Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser
Metaphors of Boats and Fishing
2/10/2019 Epiphany 5C
The texts chosen for Epiphany are texts that show Jesus
having powers that no one usually has - they show, him to be the Light of the
world, the One sent from God. Most of
the gospel texts have Jesus shown doing miracles, where he illustrates his
power of, and control of, material things - as the Creator of all that is, he
can change it and direct it. Jesus is
revealed as Lord of all. Again in this
story today, Jesus can have the material world do his will - or else he knows
things about the material world that are not evident to the rest of us.
To get the full flavor of today’s text, let’s enter this
story with our imaginations, and perhaps putting ourselves in to the scene as
onlookers by the lake of Gennesaret. You
folks who like to go fishing, maybe you can tell us about the feel of the
morning air, the smells by the lake as the heavy nets are hauled up on shore to
be cleaned after a night of fishing. You
might also be able to tell us how it feels to have been out fishing for hours
with no luck and no fish! Now, we might
fish more for sport, or for a great fish fry that noon. These guys, though, fished for a living, and
their nets could bring in a great haul to be sold, eaten right away, dried -
fishing was their livelihood and the way they fed their families.
Anyway, these guys Jesus knows are tired after a night of
throwing those heavy nets and hauling them in, even when they’re empty. Now they are cleaning up their equipment and
getting ready to either sleep or go on with their day. And here is Jesus, with crowds of local folks
pressing on him, wanting to hear what he says or, hopefully, see him do
something special. In order to speak to
the group, Jesus asks Peter if he can take him out from shore a little bit, and
he’ll speak from the boat. And it will
give him some breathing room, perhaps.
So Peter is a good sport, and takes Jesus out from the shore
a bit, so folks can see him and hear him better…..maybe we join them sitting on
the shore to listen better. So Jesus
sits in the boat and talks to us all for a while. At some point, then, Jesus tells Peter to
take the boat out further to the deep water, and do his thing with the nets
again. I can imagine Peter shaking his
head and rolling his tired shoulders a bit, they’ve already had a bad night
fishing, cleaned the nets up, and Jesus wants them to do it again! Sheesh!
Oh well, since you say so, master, we will.
Now I don’t know if Jesus made the fish come to the boat by
his divine power, or if by his divine insight he knew somehow that the fish
were there, - but what happened is that those nets were so full that Peter
yelled for help from a second boat, and the net were straining, and both boats
were almost swamped by the catch.
The men were shocked and impressed - how did Jesus do
it? This isn't normal. I like what Peter says - “Go away from me
Lord, for I am a man of unclean lips.”
Peter is scared to even be in Jesus’ presence; he is totally awed by the
revelation of Jesus’ miraculous ability. What does Jesus say ? He says, “Fear not.” Hey Peter, its me, Jesus.
Can we imagine Peter and Jesus looking at each other on that
boat, after this happens? Jesus is just
a guy like Peter - a man, a human, who eats and talks and walks and does other
things humans do. But then he does
things like this, too. We might all
kinda look at him funny, and wonder who in the world he is and what in the
world is going on here.
And of course Jesus makes a metaphor out of it, and tells
Peter & the others that he is now going to make them fish for people...ie,
help Jesus bring people into the new life of the realm of God. Which is what he tells them again in what we
call the Great Commission - go and make disciples, and teach them what I’ve
taught you. Fascinating story.
Boats are a long-used symbol of the church of Jesus Christ,
going way back to also use the Ark as a symbol of deliverance and
salvation. The sea can be a dangerous
place, and fishing is not a spectator sport - the workers in the boat have to
work together in order to not sink, and to get a catch. The church was seen as that boat that
transported souls across the dangers of the world to finally reach the safe
port of heaven. Making our pilgrimage through life, the soul’s journey - all of
these were pictured in the sailboat. The masts, too, form a kind of cross. The boat with a sail was used on signet rings
of church leaders, stylized in stained glass windows and religious
paintings. There’s a style of church
architecture where the inside ceiling looks a boat, too - the chapel at my
seminary is that style, and the windows behind the cross are watercolors, blues
and greens.
A recent General Assembly Moderator, the Rev. Joan Gray,
uses the illustration of boats to talk about our identity as churches. She
proposes the rowboat style church, over against the sailboat type church. In
the rowboat church, folks think the church is moved by their hard work - Jesus
has given us the call and the abilities, and now its all up to us and our hard
work. These folks row hard, put their backs into it, working all kinds of
programs and things, harder and harder, and wonder why few come and join. Its
like those fishermen working all night and not catching anything. These folks read the books about church
growth and seek to be realistic about what they can do with their donations and
their limits. Their fishing is by the book, following all the best advice.
Countering this is the sailboat church, whose people also
can work hard; the difference is the wind of the Holy Spirit that fills the
sail and moves them where God wants the church to go. These folks bathe their seeking for
directions and purposes in prayer, and know that it is God who brings the fish
to the nets, or directs them to throw their nets where God knows the fish are.
Their trust is in the call of God, and their relationship with God, and not
limited by what they can see and touch right now in terms of material goods and
finances. After all, the church is
Christ’s, and the work of the church is ultimately God’s work, and God will
provide.
In a similar picture
of the church we read in 1 Corinthians a couple weeks ago, the church is a body
working together; we are the hands and feet and arms and shoulders and knees
and toes and so on, and Christ is the head.
Together, the head (Christ) directs us what to do and where to go, and
we do it. In another illustration Jesus
used, we are the branches growing out of the main vine stem - we have to be
connected; its the sap that comes from the vine that goes out to the branches
to bear fruit. These are images of connection
and working together; and in all the images, Christ is the vine, Christ is the
head, Christ is the source, Christ is the sustenance. It is in being related to Christ, embedded in
Christ, fed by Christ, enlivened by Christ, that we complete Christ’s work,
bear fruit, or catch fish. We don’t go
off on our own, we don’t make up our own agenda, we don’t decide to bear fruit
all by ourselves.
Peter’s attitude needs to be our attitude: Well, I’m not at all sure about this, Jesus,
but since you said it, we’ll do it. And
then, like Peter, we follow Christ’s directives and are amazed.
There seem to be a couple main parts to this: we have to be
connected to Christ, and we have to listen to what Christ says, trust it &
do it. Last Sunday we spoke about our
own relationships with God, and how this is primary for being the church. Its kind of a “duh” thing - how can we be
Christ’s church without being joined to Christ?
So we examine our own lives and ask,
‘What shape is my own faith life in?’
I know we are all concerned about the future of our church and the whole
church. Are we wrestling with our
longings for the church in our prayers?
Are we pinning our hopes on calling the right pastor who will have all
the answers (which, by the way, is not true)? Are we immersed in Scriptures for forming our
own actions? Does the Spirit of God
challenge us and nudge us deeper and deeper into faith? Faith isn’t just being able to win at Bible
Trivia night, knowing the names and details - rather it is the living Spirit
that reaches out to us through these stories of faith, and calls us further in.
A big question that might arise is, How do we hear what
Christ is saying, so we can follow it?
How do we know the voice of God? How does that work? Peter sat next to
the physical Jesus on a boat and heard actual words and directions. I don’t
know about you all, but that has not been my usual experience. So I sat and pondered what my usual
experience was, trying to find words for what has been, for me, a more experiential,
intuitive thing and not so defined. I realized that, again, that it starts in
my prayer.
My usual style of prayer is deliberately talking things over
with God - laying out what I’m feeling or wanting or worried about, in God’s
presence. The way God talks back is in making me question myself - well, that’s
not very noble, Becky, is it? Who are you protecting with that? Why do you need more visible proof? I talk to God about anything - for my kids,
for direction in my life, for company and a relationship, what God wants me to
say in my sermons, taking care of my bodily health - - anything.
Let’s take, for example, praying for the church here. I think God helps me refine and hone just
what my hopes and longings really are.
I’d love for the church to have more people - I mean more worshippers, I
mean more believers, I mean more people seeking to live for Christ. I mean genuinely seeking, not just bodies and
not just wallets. See how that became
more specific as I went along? I’d love
for the church to reach more beyond the walls here and find mission to do in
the community. We do some, sure. And we
are a loving community to each other- don’;t want to lose that. But I do think we’re so worried about the
future that we’ve kinda pulled in to ourselves.
And we’ll have to get to know our community and its needs. Obviously Williamsburg County has needy
people - we have poverty, we have children, our school system has problems, we
have elderly - the community is changing, shrinking? I don’t know.
But people need the joy of God, and despite the number of churches,
there are lots of folks who haven’t found meaning in it. Where do we start? Its almost overwhelming, God…I pray that you
lay things on our hearts and directs us where the fish are. I pray we listen and respond. I pray for people who are brave enough to
speak up and say what’s on their hearts.
I pray we leaders listen and say yes.
Do you hear how that evolves as I pray? To me, that’s the
Spirit of God challenging me,
leading
me in certain directions, and nudging my consciousness. In talking over what I
think I am longing for -which I think comes to my heart from the spirit in the
first place, - God kind of helps me distill what it is that my longing is
actually for. Its not a quickie prayer,
God bless our church, AMEN. This takes
some intention and some time.
And then, in my
awareness of things from prayer, I seem to be more aware of ideas that spark
from conversations, or my eyes see a possibility that I missed before, or
someone tells me about something that relates, or something seems to connect
with my remembrance of my prayers. Sometimes it excites me and sometimes it
scares me. It seems to me that my job
then is to pursue what comes to me, because my praying has been just for
that! Some doors shut, some open
further. If I’m looking at what happens
through the eyes of God leading and guiding me, I’m listening to God and seeing
what comes.
I remember when Billy was still in high school and wanted to
get a job, I advised him to gather his info and go fill out applications in all
sorts of places. He got called back here
and there but he wasn’t excited by them, and I think he went to interviews with
that bottom lip out, and not showing his sparkling self….so he didn’t get any
offers. Then one day a friend told him
that the theater was hiring folks to check coats and sell stuff at
intermission, and he got the job. Billy
came to me and said, See Mom, I didn’t have to do all that application stuff
after all! God got me a job. I said, Doing all that application stuff made your
ears open to possibilities that might have gone past your ears otherwise. You were ready for God then.
Its doing all that prayer stuff, all that talking with God
stuff, that makes our eyes and ears open when God speaks. Prayer sensitizes our awareness so that when
someone mentions an idea, there is soil in which it can take root. I think that’s the best way I can explain
it. When a nudge comes, when a
possibility opens, I am ready.
So the feeling has been growing in me that we need to pray
more deeply and pointedly about our church’s future. The invitation is for each of us to spend
time daily before God this coming week, letting God hone our intentions and
distill out true longings. Before we do more talking together, we need to bring
our hopes and fears before God by ourselves. This is serious stuff, this
listening for Christ’s leading. Church
is changing - God is the One who knows what is coming, and who directs it. Perhaps what God needs is for us believers to
get on our knees and ask direction. Trusting to the wind of the Spirit to guide
us does make us give up a bit of control. Its not by our smarts, but by God’s
leading that we go forward. We’re going
to take several minutes and pass out little cards about making our intention
concrete. I don’t need your name - if you are moved to do this, put one card in
the offering, and put the another in your wallet for a reminder. At Session
this afternoon, we will give thanks for the results. AMEN.
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