Empty Nets (sermon from January 20th)

 

Click here to read Luke 5:1-11

I know what it is like to fish all day and catch nothing, nada, and zip.  I remember growing up my dad took me one Saturday morning at a river nearby our house.  It was bright sunny day.  My dad had just read in a magazine that fish really like whole kernel corn, so we brought with us a can of uncooked corn.  We spent hours, let me emphasize hours that day, on the bank of the river trying to catch fish.  I was so bored at one point I decided to try the uncooked corn, just to see if perhaps I might gain some kind of intellectual advantage over the fish.  Okay, honestly, I tried it because I was getting hungry.  It made me realize why the fish were swimming past.  At some point, we decided to call it a day. Like Simon in our lesson today, we left the river banks with half a can of corn and no fish. 

Now, remember Simon and Jesus had already met before in Luke’s gospel.  Jesus had come to Simon’s house, cured his mother-in-law of a fever, and they had enjoyed a meal together.  They knew each other.  And so when Jesus asked Simon to use his boat as a floating pulpit for a sermon he was about to give, Simon said sure.  If I had been in Simon’s sandals, I might have sarcastically thought, “Might as well get some good out of this boat today for all the fish I caught.”  We have no idea what Jesus preached that day, because it did not seem to Luke to be all that important. That is a good reminder to me as I stand here preaching before you.  What we do know is what happened after the sermon was over.  Jesus said to Simon, “Why don’t you try to put out in deep water.”  Again, if I was in Simon’s sandals, I might think, “Who is this guy think he is trying to tell me how to do my job? Isn’t he a carpenter after all?”  Maybe I am giving Simon too much credit, but I am willing to guess that he already tried to put his net in deeper water, several times, in several places and caught nothing, nada, zip.  Just empty nets.

Sometimes today I think the church can feel like Simon, like we are trying our best to put our nets down in deeper water and coming up empty.  We look at our budgets and feel like our nets are empty.  We make calls to serve on committees and our nets feel like they are empty.  We know Simon.  I am Simon.  And yet, I need to be honest that sometimes when the Spirit says, put down your net in deeper water, I get a little persnickety and question whether it is worth it?  Whether people at the governing board will go for that new idea?  I wonder whether I have the energy, time, wherewithal, or wisdom to really put down the nets in deeper water one more time.  We know what it is like in our lives to come up with empty nets.  We know what it is like in our family relationships to come up with empty nets.   We have experiences from our work where it feels like our nets are empty.  And there are times we volunteer that fall into that same description. Friends, we know what it is like to catch nothing. 

But Luke tells us that Simon tried.  He lowered the net and soon there were so many fish, his muscles were straining, trying to hoist in the net.  Simon motioned for another boat with his partner’s, James and John, to come over. They helped to haul in the catch and when the fish were poured into the boats, Luke tells the boats started to sink.  It is an overabundance.  I want to be careful not to turn this into some morality lesson for you.  In no way do I want to imply that if you just try harder or just trust more or just pray every night all your dreams will come truth.  I don’t think that is what this story is about at all.  I think this story isn’t about me or you at all.  I think this story is about God, what God does and noticing the abundance of God in our lives. I think it is very difficult to notice the abundance of God today. We live in a time when resources feel so scarce, whether those resources are natural or the resource of leadership.  We live in a time when the economy and jobs feel like empty nets. And to be honest we feel sacred.  When fear become the dominate emotion in our life and when we are exhausted from trying to run around all the time to prevent our nets from being empty, it is difficult to notice God.  So in those moments when we are surprised by joy or feel the tiny hairs on our arms stand on end because of an encounter with grace, we might wonder if it will last or we tell ourselves not to get our hopes up.  Simon saw the fish and do you remember his response? He doesn’t say, “Thanks for the great fishing advice, Jesus.” He does not worry if he is going to be able to sell all of the fish.  He does not try to justify why he did not try dropping his nets there in the first place.  Those are all responses I might be prone to offer.  Instead, he sees his own short comings and brokenness. 

But Jesus saw more than Simon’s brokenness.  In fact, Jesus saw something else.  Jesus invited Simon to follow him, to be a disciple along with his partners in the fishing business, James and John.  I wonder if Jesus might see something different in our church today as well.  The call of Jesus is to follow.  The call of Jesus is not to strategically plan or pass the right motion or even confess the right faith.  The call is to follow, just follow. 

I remember as a child I loved playing follow the leader.  And the most joyful times was when the leader would make us do the craziest things. We would have to wiggle through the metal ladder that led to the slide on try to crawl backwards up the slide on our bellies.  And even when I failed and could not follow the leader, I still laughed joyfully.  I wonder, why is it that I don’t do that in my discipleship, in my attempts to follow Jesus today?  When I did I let go of that kind of joy?  You see, I can make discipleship out to be a list of tasks to do: did I pray today, did I say the right words, and did I love my enemies.  Don’t get me wrong, all of those things are good.  But truth also is that when discipleship becomes a laundry list of things to do, that is the moment discipleship becomes more about me and less about following Jesus.  In those moments, I am the one who is the leader and I am trying to fill my empty net. Following Jesus, I think is about being radically open to God whose presence fills my net sometimes (okay, most of the time) in spite of what I try to do.  To be sure, prayer is important, reading the bible, serving in mission, talking with others, visiting others, caring for others, and loving others are all important. ; Discipleship is more than what I ‘ought’ to do.  And what I hear in the passage today is a definition of discipleship which is:  a radical openness to the serendipitous ways God moves and calls us to do what sometimes defies logical thought. 

Here is the thing: the way the Spirit moves in your life, will be different than the way the Spirit moves in your neighbor’s life, which will be different than the way the Spirit moves in the life of the person you sit next to in the pew on Sunday morning.  Discipleship can never be pre-packaged or pre-planned.  And to be honest, that kind of ambiguity is frustrating, especially for us UCCers who like to think our way through life.

Let’s face, we in the UCC, are a pretty heady bunch.  If the UCC had been on that boat that day two thousand years ago, I have to humbly confess, we probably would have formed a committee to see if we should drop our nets in deeper water.  But it does not have to be that way. And so, here is my invitation, this week, listen for God’s presence.  Maybe it will come in prayer, maybe it will come in the middle of Woodmans, and maybe it will even come from your annoying co-worker’s words.  That’s our still speaking God.  Listen for God’s presence and then try to respond to that holy prompting.  I believe that God and Christ are still calling us to be disciples and to drop our nets in deeper waters.  Even if we end up like I did in my childhood not catching one single fish this week, there is still a joy in following the serendipitous Spirit. There is tremendous joy that calls us to share our faith in the most amazing and audacious ways here and now.  The question is, will you listen and respond to Christ’s call in your life this week? And the answer to that question comes from your life. May our discipleship deepen this week through the One who still calls us to follow him. Thanks be to God.  Amen.