- Sermon - Mickey Anders

Text: Luke 5:1-11

Simon stood to wipe the sweat from his brow. What a long and empty night it had been. The three of them (Simon, James and John) had fished all night long to no avail. Now they were exhausted, and they still had to clean the nets.

He thought back to the excited expectation of the evening before. Usually, night fishing yielded enough fish for a good profit at the market the next day and plenty of food for the family. These were experienced fishermen. They knew what they were doing, and they knew the odds. Sometimes you catch a bundle, sometimes you don't.

Simon remembered the early rhythms of casting the nets into the water. There had been just enough moonlight that they had no trouble making their way about the boat. Each cast was thrown with expectation.

Gather the net in the right hand. Clinch the tether in the left. Slowly swing the net back and forth until the proper momentum was reached. Then with the precise release, the net mushroomed into a perfect circle, making a simultaneous splash as the tiny weights hit the water.

Let the net sink to the end of the tether, and with a mighty, swift effort pull on the cord, collapsing the underwater parachute and trapping fish within. At least, that was what was supposed to happen.

How many times had he thrown that net during the night? Each time he had expected fish. All night long and nothing! Nothing!

Dejectedly they were washing their nets when Jesus appeared at the head of a crowd. He stopped to speak to them, but the crowd pressed closer and closer. Finally, Jesus came over to Simon and stepped into his boat. He asked Simon to push out a little way from shore so he could speak to the crowd from the boat.

The water was flat calm that day, and the sound traveled perfectly along the water. The people could hear Jesus as well as if he had a modern day public address system.

Jesus sat in the bow and spoke to the people, while Simon sat at the stern and listened. Luke doesn’t tell us what Jesus said that day. No doubt he was telling parables about farming or women sweeping the house. He had a knack for turning common occurrences into divine truth. But this time, Luke feels that what happened was more important that Jesus' message for the day.

When the sermon was over, Jesus said, "Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch."

Perhaps Simon immediately caught the underlying message of "deep water." He was experienced with the deep waters on the Sea of Galilee, and he knew the dangers that lay there. Earning a living on a small boat on a big lake can be a peaceful and calm vocation, but a gale would sweep down from these mountains and suddenly the fishermen would be fighting for their lives. Simon knew the dangers. He was a waterman.

But he also knew that spiritually he had been paddling around in the shallows of life. He was an honest businessman. He even attended the synagogue on occasion. But there were times when he wondered about the meaning of his life, and wondered if God didn't have greater things in store for him than casting nets all night.

This Jesus has a way of calling people into the deep. His presence makes one feel the very presence and calling of God. Jesus draws people to him like a giant magnet. His words made Simon think that there was more to life. He felt Jesus words called him to "put out into the deep."

Already Simon was contemplating taking the risk of following Jesus. Talk about the deep. Talk about a risk! Simon had always played it safe. Now he is feeling the call to step out in faith. He was being called to think and live deeply, to face his doubts and fears, to abandon himself to God's presence in Jesus.

Jesus not only told him to put out into the deep, he also said to let down his nets for a catch. Simon must have wondered what this was about. He had not complained to Jesus about his fish-less night. Fishermen know that there will be nights like that.

And Simon must have drawn up short when this teacher began to give advice to professional fishermen. Surely he thought to himself, "One of us has been doing this all his life. The other has been a carpenter and now is a traveling teacher. And he is the one telling me where to fish?" As you know, Simon was a hot-headed, outspoken man. I suspect he had a temper. He was not the kind of guy who took advice from amateur fishermen easily.

Simon's muscles still ached from casting the net in that same place all night long. It had been a day of failure. Failure piled upon failure. He had struggled to human exhaustion with no results. He had tried everything he knew to do. All night long and nothing!

So he patiently explained the situation to Jesus, "Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing." But Simon did not question Jesus. In fact, he called him "Master."

But then he tacked on the sentence that marked a deep change in Simon's life. "Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets." It was a statement of profound obedience. "Yet if you say so, I will…" It is a statement of faith that leads to obedience. It is obedience in spite of what we think.

We find that kind of obedience frequently in the Bible. Here is a young woman, Mary, who has never been with a man. The angel says to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus."

Mary knew better. She may have been young, but she was no dummy. She replied to the angel, "How can this be, since I am a virgin?" It was her way of saying what Peter said, "We have worked all night long but have caught nothing." Peter knew what was futile. She knew what was impossible.

But then Mary said, "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word." It was her way of saying, "If you say so, I will…"

In the book of Acts, we find a disciple in Damascus named Ananias. The Lord says to him in a vision, "Get up and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul." But Ananias says, "Lord, I have heard from many about his man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem; and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who invoke your name."

But the Lord said again to Ananias, "Go." And the Scripture records, "So Ananias went and entered the house. He laid his hands on Saul." It was Ananias' way of saying with Peter, "If you say so, I will…"

Even Jesus would demonstrate this kind of obedient faith. In Luke 22, we find Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. He withdrew from the disciples about a stone's throw, knelt down and prayed, "Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done." It was Jesus' way of saying to the Father, "If you say so, I will…"

Genuine faith requires such obedience. "Nevertheless, not my will, thine be done." "If you say so, I will…"

Peter obeyed, and his obedience led to an abundance of fish. Verses 6 and 7 say, "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."

Obedient faith leads once again to abundance. We have already seen that when the servants obeyed Jesus and filled the stone water jars with water, there was an abundance of fine wine. Later, we will find Jesus taking five loaves and two fish and creating an overwhelming abundance of food.

Simon worked all night on his own power, and got nothing. But when he was obedient to Jesus, his nets were breaking. He shows us that there is a great difference between working hard with only our own ideas to guide us versus working with divine inspiration.

How might Simon Peter have responded to this abundant catch? He might have said, "From the shore, Jesus could see the ripples on the water where the fish were." He might have even said, "That was a pretty good trick!"

Instead Peter is convinced that Jesus is a prophet of God. He is immediately moved to worship. He changes from calling Jesus "Master" to calling him the more exalted "Lord." He says, "Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!"

He recognizes the presence of God in Jesus, and he responds with the awe that is appropriate before that presence. His response was the same as the prophet Isaiah when he went to the temple and "saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty…" Isaiah responded, "Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!"

Next, Jesus says to Simon, "Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people." In saying that, Jesus anticipates that scene in Acts where Simon preaches to a large crowd and astonishingly large numbers of people come to Jesus. The Church was born at Pentecost, and has followed that calling to fish for people.

Our passage concludes with perhaps the most powerful line of all. "When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him."

In this passage, Jesus did not actually ask the fishermen to follow him. At other times, Jesus makes that call explicit.

The Bible is filled with "call passages." Isaiah was called. Jeremiah responded to the call. Paul was called with a blinding light. But here the presence and the power of Jesus serve as an unspoken call. The fishermen give up their professions, leave their nets and presumably the abundance of caught fish, and follow Jesus.

When we find the call of God on the lives of men and women, there is often associated a radical unconcern for possessions. The disciples leave their boats and go off after someone they cannot comprehend. Without knowing, they heed the later words of Jesus, "Seek first the kingdom of God."

In the book of Acts, Luke will tell of the early church's practice of sharing possessions with one another, of the selling of property and distribution of food to the widows. Commitment to Jesus' way puts all other things into perspective.

Like Simon Peter, we stand today at the crossroads of life. Will we go about tending nets? Or will we hear the words of Jesus addressed to us. Will it be our call narrative?

"Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch… Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people."

When we hear those words addressed to us, I pray that we, too, will "leave everything and follow Jesus."