When Dead Ends Become Fresh Starts - a Sermon preached on May 22, 2022 at the First Pres-byterian Church of Clarks Summit, PA, based on Acts 16. 6-15

We begin this morning tagging along on the Lewis & Clark Expedition. Meriwether Lewis is at the source of the Missouri River.  Our guide for the next few moments is Tod Bol-singer, who captures the moment in these excerpts from his book entitled, Canoeing the Mountains. Tod tells the story better than I ever could. So here goes.

            “He dipped his hands into the icy water and took a long drink. Fifteen months of hard travel, a seemingly endless string of days of backbreaking upstream slogging had led to this moment…

            But he was here.

            Lewis and a small scouting party had…followed a small trail up a creek and now were at the spring itself. This little trickle was the source of the mighty Missouri River. This water would flow all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. They had found what no person of European descent had before them. And the most challenging obstacle on their journey from what was then the United States to the Pacific Ocean was now behind them.

            Or so he thought…

            …Lewis, slaking his thirst from that little stream meant that he was about to realize the dream of centuries of pioneers, to fulfill the ambition of his president and to enter into the pantheon of explorers. His name and his Corps would be remembered as the discoverers of the highly prized Northwest Passage. Lewis believed that he would walk up the hill, look down a gentle slope that would take his men half a day to cross with their canoes on their backs, and then they would see the Columbia River. After fifteen months of going upstream they looked forward to letting the current swiftly whisk them to the Pacific Ocean. They would crest the hill, find the stream and coast to the finish line.

            They could not have been more disappointed.

            What Lewis actually discovered was that three hundred years of experts had all been completely and utterly wrong. In front of him was not a gentle slope down to a navigable river running to the Pacific Ocean but the Rocky Mountains. Stretching out for miles and miles as far as the eyes could see was one set of peaks after another…

            At that moment everything that Meriwether Lewis assumed about his journey changed.  He was planning on exploring the new world by boat.  He was a river explorer. They planned on rowing, and they thought the hardest part was behind them. But in truth everything they had accomplished was only a prelude to what was in front of them.

            Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery were about to go off the map and into uncharted territory. They would have to change plans, give up expectations, even reframe their entire mission. What lay before them was nothing like what was behind them…  The true adventure—their real discovery—was just be-ginning.”[i]

            Long years ago the Apostle Paul thought he knew where he was going.  He was making his way from Asia Minor toward the vast continent beyond…but he too encountered a journey changing obsta-cle. Luke, the author of Acts, provides a short travelogue of Paul’s attempts to plot his own course, only to be thwarted by the ultimate travel agent: “They went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, hav-ing been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. When they had come opposite Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them; so, passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas.”[ii]

            Troas is a coastal town on the Aegean Sea. That is where Paul’s dead end turned into a fresh start. He had a vision in the night of a man who invited him to cross the blue waters of the sea and be-gin to help those who lived at the southeastern edge of Europe. Having been thwarted at every turn as he plotted his own course, now, led by the Spirit he journeys unimpeded, hop over to Samothrace, a skip through Neapolis and a jump to Philippi. There, within days, on the Sabbath, Paul gets to help. The work of the Spirit is again revealed with a surprise twist: though the plea to come help in Macedonia had been voiced by a man, the people Paul encountered there were women, most notably a rich woman named Lydia.

            Ronald Cole-Turner, a professor from our Presbyterian Seminary across the state in Pitts-burgh writes of the meeting between Paul and Lydia on the outskirts of Philippi:          

            “It almost didn’t happen, this meeting of the businesswoman and the missionaries, and it surely would not have happened were it not for the inexplicable convergence of human faithfulness and divine guidance. Paul and Lydia and the Holy Spirit all work together in this event, this ‘chance’ encounter by the river.  Paul would not have been guided to this place at this moment, were he not first of all at God’s disposal, open to being guided, sensitively attuned to being steered in one direction and away from all others.  Lydia would not have arrived at this place or time, had she not first of all been a worshipper of God, a seeker already on her way.”[iii]

            Getting to the heart of the matter, the professor continues: “Paul does his part and Lydia hers, but it is God who guides all things and works in and through all things, not just for good but for what would otherwise be impossible. It is the Spirit who brings Lydia to Paul so that she can hear the Gospel.”[iv]

            “However that is only half of what is required,” says the professor, who adds: “True, Lydia must first hear the words of good news, and to do that she must meet Paul. She also must hear the words as truth, as gospel, as the answer to her search.  It is the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ that prepares Lydia’s heart to hear, receive, and understand.”[v] Luke described it this way: “The Lord opened her heart to give heed to what was said by Paul.” (v.14).

            The professor would have us see this as the center of the story. He calls it a “moment of inter-section between human obedience and divine initiative.  Longing and grace meet there on the river bank. The longing heart of a faithful woman is opened by the gracious impulse of a faith-giving God in an action that, like the incarnation itself, is at once fully human and fully divine.”[vi] It is, if you think about it, a moment that is both ordinary and extraordinary.  I like the way Ron describes it.

            “She came to the riverside, to a secluded place of prayer. Perhaps she expected to meet other women, Jewish women or Gentile seekers for prayer together. Perhaps she came regularly. What she did not know was that on this particular day outside the city gates, she would be met by Paul and his com-panions, missionaries looking for anyone who was seeking God in this hidden place of prayer. There at the riverside, Lydia found the God who was finding her.”[vii]

            The openness of Paul to hop a boat on the basis of his nighttime vision, combined with Lydia’s openness to hear and heed the word of God provides much for us to contemplate.  How much room do we give God to break into our dreams with a bit of direction?  How deliberately do we seek to eagerly discover what God has to say to us?  How responsive are we when God does get a word in edgewise? Will we be willing to cross a boundary or break through a barrier when the Spirit invites and encour-ages us to move?

            These Easter Season weeks as we’ve heard stories from the early church, the boundaries keep expanding and previously observe barriers continue to fall.  Marianne Blickenstaff points out that “The detail that they (Paul and his traveling partners) went ‘outside the city gates’ is important. City gates protected the people inside, so that Paul and his company are crossing another boundary into unknown and potentially dangerous territory.”[viii]

            Among the lesser dangers was the risk that those gathered at the place of prayer would not be open to hearing what Paul had to say. Yet when we step out in faith, we do so remembering that we do not go it alone.  Says Marianne: “The detail that God was the one who opened Lydia’s heart is an  im-portant reminder that it is God who inspires faith through the workings of the Holy Spirit. Paul and his entourage preach the good news, but the opening of hearts is God’s doing. We sometimes need to be reminded of this when we talk about ‘our’ ministry. When we become discouraged, we can remember with gratitude and trust that it is the Holy Spirit’s power, not ours, that opens hearts.”[ix]

            The dead ends Paul experienced trying to take his mission to Asia led to a fresh start in Europe.  The Spirit makes such things happen all the time.

            Back in the Spring of 2011 the congregation of the First United Presbyterian Church of West Pittston and I had a pretty good sense that God’s Spirit was at work amongst us.  Some new, young families with children decided they needed to be part of our faith community.  We hosted a concert where a certain piano playing pastor and his jazz quartet launched their latest compact disk.  We were grateful that God’s Spirit was opening hearts to hear the word and hands to serve others in the name of Christ. 

            Then the summer ended with the double whammy of a tropical storm and a hurricane that saturated the Susquehanna River watershed.  The river came out of its banks and flooded over 800 homes and businesses, and three church buildings, including ours.  A few days later some of you helped lug soggy carpets, pew cushions, hymnals and the most treasured books in this pas-tor’s library and toss them in a heap outside.  The cleanup went on for months.

            Even before all the muck had been cleared so the professionals could come in a month later with disinfectants, industrial dehumidifiers, air scrubbers, our Session and Trustees were meeting weekly to plot our congregation’s course.  We worshiped with our daughter church for three weeks, and some thought that would be a good solution, but it was not to be.  We did some repairs to the foundation, hired an architect and began figuring out how to rebuild a 19^th century building from the inside out.  A multimillion dollar price tag ended that dream.

By then we began what ended up as a four year sojourn as renters in an underused Roman Cath-olic Church.  It was part of a parish in the process of consolidation, so some thought making a deal to buy it was the answer. A seven-figure price tag shut that door. When another Catholic Church with a huge rectory and a separate parish hall came on the market at a reasonable price, we got the same message as Paul when he wanted to go to Asia. No way!

            Then the Spirit opened our hearts and those of the Wyoming Presbyterian Church to be-gin a partnership that enabled God’s love to be shared in new ways. The old building in West Pittston finally sold.  Wyoming’s church building and their old schoolhouse became home to two congregations engag-ing the surrounding communities in fresh ways. The doors were thrown open for monthly educational events for the community.  A neighborhood needs assessment inspired a tutoring program for kids in the local school district whose families could not afford to hire such help. The two congregations began to worship together on special occasions, and when I retired, they began the process of calling one pastor to serve both churches. In two weeks, on Pentecost Sunday, Jan and I have been invited to a celebration of the merger of those two congregations.  The dead end brought by the flood eventually yielded a fresh start, and the Holy Spirit was behind it all the way, opening eyes, ears, hearts and hands.

            In many ways the Covid pandemic has seemed like a dead end.  Cherished programs within and beyond the church came to a grinding halt.  Some have started up again. Others have not. And so we join Lydia in prayer.  We pray that our own hearts will be opened to hear God’s call on our lives.  We pray that God will open the hearts of those who come in contact with the members of this church en-gaged in mission and ministry whether within or beyond these walls.  And we pray that when we have a Lewis and Clark moment when old plans become useless, we’ll be open to God’s redirection.

+

            We end this morning as we began, with Meriwether Lewis looking West toward the Pacific Ocean he could not see on the other side of those Rocky Mountain peaks. Again, I am reading the account provided by Tod Bolsinger, whose book is subtitled: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory:   

            “As he stepped off the map into uncharted territory, Meriwether Lewis discovered that what was in front of him was nothing like what was behind him, and that what had brought him to this point in the journey would take him no farther. Lewis faced a daunting decision: What would he do now? Lewis and Clark and their Corps of Discovery were looking for a water route, but now they had run out of  water. How do you canoe over mountains?

            You don’t. If you want to go forward, you change. You adapt. Meriwether Lewis looked at the miles and miles of snow-covered peaks and knew that to continue his journey he would have to change his entire approach. The same is true for all of us who are called to lead beyond the boundaries of what is known… We go from being river rats to mountain climbers. We keep on course with the same goal, but change absolutely everything required to make it through this uncharted territory…You let go, you learn as you go and you keep going, no matter what.”[x]

            Like Paul, we remain open to the Spirit of God as it reroutes our journey.  Like Lydia, we pray and listen eagerly for a word from the God we worship.  Then, we step out in faith, trading our canoe paddles for walking sticks.

[i] Tod Bolsinger, Canoeing the Mountains, Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory, (Downers Grove, IL, InterVarsity Press, 2015), pp. 24-27
[ii] Acts 16. 6-8
[iii] Ronald Cole-Turner, Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 3, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), p. 476
[iv] ibid.
[v] ibid.
[vi] ibid.
[vii] ibid.
[viii] Marianne Blickenstaff, Connections-A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship, Year C, Vol. 2, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2018), p. 269
[ix] ibid.
[x] ibid., Bolsinger, p. 34

Daffodil Days - Haiku Times Two

 How painful to watch

abilities atrophy

hands becoming still

Days passing swiftly

time visibly withering

fleeting beauty fades

HOOD CANAL HAIKU

Seagull rises up

Clam drops cracking open

Dinner just got stoned.

 

          

                                                                         
No Way But God’s      a Sermon preached at First Presbyterian Church, Clarks Summit, PA on
                                      the Fifth Sunday in Lent, April 3, 2022. Scripture readings: Isaiah 43. 16-21;                                          Psalm 126; Philippians 3. 4b-14; John 12. 1-8 

On a blustery Saturday in March, in the chilly kitchen of a home no one had cooked in for years, a son spoke of the warmth his mother generated in that place, not just with the meals and baked goods she prepared at the stove, but with the generosity of her heart.  Around her kitchen table the son’s friends had gathered for a snack after playing football out in the yard.  Friday nights his mother’s friends and neighbors filled the chairs as they drank coffee and ate what came out of the oven and solved the problems of the world.

            Anticipating her funeral triggered a memory. Whenever there was a death in the family or among their friends, the son and his father would be enlisted to deliver dinner to the home wherever that grieving family was gathered.  The same ritual took place when someone came home from the hospital.  The mother would prepare a full meal, soup to nuts, as they say, and father and son would deliver it.

            Fast forward four days.  The funeral was over, the story of those dinners having been shared. The trip to the cemetery was complete. Family and friends were seated around tables telling stories.  The man to my left said that on his way up the turnpike extension, he had been trying to estimate how many meals he had been served in that kitchen.  The woman across the table added a story that made those father and son deliveries prepared by the mother all the more amazing.

            With a big smile she recalled being in the hospital one November and being discharged the day before Thanksgiving.  Her extended family was expected for dinner the next day, but she was in no condition to provide it. Not to worry, her friend assured her.  Sure enough the father and son delivered the meal…one course at a time: first the appetizers, then soup, followed by the salad, turkey with all the trimmings, and finally desert.  An overwhelming act of generosity still appreciated decades later, as if it had happened last week.

            At what might have been a funeral dinner had Jesus not raised a man from the dead, Mary offered Jesus an extravagant gift given from a faithful, grateful heart. The story takes place in the days between the death and restoration of Lazarus and the death and resurrection of Jesus.  The stench of death Mary’s sister Martha had warned about outside the tomb of her brother, Lazarus, gave way to a lovely fragrance of expensive perfume wafting through the whole house.

            It was one of those over-the-top, full-heart moments, at least for Mary.  We wonder if it was simply her gratitude at having her brother’s life restored, or was it something more?  Scripture portrays Mary as the one who sat at Je-sus’ feet and soaked up his teachings with the disciples. Now she pours the perfume on his feet and wipes them dry with her hair. It is an intimate gesture. Is it a picture of loving with all one’s heart, soul, mind and strength? 

Could it be that she heard and processed the things he said would happen to him in over the hill in Jerusalem? Did she get that there would soon be another death to cause her tears to flow?  Jesus seems to indicate in his rebuke of Judas that she has somehow decided to do what there would not be time to do come Friday next.

“Leave her alone, she bought it so that she might keep if for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.” (12.7-8)

The comment about the poor was in response to the objection raised by Judas.  The money spent on perfume could have been used to help the poor. “There will be plenty of time for helping the poor later,” Jesus is saying.  Mary is living in the moment, expressing her love for Jesus, an opportunity that will soon be over. The new thing God is doing through Jesus plays out as Mary’s act of kindness fore-shadows another foot washing yet to come.

            Living in the moment, with an appreciation for what has been, and anticipation for what will be, is a thread woven though all of our readings this morning.  Through Isaiah, God reminds the Israelites of God’s grace to their ancestors at the time of the Exodus and points to a new act of rescue that is about to happen.  The Psalmist remembers an earlier time of blessing and uses it to inspire a heartfelt prayer asking to experience similar blessings. Nearing the end of his life, Paul expresses appreciation for his impressive pedigree, reaching back into his past, while pressing forward to “know(ing) Christ and the power of his resurrection.”

            Some people find it curious that God, using Isaiah’s voice to speak, started by retelling the story of the Exodus, reminding the exiled Hebrews of that pivotal moment when God saved them, only to tell them not to get stuck in the past. God’s introduction is a masterful condensa-tion of history that in other places in the Scriptures leads to a command to remember it.  But not here. This time the historical reminiscence leads to a startling statement:

           “Thus says the Lord, who makes a way in the sea,
            a path in the mighty waters who brings out chariot and warrior,
            they lie down, they cannot rise, they are extinguished, quenched like a wick:
            Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old.
            I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?”

“Nowhere else in Scripture are people called thus to forget,” writes Old Testament professor Patricia Tull, who asks: “Who is this prophet to contradict Moses?”[i]

            A careful reading of the prophet’s words reveals some-thing startling. All the actions God describes are presented in the present tense.  God “makes,” not made, “a way in the sea.”  God “brings out,” not brought out “chariot and horse;” Pharaoh’s pursuing soldiers “are,” not were, “extinguished, quenched like a wick.”  The retelling of the past is a signal to be alert in the pre-sent. God is saying: “What I once did, I am still doing…take a look around.”

            Tull writes: “…Isaiah’s forceful order to forget is ironically hedged about with remembrance so powerful that it defies amnesia, perhaps even awakens many from it. Thus this order to forget the past turns out to be a hyperbolic introduction to an event the prophet expects to be so world-changing that it actually displaces their founding story.” [ii]

            Another Old Testament scholar puts it this way: “What he (Isaiah) wants to say is: ‘stop mournfully looking back and clinging to the past, and open your minds to the fact that a new, mira-culous act of God lies ahead of you.”[iii] Claus Westermann goes onto explain: “The new thing which God was proclaiming himself to be about to do is the new thing which Israel had ceased to expect, hope for, or believe in…As her laments show, she (Israel) thought that God’s saving acts were now a closed chapter.”[iv]

            The scriptures this morning warn us against making the same mistake.  These voices from the past urge us to keep our eyes peeled in the present.  

            So what is this new thing God will do? The words of the prophet describes it.  The new situation of the people calls for a new approach. The God who made a way in the sea for Moses and his people is about to make a way through the desert for Isaiah’s contemporaries. Dry land to cross the river becomes a hospitable path home through the desert with rivers of flowing water provided along the way for refreshment.

            That’s where the two stories converge, as the one who provided manna and quails and water from the rock way back in that other wilderness, promises refreshment for the journey home about to begin. The new story is the old story in a new time and place. The God who saved is the God who saves.  Writes Professor Tull: “The new situation, a desert rather than a sea, had brought forth the old story in new ways. ‘Do not remember’ becomes a call to loosen Israel’s grip on things as they were, and to expect some-thing new, but nevertheless recognizable in terms of the past.”[v]       

            The timing of this reading on this next-to-last Sunday in Lent couldn’t be better could it?  Last week our pastor asked us all to consider and remember how we made it through two plus years of pandemic produced isolation and inactivity.  He also shared the words of a webinar presenter who said to tell anyone longing go back to the way things were in 2019: “the bridge is out.”

This week the words of the prophet offer a word of comfort and encouragement and challenge. The challenge is not to get so caught up in reminiscing about what was that we fail to recognize how God is at work now. The encouragement comes by recognizing it isn’t all up to us.  And the comfort is found in knowing what God has done, God is doing, and will continue to do. The words of hymn writer Isaac Watts sum it up: “Our God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come.”

            Based on this congregation’s history, if God were speaking today like God did in Isaiah’s time it might sound like this:

            “Thus says the Lord,

who helps you continue the legacy of “the efforts of a small group of women, whose initiative and dedication resulted in this church’s formation;”

who leads you on after turning “aprons, quilts, baked goods, candy, live chickens and pigs” into the bricks and mortar of a thrice expanded building erected on parcels of land traded for so as not to be disturbed by the noise and dust of the trolleys on the main drag;

who opens your hands to feed the hungry, and resettle refugees, and opens your mouths to teach the children and adults the way they should go:

            Do not remember the former things or consider the things of old.
            I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it.”

What will that new thing look like?  Only God knows, but God is in the business of revealing to those with eyes to see what they are called to do and be. That’s why we join the faithful follower who penned the words of the 126^th Psalm, a version of which we sang earlier as our Psalter.

                      “When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion we were like those who dream.
                        Then our mouth was filled with laughter and our tongue with shouts of joy;
                        then it was said among the nations, 'The Lord has done great things for them.'
                        The Lord has done great things for us, and we rejoiced."

The person who wrote those words looked back to a time when God’s blessings had been flowing and made of those memories a prayer filled with visions of transformation and renewal.

                       “Restore our fortunes, O Lord, like the watercourses in the Negeb.
                        May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy.
                        Those who go out weeping bearing the seed for sowing,
                        shall come home with shouts of joy carrying their sheaves (of wheat).

            The Psalmist’s use of the past to open our eyes in the present cautions us not to get caught up in the remembering, which is so easy to do!

Every April there is a part of me that looks back wistfully remembering the energy and enthusiasm shared with my high school classmates as we approached our Board of Education for permission to suspend classes and replace them with an Environmental Teach-In on the first Earth Day.  I recall the fun we had as we named ourselves “SEA - Students for Environmental Action” and made three cages of two-by-fours and chicken wire to receive the clear, brown and green glass that took a whole month to fill as people of our two towns warmed to the idea of recycling. The trip down memory lane leads to an personal lament that we’re still engaging in debates about individual and societal changes necessary to protect the environment.

        Time to stop remembering. Time to look around.    

        I came to church last Sunday and found a four page brochure in the bulletin entitled, “Earth Care and Us.” It listed no less than nine opportunities to learn about or get involved in preserving “the beauty of the earth…the glory of the skies…the love which from our birth over and around us lies.”[vi] Tues-day afternoon, I walked through the park in Clifford Township, with a branch of the pristine, Tunk-hannock Creek rippling to my right. To my left a recycling truck  emptied three green dumpsters of cans, bottles and paper recycled weekly.  On Wednesday my wife and I will travel to visit family in a community where curbside recycling includes two more containers: one for yard waste, and another for food scraps.

            So, I repent of my lamenting, and give thanks for the opportunity to perceive the new things God is doing. That is the task ahead of us as the people of God who worship and serve in this time and place: To look for and celebrate and participate in the new things God springs forth around us and through us. To mine the past for the wisdom that knows there is no way to go but God’s way!

---

i] Patricia K. Tull, Connections – A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship, Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2018), p. 94
[ii] ibid.
[iii] Claus Westermann, Isaiah 40 -66, The Old Testament Library, (Philadelphia, The Westminster Press, 1969), p. 128
[iv] ibid.
[v] ibid., Tull, p. 95
[vi] Folliot S. Pierpoint, “For the Beauty of the Earth,” verse 1, Glory to God The Presbyterian Hymnal, Hymn 14

 

    

What a Difference the Lord Makes!                  Luke 5. 1-11                                    February 6, 2022
                                                Hickory Street Presbyterian Church, Scranton, PA

             Everyone who has had a long day of fishing with nothing much to show for it has heard some-one tell them: “That’s why they call it ‘fishing’ and not ‘catching!’” My brother-in-law Steve and I have had many of those days over the years. Before he and my wife’s sister moved to North Carolina we spent quite a few days fishing from the jetties along the Jersey shore or out in Raritan Bay after he bought his first boat.  Some days we came back to our wives and children with fresh fish for dinner.  On others, all we had to show for a day by the water was a sunburn.

            A couple of years back when we went south to meet our niece’s baby boy, I got a North Carolina visitor’s fishing license so Steve and I could go for Striped Bass as they made their spawning run on a river two hours from Raleigh. For a couple of days before, Steve would call me into his home office and show me videos on his computer of the spot we were going to fish…or read a report by one of his fishing buddies about which spots were hot and which ones were not, complete with GPS coordinates or landmarks above or below the boat launch we would be using.

            Wednesday arrived, sunny and warm. We drove to the Roanoke River and found it running high and fast due to recent rains.  We unloaded the boat from the trailer, set-off and fished all morning with barely a bite. Noontime came and went as we floated downstream, ran back upstream, and let the current take us down again.  Nothing.  Then, just when we were about to head back to the launch we began to boat some fish.  Since it was catch and release, we didn’t bring anything home…but at least we had some pictures to verify that we had been “catching” and not just “fishing.”

            Today’s reading from the Gospel of Luke has some of both.  We don’t know it at first, but the fishermen whose boat Jesus borrowed had done a night’s worth of fishing without catching.  By story’s end, they have fished so successfully that two boats were needed to haul their catch to shore.  What a difference the Lord makes.

            I’m liking Luke more and more all the time.  What I like about Luke is the way he tells the story of Jesus. Though he tells some of the same stories as Mark and Matthew, when he tells them, and the way he tells them is less magical and mystical and more realistic.  Take the call of the Galilean fishermen to become his disciples which comes after a time spent teaching the crowds and that very successful fishing trip.

            When Matthew and Mark tell of Jesus coming upon some fisherman as he walked beside the Sea of Galilee, there has been no prior contact between them. Matthew and Mark report that Jesus had begun preaching his message, and next thing you know he’s addressing Simon and Andrew, then James and John, inviting them to “fish for people.” They leave their nets and follow. Bing, bang, boom.

            In Luke, by the time Jesus invites the fishermen to seek a different species, they have had an opportunity to see him in action and hear him speak.  Between last week’s report of the visit Jesus made to the synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth, and this week’s story by the sea, Luke reports a series of events which would have given Peter and the others a basis for their vocational change.

            In what some have called “a day in the life of Jesus,” we join Luke and follow along as Jesus makes his way to Capernaum, a seaside village on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee (which Luke calls Gennesaret.) It is again the Sabbath, and Jesus is again found in the synagogue, and, as elsewhere, )at least everywhere but Nazareth), the people “were astounded at his teaching because he spoke with authority” (4.31-32).

            While he was teaching that day, a man with what Luke describes as “an unclean demon” cries out, having recognized that Jesus is the Holy One of God.” Jesus rebukes the demon, which is banished, and the man is restored to health and wholeness. The people are amazed and spread the word of Jesus and the healing power he brings. What a difference the Lord makes.

            When the Sabbath observance at the synagogue was over Jesus went to Simon’s house. We don’t yet know who Simon is or what he does for a living. What we soon learn is that Simon’s mother-in-law is sick with a high fever and members of the household ask Jesus about her.  Now he rebukes the fever, and the sick woman gets up and starts helping to serve dinner.

            After dessert there is a knock on the door and the street is filled with people bringing people to be touched and healed by Jesus. They’ve heard what he has done elsewhere and earlier that day in synagogue. Healings abound and more demons are sent packing before Jesus calls it a day.

            Come morning they’re looking for more of the same, but Jesus has found a deserted place, presumably to pray and gather his thoughts.  They find him and urge him to stay in Capernaum…but he makes it clear that he must go and teach others about the kingdom of God, and off he goes. Chronology is never a big concern for Luke, so when we get to the story read today, it is not clear how much time has elapsed since he left Capernaum behind. Luke’s concern is to describe what happened, not when.

            What is clear is that Jesus has learned something about crowd control and minimizing the risk of being crushed by those who came to hear him or to seek his healing touch.  There is a place not far from Capernaum that today is called “Peter’s landing”.  It is a nice little spot where boats can be easily beached. The land rises up from the side of the lake forming a natural amphitheater. When you stand there it is easy to picture today’s story taking place. All you have to do is block out the sight of the lovely little chapel someone built on the site in tribute to what tradition says occurred on that spot.

            With the crowd pressing in on him, Jesus steps into Simon’s boat, and asks the fisherman, who is over washing his nets with his partners, to put out a ways from the shore. Here is what is special about that scene. Luke has preserved a precious moment, capturing the fishermen doing what fishermen need to do.  On an episode of the television program “The Last Alaskans,” a couple who spend part of their year fishing and trapping in the northeast corner of Alaska were doing something similar.  The Selden’s were preparing to redeploy their net to catch salmon during their spawning run in order to provide food for their sled dogs.  But first, they had to clean their nets of the debris that had collected in them the previous day.

            As with any other occupation, or avocation for that matter, there are things that need to be done in order for that work or that play to be successful and enjoyable. It is worth noting that Luke shows the soon-to-be-disciples doing the preparation and follow-up their work required. Soon they would be learning the tricks of a new trade which would be just as necessary if they were to do their tasks well.

            Simon sets the net-cleaning aside and responds to the request of Jesus.  He and the others row the boat from the shore. Jesus sits down in the posture of a teacher and class begins.  The content is not mentioned. By the time we finish Luke’s gospel we’ll have had some examples of the kind of stories he told and the lessons he imparted. For now it is important only to notice this: his teaching, which began in their synagogues, is not confined to them.  All the world becomes his classroom, and those invited to hear are not limited to those who feel comfortable or welcomed in the official holy places. He is model-ing the movement for God’s people, who are to go out into the world to serve.

            When the lesson is done, Jesus provided himself with an exit strategy that avoids making his way through the crowd.  That, and it turns out he is not done teaching. He turns to Simon and says: “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.”

            Not, “let’s go fishing,” but “let down your nets for a catch.” Now we learn that those nets Simon and the others were washing had been out all night with only the seaweed, flotsam and jetsam they were shaking out to show for it.  Read into Simon’s first words what you wish: no doubt he is tired from the fruitless night; and maybe he’s skeptical that the carpenter turned teacher knows anything about fishing; or maybe he’s hoping to change the mind of Jesus when he says, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing.”

            Yet, Simon doesn’t stop there, as if to say, “please, let us call it a day!” He goes on: “Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.”  Tired or not, skeptical or not, reluctant or not, there is in Simon’s words and the actions that followed, obedience. He said he would do what Jesus said, and then he did. Over the side went the net, down into the deep. Then, the nets began to fill and stretch and the strings were beginning to break, so they signal the Zebedee boys to come over and help, and soon both boats were a teeming mass of fish so heavy the boats were nearly swamped from the weight.  What a differ-ence the Lord makes!

            The difference started to add up in Simon Peter’s mind. The healings he witnessed, the teachings he heard and the abundance spilling out of the boats causes Peter to recognize that he is witnessing the power of God unleashed through Jesus.  Like Isaiah in the temple, Simon is over-come by the contrast between the extraordinary nature of God and his own ordinariness as a human being. As others in the gospels will do, he seeks to put some distance between himself and goodness in the flesh. “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.”

            This expression, one scholar notes, “is not a moral confession of a sinful life; it expresses awe in the presence of a manifestation of Jesus’ identity as agent of God’s rule and empire.”[i] When we step back and remember that this is part of a biblical call story, we are able to check off the steps in the process.  Our scholar points out that Simon Peter and the others have been witness to “an epiphany or revelation of the Divine,” they have reacted with objections in the form of pointing to their all night empty nets, and now Simon speaks of unworthiness.[ii]

            Next there will be reassurance and a commission. Jesus says to them: “Do not be afraid, from now on you will be catching people.” The final step in the call process is acceptance or obedience: “When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.”

            The nice thing about that last phrase in Luke is this. There is reason for them to drop everything and follow. They’ve seen the works, they’ve heard the words, they are experiencing the abundance that comes to those who follow.  It makes sense.  And though the story is not asking everyone to literally do the same, it does, as another commentator puts it, “raise the question of what we are to do with our lives.”[iii] Will we or will we not follow Jesus?

            In the book that has challenged and inspired generations, The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote: “Only he who believes is obedient, and only he who is obedient believes.  The first step of obedience makes Peter leave his nets, and later get out of the ship; it calls upon the young man to leave his riches. Only this new existence, can make faith possible.”[iv]

            In just a few minutes we’ll be singing a hymn that has become a favorite of mine.  Jane Parker Huber’s first line sums it up nicely: “Called as partners in Christ’s service.”[v] It summons us to come and follow Jesus. Yet it is not a summons to leave behind who you are and what you do, but to put who you are and what you do to work for Christ. Your call is to be God’s agent where you are.  Since none of us cast nets, that means we are called to do what we can in the midst of our daily lives—

So do what you do for God: interact with your co-workers and customers; let your volunteer commitments become your mission field; teach your students, learn your lessons; make the gifts you give away, counsel your clients, answer those e-mails, choose wisely the Facebook memes you like and share; keep serving those meals to your hungry neighbors. As the Paul told the Colossians: “…whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”[vi]

            As you do, like Simon Peter and the others, discover what a difference the Lord makes when we trust his word and obey his commands.  Amen.

[i] Warren Carter, Connections – A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship, Year C, Vol. 1, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2018), p. 236
[ii] ibid.
[iii] Blair R. Monie, Connections – A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship, Year C, Vol. 1, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2018), p. 238
[iv] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, (New York: Touchstone, 1959) p. 63-64
[v] Jane Parker Huber, “Called as Partners in Christ’s Service,” Hymn # 343, The Presbyterian Hymnal, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1990)
[vi] Colossian 3. 17