great line to Peter, “Do not be afraid. From now on, you will be catching men and women.” With that, they leave their nets, their boats, the fish, their parents… and follow him. Jesus says the same thing to us today. He does not want us to live in fear. Instead he invites us to live in relationship with him, to follow him and to join his campaign to change the world by leading one another and all people to God and God’s reign of love and peace. So we can ask ourselves: How are we dropping our nets and following Jesus? How do we practice discipleship to Christ today? How are we trying to catch people for Christ and the reign of God?
A stumbling block in considering how to respond to Jesus’ call to us is that it is can be all too easy to become so preoccupied with our inabilities and shortcomings, that it leaves us nearly in a state of inaction. It can be difficult to believe that God, who is holy and pure, can use the most imperfect men, women, boys and girls … people like you, like me. But God does.

Facing whatever feelings of inadequacy, unworthiness, or sinfulness … whatever that loud voice in our ear is saying, in opposition to the small still quiet voice of God, and in the light of God’s holiness and righteousness… facing that is a necessary step if God is to use us as instruments of God’s love. Simon Peter, the prophet Isaiah, the Apostle Paul, and innumerable other women and men of God inside and outside of Scripture share in this experience. In contrast to God’s virtue, the women and men who God commissions will always identify their own faults and failures. But in spite of that, they will also recognize God’s readiness to forgive and empower, which frees them to work with peace and confidence on behalf of poor and hungry people in our nation and around the world.

And as we begin to respond to God’s call to us… with our minds to think, hearts to love, hands to serve… it is important to know, as best we can, what has worked, what has not, and why. To do that is what, in my vernacular, is referred to as participatory community based research so that the needs we’re meeting are indeed of those that we’re appointed to serve. That how we determine the needs, and how they’re met, is formed in equal partnership between traditionally trained “experts” and members of the community to which a ministry is intended.

In the wake of the earthquake and devastation in Haiti, thought it might be helpful to review an experience of “helping” that has become an example of what the result can be when other interests or concerns end up being placed ahead of the real and actual needs of the poor, working poor, and hungry.

I think that it is always important that we educate ourselves about whoever it is that we’re partnered in ministry with, in this case about the history of Haiti and its people's incredible struggle of resistance and self-determination against continued cycles of colonial and neocolonial suppression. The mainstream media continues to stress that Haiti is the most impoverished country in the western hemisphere without offering a serious analysis of why that is the case.
One way to begin to understand Haiti's experience with poverty and economic oppression is in the history of the eradication of the Haitian Creole pig population in the 1980's, a modern parable and as recounted by former Haitian president Jean Bertrand-Aristide.

“In 1982 international agencies assured Haiti's peasants their pigs were sick and had to be killed (so that the illness would not spread to countries to the North). Promises were made that better pigs would replace the sick pigs. With an efficiency not since seen among development projects, all of the Creole pigs were killed over a period of thirteen months.

“Two years later the new, better pigs came from Iowa. They were so much better that they required clean drinking water (unavailable to 80% of the Haitian population), imported feed (costing $90 a year when the per capita income was about $130), and special roofed pigpens. Haitian peasants quickly dubbed them “prince a quatre pieds [prahn-suh-a-ka-truh-pyay],” or “four-footed princes”. Adding insult to injury, the meat did not taste as good. Needless to say, the repopulation program was a complete failure. One observer of the process estimated that in monetary terms Haitian peasants lost $600 million dollars. There was a 30% drop in enrollment in rural schools; there was a dramatic decline in the protein consumption in rural Haiti; a devastating decapitalization of the peasant economy and an incalculable negative impact on Haiti's soil and agricultural productivity. The Haitian peasantry has not recovered to this day.”
With stories like this to inform but not discourage us, it reminds me of what I think is one of the most amazing dimensions of our faith… that God is willing to forgive each of us, all of us, and to empower us in our work on behalf of the least among us. What a wonderful God we worship, who knows our failures and yet says, “Your sin is blotted out. Don’t be afraid. I am sending you to do my work in the world.”

I think that Jesus is the greatest person who ever lived, and he really is worth following. That it’s worth it to drop our nets, change our lives, and try to follow in his footsteps. It’s also so very important that each one of us join his project of calling people to discipleship, of catching people for Christ, of being fishers of women and men. There are a lot of politics and campaigns these days, which has become the cultural norm it seems, but for me the Gospel campaign of Jesus is the only one worth joining, the one worth giving our lives for, the one that I choose to give my life to.

So, what does it means to join the Gospel campaign of Jesus?

I think that in this world of hate, indifference and fear, our job is to catch people for Christ’s love.
In this world of gossip, pettiness, hypocrisy and lies, our job is to catch people for Christ’s truth.

In this world of enmity, resentment, grudges, revenge and the death penalty, our job is to catch people for Christ’s compassion, forgiveness and reconciliation.

In this world of injustice and oppression, our job is to catch people for Christ’s justice.

In this world of selfishness and greed, our job is to catch people for Christ’s way of selfless service.

In this world of violence and bombing raids and colonial occupation, our job is to catch people for Christ’s nonviolence.

In this world of war, nuclear weapons, imperialism, and global militarism, our job is to catch people for Christ’s peace.

In this world of despair and death, our job is to catch people for Christ’s hope, for the new life of God’s reign of resurrection. From now on, we are catching women and men for the nonviolent Christ.

And in the words of Sir Frances Drake, who knew a lot about being called to deep water, let us pray…

Disturb us Lord when
We are too well pleased with ourselves
When our dreams have come true,
Because we dreamed too little
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to shore.

Thanks be to God.
In Christ’s Name,
Amen. Alleluia.