Luke 5:1-11
Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost/ 2nd
September 2012
Jesus
has a job for you to do. That’s it. That’s the main idea of this meditation. It’s the main theme of this text. Jesus has a job for you do. No matter whom you are or where you come
from, no matter your education or skill level, whether you’re rich or poor,
young or old, whether you have faith or none – they don’t matter. Jesus has a job for you. There’s work to be done. There’s a God to be
served. There’s a world to be loved. And
you’re exactly the right person to do it.
Why? How? Because Jesus has
called you and needs you, equips and sends you, and he’s counting on you.
On this Labor Day weekend it seems fitting to talk about
work, to consider the unique work Jesus calls us toward. And call
is the key word here because this is a call story – the Bible is full of them,
full of call stories, narratives of God appearing from out of no where and
summoning assuming women and men to change the direction of their lives, to take
on a new responsibility, to face an enormous challenge, to confront injustice
and slavery, to move toward a new vision, a new horizon, a new day, a new way
of being human. Upon the acceptance of
the call hinges the advancement of God’s kingdom and the Spirit’s unfolding mission
in history.
Jesus has a job for you to do. God has a job for you to do. To be a follower of Jesus means that Jesus
has called you and is calling you to do something unique that only you can do;
to be someone unique that only you can be.
We call this vocation, from
the Latin vocatus, to call. And the one doing the calling is God. When we say that Jesus has a job for us to do
we’re saying that everyone has a vocation.
A vocation or calling is not reserved only for religious professionals;
it isn’t reserved for the special few whose jobs reflect their passions and
interests. The Reformed theological tradition
has always insisted upon the centrality of vocation in the Christian life. Everyone
is called by virtue of one’s baptism.
If you’re baptized then you have a calling. Jesus has a job for you to do.
Now, I know, we know, there are some people who are just
thankful to have a job – any job – to have enough money to pay the rent and put
food on the table. I know, we know, that
not every job is viewed as a calling.
Some jobs are just jobs, there’s nothing special about them. Some jobs are killing us. Some people go to work just to pay the bills
so that when they come home they can focus on the things that really give them
life. The great poet T. S. Eliot (1888-1965), early in his career, worked as a
bank teller in London during the day and then went home in the evening to do
what he loved to do more than anything else, write poetry. For some, for many, work is drudgery,
something you get through in order to get beyond it, to get to retirement. Some, many, when they chose their careers
early in life followed the money or listened to the expectations of their
parents or peers instead of following their hearts. For some, for many, following one’s heart
seems like a luxury, something that rich people say, people who have options,
choices. For some, for many, work has no
meaning, no purpose. However, just imagine what this does to the human spirit
over time, year after year of meaningless work, work without purpose, work that
contributes nothing to one’s well-being, which does little to advance the kingdom,
which has little to do with the Spirit’s unfolding work in history. How can we
afford not to listen to the heart?
So how do you figure out what Jesus wants you to do? “Put out into the deep water and let down
your nets for a catch.” Now we know how
this story ends up, the nets are overwhelmed with fish, Peter pulls away in
fear, and Jesus says, “Do not be afraid, from now on you will be catching
people.” And so we think this is the point of the story – Jesus’ followers catch
people. We assume the only call worth
having is to be “fishers of men.” We
think the only call is to be an evangelist.
And to some extent, yes, all of this is quite true. But this is not the summation of God’s call,
this is not the only kind of calling Jesus has in mind. It’s not the only work for us do.
I want
to pull back from the story a little. I
want us to see the major metaphor at work here and then allow the metaphor to
push us forward to where we are today, especially for those of us who aren’t
professional fisher folk.
“Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a
catch.” I can remember the exact time
and place as a college student when I first heard the power of this
metaphor. Where is the “deep water”?
What is this “deep water”? For me, the
metaphor of “deep water” means everything that’s under the surface. In many cultures and myths the ocean or sea
are symbols of the unconscious; they represent the deep inner world of the
psyche: dark, mysterious, frightening, and holy – not unlike the ocean itself.
Jesus called them to go away from the shoreline to “put out into the deep
water,” don’t be afraid to go there and when you get there don’t be afraid to
let down your nets for a catch. What
they’re looking for is found in the depths.
It can’t be found along the shallow shoreline.
Jesus is
calling them – calling us – to a life that risks going into the deep water and
then going into the depths in order
to “catch” the hidden wisdom of God within us, to find the life of the Spirit
hidden in the depths of our being, to go down and in and find our soul, our
heart, our heart’s “first love,” the heart of all things that knows the
truth. It’s there, I believe, that we discover
what Jesus calls us to do. It’s there, I
believe, that we come to have a sense of who we are and whose we are and all
that’s available to us to fulfill our respective callings.
One thing is clear there: we’re not called to cast our nets in shallow places, places that aren’t
deep enough to yield what we’re looking for. The real answers to our questions won’t be
found there. My sense is that far too
many of us prefer the shallow end, near the safety of the shoreline, and would
rather cast our nets in the kiddie pool of life. We’re afraid to go deep – and we should be! But that doesn’t mean we don’t belong
there. And, to be honest, there aren’t
many voices in our age challenging us enough or expecting us to go deep – so
much of our culture prefers shallowness (and I include the Church in this
indictment), a society that prefers the easy way, the simple, the practical,
the functional and efficient way.
Why is this so? There
are many responses to this question. But
maybe, just maybe, it’s because there’s a part of us that really doesn’t want a
net full of fish. I suspect that we’re
afraid of what we will find in the depths, that what we find will be more than
we can bear, that what we discover there will overwhelm us. For, what if there’s more within us than we
could ever begin to imagine? What if we’re
full of fish? What if there are all
these gifts, resources, abilities, emotions, and experiences, and treasures
hiding within our depths, more than we could ever envision?
What the disciples discover in the depths overwhelms them
– as it should! That’s what I think is
behind Simon Peter’s odd response to the catch, falling down at Jesus’ knees,
pleading with him, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.” In other words, “Go away from me, Lord, for I
am not worthy of such generosity.”—Oh,
but you are, Simon Peter! Yes you are. You are
more worthy than you think. Such
generosity, yes, such grace overwhelms, because that’s what grace does. The fact that it overwhelms and frightens you
– as you try to push it away and deny it isn’t there – is natural, but do not
be afraid. What you discover there
is your calling. For a calling that does
not overwhelm you is not worthy of you.
A calling that does not place greater demands and burdens on you is not
worthy of you. So don’t allow the feeling of being overwhelmed or frightened by the
abundance in your depths define you.
That would be the sin, the sin is
not acknowledging that there’s so much available to you in the depth of your
heart; the sin is not accepting it; the sin is not taking on the burden of
responsibility that comes with the gift; the sin is not living one’s life –
one’s calling – from what God has given you within.
That’s our vocation, that’s our holy work – venturing out
into the depths, letting down our nets for a catch – and then living
faithfully, joyfully, passionately in response to what we discover of God’s
abundance. "Our vocation," as Thomas Merton (1915-1968) said, "is not simply to be, but to work together with God in the creation of our own life, our own identity, our own destiny" (New Seeds of Contemplation). It’s precisely the
realization of God’s abundance, the depth of God love and grace available to us
that in the end “hooks us,” that “catches” us in the nets of God’s goodness;
it’s the catch that “catches” people and turns lives around and changes the
universe.
That’s
what “catches” people. For when we
encounter this kind of overwhelming abundance in God and sense it within
ourselves and within the world, nothing is quite ever the same again. It makes perfect sense then that, as the text
clearly says, “When they had brought
their boats to the shore, they left everything and followed him.” Of course
they did. Of course they did.
