Sermon delivered by the Rev. Cristina Rathbone
Luke 5:1-11
Once while Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” Simon answered, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.” When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken; and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.
We Can All Be Catchers of People
Have you ever been given a gift that is so perfect, so beautiful and so right that you have blushed?
Or: have you ever been given a gift that has moved you so deeply that you found yourself pushing it gently away, saying – ‘I simply can’t. It is too much?’
Or: have you ever been given a gift that is so deeply moving to you, so overwhelming in its size and scope and beauty and worth that it reveals to you not your own beauty and worth but – strangely – your lack of worth? Have you ever said: ‘Please take it away, I don’t deserve it’! as you drift out into the depths of your own shame and embarrassment.
Or: has a gift that seems truly wondrous to you ever prompted you to gasp and then say: ‘How can I ever repay you?’ not as a turn of phrase, or even as a roundabout way of saying thank you, but as a real and burning question that provokes panic inside you – and fear?
If you have, you’re in good company. Because all these responses are reflected in one way or another in our gospel reading today. I can’t know this for certain, of course, but it only seems to make sense that some combination of fear and embarrassment and shame and worry about the possibility of having to somehow repay what has been given him are what prompted Peter’s strong reaction to Jesus’ gift that long ago day on the banks of the lake of Gennesaret.
Peter and his friends had been fishing all day, remember, and when Jesus spotted the boats, he roped Peter into setting out again so that he could get a little space from the crowds and continue to speak. Then, “when he had finished” he tells Peter to put out even further “into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch” and they “caught so many fish that their nets began to break.”
Overwhelmed, Peter signaled to his friends on the shore to come and help, but the fish kept coming and coming and their weight was so great that in the end both boats began to sink — which was when Peter fell down to his knees and said: “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!”
He sounds pretty scared don’t you think? Scared first by the size of the gift he’s been given, because who is he to receive such a gift? And how can he ever repay it? He can’t – he knows this. The scale and the nature of the gift prohibits even the thought of repaying it — ever.
And yet there the gift was – already given, and increasing with every moment, growing more and more abundant as Peter’s fear grows – and I’m not talking only about the fish. The fish are nice. No, the fish are more than nice, the fish are wonderful! We all need to eat and Peter and his friends had been fishing all day with no success. But what Jesus gives Peter here is worth far more than the fish. Because what he gives him in fact is the gift of himself – and Peter knows this too. He sees it, he feels it, and then, because he’s a regular guy, more or less like most of us gathered here, he panics again — just as some of us here have, and do, and will, when we find ourselves falling into the ever offering hands of the living God. He’s just a fisherman, he must have thought to himself: plain and tired and as confused as everyone else. He doesn’t deserve riches like these! So he tells Jesus to go find someone better, someone sturdier, someone with more depth and more wholeness and more goodness in him.
“Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” he says — and because Jesus has no need at all to satisfy his ego with the love or the gratitude of others, he is able to respond to the fear that lies behind Peter’s words of rejection, instead of to the rejection itself: “Do not be afraid” he says…And then by way of telling him not to worry – that the gift doesn’t have to stop with him; that he doesn’t have to hold it; and he doesn’t have to match it; and he doesn’t even have to deserve it; that in fact all he has to do is grow large enough inside to be able to receive it and then give it to others — Jesus says: “From now on you will be catching people.”
You, the caught, will catch others. This is what Jesus told Peter that day. You, the seen, will see others. You, the loved, will love others. You, the one who has tasted healing, will heal others. You. You will spread the gift I am today giving you far and wide, and it will multiply because I am with you, and for you, and in you.
Now some of our more evangelical brothers and sisters use this text as an exhortation to charge out into the world and ‘convert’ unbelievers, and just in case any of you think I’m suggesting a course of fire and brimstone preaching on the streets of Great Barrington please know that I am not! As you know, I don’t believe Jesus calls us to the kind of faith that imposes its gift on others by insisting that ours is the one true path, and that all people must be saved in the way we believe we are being saved. There are many paths to freedom and wholeness and love, and it is not, I believe, our calling to go grabbing at those who are busy seeking these gifts in ways different from our own. Catching people is different from catching fish after all — and this is the point.
Fish need to be caught with nets, or with lines and hooks. Whereas catching people requires only arms – and isn’t necessary unless someone is falling.
Catching people, then, isn’t a way of trapping or convincing or ensnaring them, so much as of holding them gently for a time – working more as a safety net than a fishing net. And, if Jesus is anyone to go by – as he surely is, catching people has more to do with being-with than doing-for – not involving speaking only, but also listening, not teaching only but also learning…
Catching people, in the end, requires an approach that comes not from above or through domination, but from below and through loving service, because catching people is a humble work. It has to be. When people are falling they are most often pretty close to the ground and we need to be under them to be of any service at all.
To catch: Not to capture, but to sustain for a while, with love and care and kindness and attention and humor and gentleness and always, always in the name of the wholeness and the worth and the ever-growing freedom of the other. This is the life Jesus invited Peter to join him in that long ago day – and this is the life Jesus invites each one of us to also. But first he gifts us with his presence – and with no holds barred. Every bit as much as he was for Peter, Jesus himself is with you, and for you, and in you. And every time you offer yourself to another, even in the tiniest way, you will know this is true, because this is simply how the divine economy works: Gift becomes gift becomes gift becomes gift – with the sharing of it not decreasing but increasing its power and its scope.
So… how can we ever repay the gift we ourselves have been given by Christ-who-is love in our lives? Well – I think only by continuing to try to receive it, and by freely sharing it with others. Because we are all different, we are all called to do this in different ways. Some may share the gift of love through the folks at Gideon’s Garden and at Taft, others may strengthen the safety net of care through the Lee Food Pantry. Still others might offer healing through your work with people who need special care of one kind or another, or through volunteering with local agencies and community groups, or through making music and art and beauty of all kinds, or by giving up whatever it is that you think you should really be doing in order to care for a friend or a family member who requires – for a time – particular love and care and attention.
I hope I manage to share the gift I have been given through and with this community at least sometimes here in the pulpit, and when I meet with you, or with someone from the broader community around us, or when I make room for you to offer your own gifts in some new way, or when I sit still and quiet and simply listen. And I hope I do it in a small way too when I stand behind the altar and lead us all in the great and life-giving work of blessing and breaking and sharing holy food too. Because, of course, the Eucharist is one more way of both giving and receiving the gift that is offered to all of us all of the time by Christ who is love. And while I’ll never quite understand how it actually works mechanically speaking, I do know one thing: the free giving and the open hearted receiving of love-made-manifest – at this table and everywhere – leads us along the path to peace which is wholeness, which in turns births peace which is wholeness in others.
So if you are hungry today, whoever you are, please come and eat. And if you are falling, please come and allow yourself to be caught. And if you are strong and able and willing please come offer yourself to the One who made you, and who is still making you, gentling your strength ever more deeply into love.
There are no hooks here. No hidden agendas. No requirements, and no expectations. Take what you need and leave the rest. Love, we are told, just love — and also, “Do not be afraid.” “Put out into deep water, and let down your nets for a catch.”