Luke 5:1-11
“Strained Nets”
February 10, 2019
Working the night shift is never easy. Think about all those folks who labor in the dark of night when the rest of the world is sleeping. First responders come to mind and the fact that they must be at the top of their game in the dark, often risking their lives for the safety of others. I distinctly remember, from my days at PAVE, the police officers who would usher me into a room to meet with a terrified woman whom they had brought to the station to complete the paperwork for a relief from abuse order, also known as a restraining order, after they had confronted her partner when they went to the home. They often had no way of knowing if he was armed or high on drugs or alcohol, wanting only to keep her safe and checking to make sure any children were also safe. Or the fire fighters here in Arlington who came out a few months ago in the middle of the night to respond to our malfunctioning alarm system in Bailey Hall, crawling in the dark and dank basement here under the church with flashlights and turning around and coming back inside again when the alarm re-tripped – all of happening at 2:30 in the morning.
Having worked as a waitress on the graveyard shift, 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. in Lake George during two summers when I was in college, I can tell you that it can be otherworldly to be laboring amid the quiet of a world at home in bed while you’re not. And sometimes the hardest part is then sleeping while the rest of the world is revving into action in daylight.
Think about Simon and Andrew and James and John climbing back into their boats when all they want to do is finish washing the fish stench off their boats and themselves and lay their head down after a disappointing night. All they have to show for their labors are empty nets and we get the sense of how much they must have seen and felt something in Jesus that pushed them past their own exhaustion and lean into what must feel a bit like craziness. Jesus reached them at a low point and they have to trust him and it is that trust, that willingness to follow through in spite of their doubt that yields the unimaginable.
Here Jesus teaches a lesson we aren’t privy to, speaking from his floating pulpit and then it’s time to move. We have no way of knowing whether the words he preached inspired Simon – who by the way becomes Simon Peter as their boat is overflowing with fish – whether he knew they were in the midst of someone they should listen to. “Push out into deep water.” Deep water was bound to involve more work to navigate, more of the unknown, more of a risk. This is part of the call process. And it makes us nervous.
Most of us spend considerable energy playing it safe. We often do the things that parents, society, or friends expect of us. We want to be accepted as good neighbors, responsible citizens, reliable employees, not ones who rock the boat and yet there’s a part in each of us that knows there is more to life than always doing exactly what is expected of us. Many of us have had life adventures that someone around us disapproved of or questioned at some point, setting us to doubt our own abilities. Following a call can sometimes mean alienating folks or thinking you have disappointed them. Here Simon Peter is filled with doubt. He can’t believe that Jesus would have time and energy or “holiness” to share with him, a modest fisherman. This is what grace looks like and many of us keep wondering, “Do you really mean me, God? Are you sure?” And Jesus had a response – “There is nothing to fear” or “Be not afraid.” Because so often the hesitancy to listen to the call, to put out in the deep water when we’re exhausted from the work of living is fear based. What if I try and fail? What if people I need stop caring about me? What if I have to let something go to make it happen?
This is a story about how Jesus calls his first disciples and it can make us anxious – especially that part where “they left everything and followed him.” What are we willing to let fall by the wayside in order to go where God might be calling us?
Four of us – Sandy, Phyllis, Brian and I – spent yesterday in the Springfield Congregational Church with dozens of folks from UCC churches around Vermont to begin thinking about the topic, “How to Reach New People.” Following last Sunday’s Annual Meeting and the vote that was an acknowledgment that we need to do something different as church, we were presented with a lesson and a visioning opportunity on what we will need to do if we wish to leave the model of church from the mid-1950s – known as the Attraction model. At that time, the culture and the church were in the same place and it was seen as personally and professionally beneficial to go to church on Sunday morning, a time set aside as special and sacred and where a community’s social opportunities were seen as resting in churches and in many cases they needed only fling their doors open on Sunday and in folks would come.
The image of a castle with a moat and an inward looking model was used to bring home the point that this no longer works. That just as Jesus raised the stakes with each step – first approaching some exhausted fishermen and commandeering their boats which he then preached from. He next had them go into deep water and drop their nets even though they had just finished doing all this for naught. The nets were then filled to breaking, instilling fear that was soon allayed but with a caveat. Walk away from the life you know and take a risk following me.
What our Federated Church team spent hours figuring out, step by step can best be described as going to the people and not expecting them to come to us. Of course, this is not to say we should not be gracious and welcoming in our hospitality once they get here but we must continually go out to an increasingly unchurched population. Studies have shown that only 10% of people in Vermont will be worshipping in a faith community this weekend. Nationally, more than 80% of churches are experiencing a decline. For the unchurched or those who haven’t been to church in a long time churches are looked at skeptically. We get painted with the same brush as those who’ve experienced firsthand the clergy sex abuse scandal and financial scandals – folks don’t always differentiate.
There is no magic pill to take to fix this. If we are determined to make sure there is still a church here in 10 or 20 years from now, we all must go to people where they are. We must also find ways to ask people to be a part of what we’re about. Again, there are studies that show that 65% of unchurched people would visit a church if they were personally invited but that is contrasted with the fact that only 2% of church members ever invite anyone to church. Jesus didn’t monkey around with his invitation and neither can we. Our invitation needs to be specific and the best invitation is one that offers to pick the newcomer up and bring them with you – I am living proof that this works. I went to my very first service at Second Congregational Church in Bennington on a hot August Sunday in 1992 and that day was the first step on the journey to this place. Thank you, Susan O’Neil, who picked me up and introduced me to folks and then asked if I needed a ride the next week.
Jesus called disciples then and he’s still calling disciples now. And as one wise person reminded us we are not the fisherman or fisher woman – we are the bait. Just imagine what God can do through you and me and all of us if we are more determined to discern and heed our call as disciples of Jesus than we are of holding onto a model that is past its prime. Let us share freely that which we treasure about God and this faith community. Imagine what we are capable of doing together! Amen.