Another sermon, this time Epiphany 5 2004
(by the way, if you want to know what the readings are, you'll need to do a search for the revised common lectionary readings, or check out
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Ken Whitelock.
Isa 6.1-8, Psalm 138, 1 Cor 15.1-11, Luke 5.1-11.
I have a problem with boats.
Its not that I don’t like them, in fact I love sailing and I love canoes and kayaks. I even have a half finished kayak in the shed that I probably won’t ever finish off, as it needs more carpentry skills than I possess ( and a few tools I don’t have either). No, I love boats, but I don’t really have sea legs, or a sea stomach as I found on an unforgettable journey to Tasmania on a Sea-Cat ferry about 11 years ago. So perhaps it would be more accurate to say I have a problem with the sea rather than a problem with boats.
You see, I’m not what you would call a sea-going person. I’m a land-lubber.
Back in Jesus time and before, most Jewish people in Palestine were land-lubbers. They never had any real tradition of sea exploration or ship building, except for Noah, perhaps, and his was pretty much just a floating box they locked themselves into until it stopped raining and the water drained away. The sea, and deep water in general, was a place of mystery to them and it is in the light of this fact that I want to look at the symbology of the water in the Gospel passage today.
Jesus begins in the shallow water, at the edge of the lake, a good vantage point from which to address the people. The shallow water represents familiar territory, the known. Most people would know the shallow water. Anyone who has had a wash knows shallow water. In Jesus time perhaps the shallows at the edge of the lake were where many people washed. Washing was necessary to be ritually clean as well not smelling too bad. Cleanliness, according to Levitical law, was not just next to Godliness, it was Godliness. Shallow water is usually safer; it is much harder to get hurt in shallow water, unless of course you attempt to dive into it and crack your head on the bottom. Now, I see a connection here in the fact that Jesus is in a boat in the shallows, and that he is addressing fellow Jews. This is the shallow end of missionary work, so to speak, this is what He knows. Jesus is speaking to those of his own flock, his own social group, or ethnic group, or religious group. He is firmly within the “known”. He understands the people to whom he is preaching, and their context. And whilst, as with any crowd of people they will all have different views on many things, the fact is that there are more points of common interest than there are of divergence. They share a lot of common ground, especially religion. It was common ground that Jesus shared, and this fact made it easier for Jesus to preach and teach them.
After Jesus has taught the crowd on the shore, it comes time for Jesus to call Simon Peter to follow him. Jesus tells Peter to set out into the deep water and let down the nets for a catch, which Peter argues against at first but then does what is asked of him and they get a huge catch to go off and deep fry in a nice beer batter with some chips. Well, perhaps not. But there is a deep symbology in this that alludes to the mission to the non-Jewish people, the gentiles.
The Deep water represents the unknown, the unfamiliar. Being thrown in the deep end is a phrase that we all know, and it means getting into unfamiliar, perhaps dangerous territory – be it in your job, relationship, traveling, whatever. That Jesus asks Simon-Peter to put out into the deep water and let down the nets for a catch that Simon Peter is quite sure they won’t get confirms this. The gentiles, the non-Jews, were regarded by many in the Judean Jewish culture as dogs, they were very much ritually unclean and outsiders, inferior. The idea of mounting a mission to them, in the name of a thoroughly Jewish God and a thoroughly Jewish Jesus, must have been quite preposterous, let alone more than a bit scary. Jesus is, in effect, alluding to the fact that He will eventually throw Simon-Peter into the deep end. In fact He throws Him into the very deepest end later on, telling him that he will be the rock on which the church is built. But that’s for another time, and another sermon.
In both the Old Testament reading and the Gospel we have examples of call narratives, passages in which God, or in the case of the Gospel, God the Son, calls someone to a mission. I won’t go into a long analysis of a call narrative now, that is for another sermon. In Isaiah’s case it was to preach repentance to a nation gone off the rails, in Simon-Peter’s case, it was to go and catch people in the great unknown, the world outside Judaism.
And we all have our calling. We are called to be Christians. Our response to this call is in the first instance to be baptised, though for those of us baptised as infants, the response might be confirmation. Like Isaiah, we say “Here am I, send me.” But what is it that we are volunteering for? Well, in reading the Gospel reading this morning, you could easily get the impression that we are volunteering for a recruitment drive. It is a bit of a bums on seats sermon. Catch as many people as you can. And it does involve this, it is very important aspect of our calling as Christians. But there is more to it than that. Yesterday I had the privilege of serving as Deacon at the ordination of some friends of mine. Ordained ministry is one way a person may be called to Christian ministry. But there are many, many others areas.
I guess the thing to remember is that all of us have a gift that we can offer, and when we are called to be Christians, then we are called to use that gift, not matter how significant or insignificant we think that gift might be. It could be an ability to preach, or it could be an ability to cook, or to teach newcomers English, or even to be a loving parent. These and many more gifts are what God calls us to use when we go into the deep water, and God has a habit of chucking us in the deep water every now and then. In a sense the Anglican Church in Australia is in deep water now. (Some might say hot water as well.) It is the time to use our gifts, to accept the calling and jump in the deep end. It could be dangerous. It will be scary. Stepping outside of the known and using our gifts for the promotion of God’s kingdom in this world could draw antagonism, humiliation, embarrassment, ridicule, even violence and death. Being called by God is scary. But perhaps the scariest part is the fact that we might even be up to the task. Just as in Isaiah and Simon-Peter’s call, no matter how much we protest our unworthiness to represent God to the world, God still believes in us.
I think that is the real lesson this morning. That to survive as a Christian in the deep end of post modern life, we need to believe in ourselves and in our gifts as God believes in us. When I was exploring the possibility of ordination, I told someone I shouldn’t do it because I was not good enough. This person told me “Of course not, but no one is. If you wait to be perfect you will never do it.” So I had to take a step into that deep end, and hey, I survived and in some ways flourished. Simon-Peter thought he wasn’t worthy, but he succeeded. Isaiah thought he wasn’t worthy, but he did it. He was shown that his imperfection didn’t matter, God’s grace took the imperfection away, or at least made it insignificant. God’s grace made his lips clean.
But what about you, all of you. What are you called to? Does it sound hard? Does it sound like something you are unworthy of carrying out. Well, perhaps you’re not. None of us are. But that doesn’t matter. Because God, through Jesus, has opened up for us the option that we don’t need to be perfect, we just need to believe in God and believe in ourselves as God believes in us enough entrust us with God’s Church. A big responsibility, and no less diminished since Simon-Peter was commissioned. We are now the rock that the Church is built on. We can be granite or quicksand. Stand firm. Believe in yourself, as God believes in you. Amen.
