To fully grasp this sermon, which includes a video clip, press play on the Clip below and play as you try to read the text out loud. After about a minute, stop and just watch in silence until it's done….
This is the world we live in right, not that of Lake Gennesaret. The chaotic world of technological inter-dependence, to do lists, Monday's meeting has been changed, have you seen the new 3-d movie, $14.00 for that? What is facebook? Have you heard the latest news?Sometimes we just want to make it STOP
Are you fully present? Into the world of those who heard Jesus speak came the message of Christianity. But that same message comes into our world years later. To us here in this sanctuary. To those seeking meaning in a life of materialism technological overabundance and yes, to fishermen pulling an all nighter. Let's take a moment to listen again to our text this morning again with new ears.
Push Out into Deep Water: The Message
Once when he was standing on the shore of Lake Gennesaret, the crowd was pushing in on him to better hear the Word of God. He noticed two boats tied up. The fishermen had just left them and were out scrubbing their nets. He climbed into the boat that was Simon's and asked him to put out a little from the shore. Sitting there, using the boat for a pulpit, he taught the crowd.
When he finished teaching, he said to Simon, "Push out into deep water and let your nets out for a catch."
Simon said, "Master, we've been fishing hard all night and haven't caught even a minnow. But if you say so, I'll let out the nets." It was no sooner said than done—a huge haul of fish, straining the nets past capacity. They waved to their partners in the other boat to come help them. They filled both boats, nearly swamping them with the catch.
Simon Peter, when he saw it, fell to his knees before Jesus. "Master, leave. I'm a sinner and can't handle this holiness. Leave me to myself." When they pulled in that catch of fish, awe overwhelmed Simon and everyone with him. It was the same with James and John, Zebedee's sons, coworkers with Simon.
Jesus said to Simon, "There is nothing to fear. From now on you'll be fishing for men and women." They pulled their boats up on the beach, left them, nets and all, and followed him.
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I can guess that this morning's reading may have been frustrating, jarring, even something you were not ready for. Did any of you think it was a technical problem, maybe there was something wrong, the wrong clip, or the wrong time?
How did you feel? How did the silence later feel?
The noise of the clip from the movie Contact, is a good illustration the technological lives we lead. Even for those who do not participate in the multitasking of the computer world, that I must confess I do very much participate in. The amount of input we receive on a daily basis is much higher than in past generations. In writing this sermon, my computer screen became a great example of this massive immediate input that is possible now. Sitting open waiting for inspiration were three different assignments, two internet browsers, …with , several pages open, iTunes playing "study music" and my email program alerting me to new mail every few minutes. I know I might not seem like the average person, but we all live in a time of the overabundance of input. If not computers, then TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, billboard ad campaigns, overhead announcements in stores. All of this demands our attention and we as consumers must navigate the path that gets us from here to there.
At the beginning of this week's passage, navigating the path through an overabundance of information is just what Jesus is faced with. The crowds are all pushing in on him, the desire for his healing, his teaching, is so great that to make space, he must leave the shore of the lake and preach to them from a boat! The press of all that input could have been much like our modern lives, all available at once.
And poor Simon, he has pulled an all nighter, fishing the waters of the lake, and now he has pulled into shore, and is cleaning his nets, thinking of possibly a chance to rest, to recharge. But instead, he is bombarded with an overflow of people and the prophet is getting into HIS boat. He didn't ask to have his boat used, he wasn't one of the crowd following Jesus, he was just finishing his work. Maybe he didn't have an interest in religion, but cared more for his place on the water in the boat. Maybe Simon's theology was centered more on creation than on human relation.
Imagine if you will, the story. This man comes up, jumps in your boat where you left it on the shore so you could clean your fishing gear, and tells you to push off from the shore. What right does this man have to use my boat without asking!!! But Simon listens, jumps in the boat with him and pushes out from shore. Only to be surprised again by another request, to go fishing again. This might have been the breaking point for him. Tired, frustrated, and now ordered around by this stranger? "Master, we've been fishing hard all night and haven't caught even a minnow. But if you say so, I'll let out the nets."
But Simon, is once again surprised, his nets are filled to straining with fish. Clearly this man Jesus knows something that Simon does not. From his contact with Jesus, Simon has a transforming mystical experience. Out of our busy lives, there can be a glimpse of the divine. Out of the natural world, comes the power of mysticism. Out of the deep places, there is more light yet to be brought forth. Its even the UCC tag line, God is still speaking; don't place a period where God has placed a comma.
Jesus was a revolutionary seeking to reinterpret the message of Judaism in terms for a new generation by using new words and the imagery of nature. How he has interpreted that message in many cases is quite possibly a result of his experience with the divine out in the wilderness right before his ministry begins. In the boat, Simon has an experience with the divine in his surprise by creation. With that catch straining the nets, threatening to sink the boat, Simon kneeled down in shock and awe at this miracle. Was this a miracle of Jesus, or was it a miracle of creation?
Sometimes it's hard to tell the two apart. For many who might have had a mystical experience, it has happened in nature, when we've noticed the small things, when we have heard the call of a new bird, or witnessed a spectacular meteor shower. Thomas Aquinas said there were two places of revelation, the bible and nature.
Mystical experience is hard to define in words, yet we continue to try.
Isaiah says;
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. I saw the Lord.
(From: Isaiah 6:1)
St John of the Cross wrote;
Where I entered, I did not know,
but once I found myself there –
not knowing where I had entered –
I understood important things.
I cannot say what I felt
for I still knew nothing.
there transcending all knowledge (From: "I entered I knew not where")
In the words of Pablo Neruda
And I, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke loose on the wind.
Simon says
"Master, leave. I'm a sinner and can't handle this holiness. Leave me to myself."
He has recognized the holiness of the moment, of his moment with creation, and with the divine as it has been revealed to him by Jesus. But the experience alone isn't enough for Simon. Jesus calls him to further service.
His life is transformed by HIS experience, to drop everything he knows and follow the wandering mystic, the prophet, the teacher, of Jesus.
In college, I had my own Simon experience. During a meditation following a strenuous yoga class, I was surrounded by light that didn't match the light streaming in from beyond the glass blocks windows. The light was qualitatively different, but I cannot say how. But in that light, that moment of mystical connection to something bigger, to the divine spirit, I was transformed. Transformed not by the faith I had been apartof through my entire life, but by venturing into the tradtions of another way.
But I have never been able to get away from the parting words of this passage. "There is nothing to fear." There is nothing to fear from our transformation, from the moments of clarity or intense awareness of creation. "From now on you will be fishing for men (and women)."
Transformative experience is only one half of the equation. Simon's awe and the individual experience in the boat is not enough. There is something he must do with his transformed way of thinking; he must go out to help others. Interestingly however, only in Luke does the mystical transformative experience make the story. In Mark, we hear that Jesus walked by a few fisherman, says come follow me, they drop their nets and walk off. In Matthew the story is the same, walk by the fishermen, say come follow me, they drop the nets and walk off. In John, the first disciples are at least disciples of John and already on a seeking quest. But only here in Luke, are we given a glimpse of why the disciples would drop it all and follow Jesus, … and.. why we might also follow his way.
For Christians, it isn't enough to have a connection to the divine, to be transformed by the transcendence of God, but to go out into the world and do something with that transformation. For Simon, it was to follow Jesus. What might it be for you?
This past week, after staying up late going to a movie, I could not rest. I dreamed about this sermon, this text … It called to me all night long. Through dream after dream, and in my waking prayer, my brain never left this passage. I believe I too was being called out of the deep. Out of the deep of a busy life and the reality that this sermon was just one more thing on my to-do list. Out of sleep, I was called to leave all the other stuff behind. To close everything on my computer's desktop.
As I sat in my hushed apartment, with my family asleep, I sat in my living room, listening… watching…. To a few birds begin to sing… to the light in the sky as it became brighter minute by minute… and to wonder at the creation of it all.
It was in this moment that I understood my calling from this passage. This passage is much like my call to ministry. My calling to ministry is not that of the other gospels. No, for me , the divine experience, that moment of mysticism has called me to walk this path. I know I have been called from a life of complacency, by an experience of the divine, into one which stirs in others the kind of awe and wonder of Simon when he was told to cast out his nets again. I have been called to be a partner with you on the path of awareness and love that Christianity teaches us.
And so I tell you, Cast out your nets again. Cast them out into the deep of our modern lives. Cast them out into the deep of creation and spiritual experience. Cast out your nets and see what you catch.
There is nothing to fear. From now on you'll be fishers of men and women.
Amen
