SERMON PREACHED BY THE REVEREND DR. HAROLD T. LEWIS, RECTOR
CALVARY EPISCOPAL CHURCH, PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA
ON THE FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY
4 FEBRUARY 2007

 

"Put out into the deep and let your nets down for a catch." (Luke 5:4)

 

Being in deep water is usually bad news. About twenty-five years ago, I was swimming in Ocean City, Maryland, and was taken far from shore by an undertow, and would almost surely have drowned were it not for a lifeguard who sped out to me and towed me ashore. Being in figurative deep water can also be problematic. The Democratic hopefuls are barely out of the gate, but many of them seem already to be in over their head (if I may mix metaphors). Senator Clinton, in an ill-chosen turn of a phrase, suggested strongly that her husband, the former President, is an evil man. Senator Biden made some racially insensitive remarks about Senator Obama, and by extension former black Presidential candidates. Senator Obama may be in deep water, too, but through no fault of his own. According to Friday's New York Times, there are many in the African American community who may not vote for him because in their opinion his unique parentage (a black Kenyan father and a white American mother) make it impossible for him to identify with the black American struggle!

 

In today's Gospel, Jesus instructs his disciples to get into deep water. He finds two empty boats by the shore of the Sea of Galilee (which, as we know, was really a lake) near the plains of Gennesaret. They belonged to fishermen who had had a particularly unproductive night on the water, and who were on the shore washing their nets. Then Jesus does an amazing thing! He gets into one of the boats, and uses it as a pulpit, and began to teach the people on the shore. (In the absence of a P.A. system, Jesus the Acoustical Engineer realized that the water served to make his words more audible.) At the end of the sermon, he instructs Peter to "put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch." It is fair to assume that Jesus the Carpenter was not a fishing expert, and Peter probably had qualms about following the advice of this landlubber. His words suggest that he almost humors Jesus: "Master we toiled all night and took nothing; but at your word (one translation reads "if you insist") I will let down the nets." Well, the rest is history. Simon Peter and his partners caught so many fish that the nets began to break, and the boat began to sink, and they had to enlist the assistance of the fishermen in the other boat to haul the catch to the beach.

 

At this point, the impetuous Peter realizes that this whole scenario really has nothing to do with fish. He understands at once that he is in the divine presence, and feels unworthy, and asks Jesus to depart from him. Not only does Jesus ignore the request; he tells Peter that he shouldn't be afraid, and that henceforth he and his friends would catch people, and not fish. (The Sunday School song, "I will make you fishers of men" still rings in my ears.) So they tied up their boats and left behind their livelihood (a livelihood which had recently showed signs of being especially lucrative) and followed Jesus.

 

The first thing this story teaches us, I think, is that Jesus often calls us to leave our comfort zones. Peter was happy as a fisherman, even when he didn't have a big haul. This was his profession, his vocation. He knew what he was doing. What is more, he was probably comfortable at that moment. Washing his nets and listening to Jesus. Some inspirational words while he tidied up for the night. Clearly he was thinking about having a meal and going to bed. Then Jesus insists that he take the boats and the nets out again. First, he was convinced that nothing would come of it. Second, it meant that after a futile launch, he would have to come back and wash the nets all over again. But he left his comfort zone at Jesus' bidding, and became the Rock on which Jesus would build his church. Last night, Claudette and I were chatting while the news was on. I heard the newscaster say the words "Episcopal Church," and, frankly, my response was "What have we done now?" But the news story was about Andrea Jaeger, the famous tennis star, who used the fortune she had accumulated to found a camp for children with cancer, and who then took vows as a Dominican nun in the Episcopal Church. She had left her comfort zone big time!

 

But wait, there's more! Whenever we read about a boat in the Gospel, we are reading a story about the church, the church that has been called the Ark of Salvation. Even Gothic architecture reinforces this idea. You are sitting in the nave, which of course means "ship," and if you look up at the ceiling and think it resembles the hull of a ship, it's supposed to. The Church as an institution is often content to play it safe, to stay close to the shore. They want to be sure that in the event that they capsize --- highly unlikely since they usually don't let enough people in the boat to endanger their safety ---they have no fear of drowning. They won't even have to swim to shore, just stand up and walk. Left to its own devices, the church, believing in the Seven Deadly Words, "We have always done it that way," is by nature conservative, not in the political sense, mind you, but in the strict sense of the word of wanting to keep things the same. Change is threatening, whether you're talking about a woman as Presiding Bishop or if the congregation should stand or kneel for the eucharistic prayer, or if communion wine shold be red or amber.

 

Now every now and then, at the urging of Jesus, the church puts out into the deep. It goes somewhere where it has not been before. Sometimes it is a missionary field at home or abroad. Sometimes it is an AIDS ward. Sometimes it's the inner city. Sometimes it's the gay community. And sometimes it is the courthouse. This has certainly been true of Calvary, who in every age has put out into the deep as she has embraced unpopular causes. She pushed the envelope, been at the cutting edge. (Somebody once said if you're not on the edge, you're taking up too much room!) Even as we speak, we are taking bold moves which have earned us calumny and scorn in high places. But there is no doubt in our minds that we shall be vindicated, and will be able to pray, with Julian of Norwich, "All will be well."

 

The second thing the Gospel story tells us is that Jesus wants us to take risks for the sake of the Gospel. From time to time, I receive telephone calls from stock brokers whom I have never met. They typically begin the conversation by saying, "Harold, this is Jim from XYZ Brokerage." Then they tell me about the stock that's going to split by evensong. But if I hurry and invest x dollars, I'll have 100x dollars in no time flat. Two questions they always ask are a) the extent of my investments, and b) what kind of investor I am. "Would you consider yourself aggressive?" they ask. In other words, how risky are you willing to be? People like Copernicus and Galileo challenged the status quo, and caused the church and the world to re-think time-honored truths. The same could be said of people like Rosa Parks or Martin Luther King. Mary Donovan, in her book on the history of women's ministries in the Episcopal Church, tells the story of two women who were duly elected by their dioceses to be deputies to General Convention. They sat at their delegations' tables, but the gentlemen on the floor of Convention moved a special order of business, explained that the word "laymen" in the canons meant exactly that. The women were voted out and ceremoniously escorted from the hall. But their risk paid off in the long run.

 

Lastly, today's Gospel teaches us that Jesus takes us warts and all. He could have told Peter that his sinfulness disqualified him from discipleship. But he didn't. The church that Jesus was founding was not meant to be a hotel for saints, but a hospital for sinners. And as I have said before, if somebody tells you that they don't want to come to church because it's full of hypocrites, tell them they're absolutely right, and that there's room for one more! God, as I was told by the priest who suggested I think about ordination, does not choose the worthy, he makes worthy those whom he chooses.

 

"Put out into the deep, and let your nets down for a catch."

 

Let us pray:
Jesus calls us, from the worship of the vain world's golden store
From each idol that would keep us, Saying, "Christian, love me more."