"FISHing For A Miracle"

Luke 5:1-11

Simon and a few other fishermen had been out all night fishing and had caught nothing. Simon knew something about life, and about fishing. He knew all about toiling all night without catching anything. It's part of life, and to be expected. But it's not what you hope for. Once a man told me: "My father passed away when I was fifteen, and left our family nothing but this watch. I walked into the mill at fifteen with nothing but a watch, and was forced to leave at fifty-two with nothing more." Sometimes we toil a long time, and it seems to be for nothing. How often we go just as far as we think we are able - we've exhausted all of our options, all of the possibilities - and gotten nowhere. Our relationship, our job, our love has gone as far as it can go. We've toiled all night and come up empty. We don't know where to turn. People say things to us like, "get over it," or "well, what do you expect - life is unfair." At best, all they can do is commiserate with us - no one seems to be able to help us. That's the hardest part, and it just wears us out - it burns us out.

Then, our text says, Jesus comes. It's time for a miracle. Wouldn't that be nice? We can use all the miracles we can get, can't we? It doesn't have to be a big one - just enough to get me through today. A promotion, a little healing, a little appreciation from our spouse - oh - wait - I said a little miracle, didn't I? It rarely happens, though, does it - about as frequently as us winning the lottery.

Part of the problem is that we don't understand miracles. We think of miracles as special and direct intervention of God in human affairs, in an unmistakable way - kind of a "big bang" effect. Of course, the truth is that God is always involved in and in charge of human affairs. God's ways are unmistakable to the eyes of faith. Miracles just helps us to see that where, perhaps, we'd been missing it before. A miracle is something that happens that causes us to look at life in a new way - from a new perspective; it is something that opens our eyes and hearts to the realm of God, to the possible, to see options we hadn't seen before, when we hadn't figured God into the equation, a way of seeing things that helps us to understand the end God has in mind.

Most of the time, that is what we really need - not a "big bang," but a new perspective on our problems, and an awareness that God is working through our problems to accomplish His will. In fact, in John's Gospel, John refers to them as "signs," rather than miracles, because that's what they are - signposts, pointing us to God's presence in a situation. But, in case you are taking notes, there are a few prerequisites for a miracle, all of which we see in this story. In fact, at the risk of a four-point sermon, we can put them into an acronym: "FISH."

F: Failure is not final. As one pastor put it, it is knowing that, "if you fall, it is only into the hands of a loving Father." You've heard the story of the fellow who tripped and fell over the side of the Grand Canyon. At the last second, he reached out and grabbed a young sapling that was hanging over the canyon. As he felt it slowly starting to give, he cried out, "Is there anybody up there?" And to his surprise, a voice called back: "This is God! Let go and I'll catch you!" He thought about that a moment, looked down at the jagged rocks below, then yelled: "Is anyone else up there?" It's hard to see new possibilities when you're hanging on by your fingernails. That's usually when we're at our worst. But if you truly believe that there is someone there to catch you when you let go, who has the power to change things, to bring some new possibilities into the situation, that realization makes the leap of faith possible. Some think that faith is for rosy-eyed dreamers. But Jesus knows what life is like. He was here. He got crucified. "He was tempted in all ways like us." "He knows our frame," the Psalmist says. I had a coach who used to tell us: "The worst thing is not failure. The worst thing is never trying, because you are afraid you'll fail." It's often been said that the difference between success and failure is that the successful person gets back up when they fall down. When, at the beginning of the service, we confess our sins, we confess failure. forgiveness is about giving us another chance. And the good thing is, we get to do it every week!

In our story, Jesus met the ship early in the morning, after the time for catching fish was past, when it seemed that the task was fruitless, and called out to a dispirited Simon, "Cast your nets once more, on the other side of the boat." They must have been almost to shore, since they were able to hear him - not a likely place to catch fish! But Simon says, "At your command, I will." And that made all the difference.

So the first prerequisite is knowing that failure is not final - we are held in the hands of a loving Father, who will complete His purposes in us.

I: Imagine something different. You can imagine the fishermen's surprise when Jesus told the fishermen to cast their nets again - not only did this carpenter's son not know the proper time and place to fish, but was presumptuous enough to believe fish would actually be caught on the shoreline! Simon had to stretch his imagination and set aside his vocational knowledge in order to test Jesus' command. That can happen to us as well. We have our ways of doing things too, don't we? Tried and tested! I saw a little cartoon, where a Sunday School teacher was saying to an obviously new Sunday School superintendent, "We've always done it this way! We know what we're doing! It's always worked well the way we've been doing things - why should we change?" To which the new Superintendent replies, "Because you've only got six kids in Sunday School!"

You know the Seven Last Words of the Church: "We've never done it that way before!" That implies that it cannot be done any other way than the way we have always done it. There is another saying, however, that I often use when counseling families that are stuck. It's from AA (Alcoholics Anonymous): "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, in the same way, and expecting different results." Jesus told the crew of the boat to launch once more out into the deep - only this time, he was challenging them to launch into the depths of faith. To the safety-oriented person, that seems foolish. But God doesn't call us to piddle and paddle around the periphery of the pool. He calls us launch out into the deep - to go in over our heads, beyond our "comfort zone." It's interesting to me, as I read the Bible, that it doesn't tell us what our services should look like, what programs to put in place, what songs to sing. It doesn't tell us many specifics about how to live our life before God. God doesn't tell us HOW to minister, he simply tells us to do it, and then God opens up a myriad of possibilities for us. Jesus tells Simon to cast his nets one more time. By faith Simon sets sail once again, and flings his nets over the other side of the boat, into the sea; and this time there are so many fish caught in them that both boats are in danger of sinking. Someone standing on the shore says, "What luck! That could never happen again in a million years!" That's the rational viewpoint, the one that looks at the statistics alone. And if it did happen again, and again, and again, then finally they'd say, "Well, apparently they've been fishing at the wrong time, and on the wrong side of the boat, all along!" But the question for people of faith is - do you believe that God can change things - do you believe that, with God's help, your life CAN change?" I: Imagine something different.

S: Start again. In other words, we need to be willing to risk ourselves in change. Most of us are ready for everything to change but us. God is holding your life. Opportunities move around you all the time, like schools of fish in the deep, normally unseen by you. But God sees them. The fish were already there - it just took Jesus to see them. Opportunities are held and offered to you by the hand of one who loves you - whose voice you know. The trick is to be willing to throw out the net once more. And again, if need be. And again. And again, if need be.

Do you know what is the biggest determinant of longevity in people? What do you think? Genes? What you eat? Whether you smoke or use alcohol? Whether you lead an active or sedentary lifestyle? A study was done a number of years ago on the subject, and the results were startling: the greatest factor in determining how long a person is likely to live, is their ability to deal positively with change. When the orientation of our life is constantly toward the past, when we view life mainly from the perspective of loss, when we are no longer open to the future, when we refuse to change, when we allow ourselves to become "boxed in" so that we no longer look for new possibilities out of life, then we're dead ducks. Literally. I was raised in Pittsburgh when it was "The Steel City." I returned a little while after the steel mills closed. Most of those who worked in the mills went on to get new jobs when the mills closed. But there are still some folks out there, to this day, forty years later, sitting on their cans, waiting for the mills to open again, and crying, "Ain't it awful!"

Jesus is in the business of offering new beginnings, new possibilities. "Start again. Throw your net over the other side," he tells the fishermen. A woman, caught in the act of adultery, is brought before him. Her fate is already sealed. Those who brought her have already condemned her; they hold stones in their hands. But Jesus says, "I do not condemn you. Go, and sin no more." Her life is returned to her, along with the possibility of starting over. A man born blind is brought before him. The disciples ask: "Who sinned? This man or his parents?" What a choice! But Jesus takes this man's head gently in his hands, and speaking directly to him, opens up a new possibility: "This is not about condemnation, but about your Father's love. This is so that your heavenly Father might be glorified in you. Go, your faith has made you well!" A man hangs beside Jesus on a cross, holding on to life by his fingertips, with seemingly no possibilities left open to him. Jesus hangs beside him, stretched out in agony upon his own cross. What possibilities are left to either of these men, except tortuous suffering and death. Yet Jesus reaches out to him - not with his own blood-drenched hands, but with the hands of his loving Father, and embraces him in the promise: "Today you will be with me in paradise." That is the way it is for those who will believe. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, about to be executed by the Nazi regime, echoes this faith, "This is the end of life, but for me, the beginning!"

H: Heed God's voice. "Heed," is a wonderful old word. It implies active listening - listening with the appropriate response. God says, at Jesus' baptism and, again, at his transfiguration, "This is my Son - LISTEN to him." In the call of Isaiah, in our Old Testament lesson, he tells Isaiah that he is sending him so that people will not hear or see or understand. It's not that he doesn't want them to - it's just that we have our own agenda. We have our own idea about life - about what should not happen, about how the story should end. But all of our stories have one common weak link - they've got us in the middle, instead of God and God's plan.

Our story ends with a call - not what we would think - not a call to faith, or to believe in the miracle, nor even a call to faith in Jesus. It ends, instead, with a call to discipleship. Simon drops to his knees and confesses his sinfulness - in the light of the one who is present, he, like Isaiah, knows that he cannot continue as he has. I'm sure that Peter has been thinking about a moment like this, about catching "the big one" all of his life. "Just one big haul," "Let me hit the lottery, just this once!" Finally, he does! And Jesus, in turn, calls Simon, whose name means, "Pebbles," later to be renamed, "Rocky" - the Rock of Faith. Jesus says, "Follow me and I will make you fish for men." What a turn of events. After toiling all night, Jesus grants Peter his heart's desire - a harvest of fish large enough to keep him in gravy for a long time. Then He challenges Peter to give it all up to follow Him. Peter followed Jesus, and ended up on his own cross. Some have concluded that Peter got the worst of the bargain. But Peter wouldn't agree.

Faith leads to discipleship. Faith always points us beyond ourselves. When you begin to see the possibilities available, you're no longer satisfied with small fish - with a bit of money and prestige, with a house over your head and a nice retirement account. There are bigger fish to fry out there. Jesus calls Peter to fish for people. Faith - true faith - leads us beyond ourselves, it causes us to see life in a larger perspective. It opens us to the heart of God, who sees in us much more than we could ever envision for ourselves. Peter thought that he was just a fisherman - that God had created him to put fish on other people's plates. He was just a big, brawny, hard-working "iron man," following in his father's footsteps. But God saw more in Peter than Peter did - than anyone else did. I can imagine the astonishment of the crowd when Jesus calls Peter to follow him: "Peter? That big lunk?" We cry with Peter: "I am not worthy! My gifts are too small! It is impossible!" But Jesus responds, "But I AM able! With me, nothing is impossible."

We waste so much of our lives on things that do not matter, on trivial pursuits, when God desires great things for us! We struggle to put bread on the table - meanwhile He has prepared for us to a marriage feast! We struggle to protect and hold on to our little corner of the world, our little stockpile or earthly goods - He invites us into a love that gathers in the vast expanses of the universe, and lays them at our feet!

Open your mind, open your imagination to what God can do- to what is possible when God enters the equation! Open your ears, to hear God's call to you! Open your eyes to see what requires faith to see! Open your arms, to grasp what only hope can grasp! Open your heart, to experience and share the expansiveness of God's great love! And do not be faithless, but believing!