Trinity 5 Jesus and Peter Fishing

In the Name of the Father…Now may the words of my mouth...

If I could leave you with one main point it is this: When are given to see the Holy God in the person of Jesus Christ, we will see ourselves as unworthy and yet be equipped to do his work.

Upon attending a service at the glorious Hagia Sophia cathedral in Constantinople, they report. “And we went into the Greek lands, and we were led into a place where they serve their God, and we did not know where we were, on heaven or on earth; and do not know how to tell about this. All we know is that God lives there with people and their service is better than in any other country. We cannot forget that beauty since each person, if he eats something sweet, will not take something bitter afterwards; so we cannot remain any more in paganism.”

The Text

So we have a geography of where Jesus is teaching and a setting of the people involved.

In Luke geography helps create the structure of the book. Jesus ministry starts by a lake, a low space where water gathers, and Jesus will take his ministry on the road ever climbing higher and higher, until it peaks with the transfiguration and then he descends into Jerusalem.

So he is lake side teaching and there are the 3rd shift fisherman cleaning up after a long night fishing, and apparently it was not a good night. We in the west are prolly used to thinking in terms of weathering a few bad night depending on leftover cash and credit to get us through. But ancient people did not have these luxuries to their disposal. Having a bad night could echo in their household economies pretty big.

Jesus gets into a boat pushes off hoping to create a little distance between him and the ever pressing crowds wanting to hear what the master says.

This next interaction gives us much context about the story. Jesus tells Peter to put down his net. And Peter acknowledges Jesus status, but lets him know that this is futile. Jesus I have been at this a while…I am just cleaning up from last night…those where peak conditions and we didn’t get anything....these are not peak conditions. But I am deferring to you on this.

Now this next bit makes for good drama. These poor subsistance day laboring fisherman, back from a bad catch, living these tough circumstances under the thumb of the hated roman empire, exhausted from being up all nite, casting nets to be polite to an itinerant rabbi suddenly give the nets a tug back…they barley budge…are the stuck? stuck on what…another tug… harder, then the next comes up and they look in…maybe long enough to see the contents. Those are fish…not a few a lot…we tug and the nets creak and the boat starts to tip…someone call for help…dont let go we cant afford to let this one go…call for help. They start to shout. Soon others are coming…what is happening, there where no fish last night…this is the wrong time of day for a catch…it dawns on Peter…the rabbi…and suddenly he responds “ Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord...” where have we heard this language before!

Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”

Look its not word for word but both men in the presence of the Holy God realize that they are not deserving to stand in the presence of the Holy God. Like Isaiah, Peter is seeing something of God’s Holy Character and realizing he is not worthy. And like Isaiah Peter will be given his task. “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.” And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him.”

If I could leave you with one main point it is this: When are given to see the Holy God in the person of Jesus Christ, we will see ourselves as unworthy and yet be equipped to do his work.

One thing I think is interesting from this account is that Peter who has just had the catch of his life, after having the great disappointment of no catch leaves his whole economic endeavor to follow after Jesus.

And so it is with a many who spend life on mission. The Famous St. Benedict who founded the Monastic system on which Anglican Spiritual life is based on was the Son of a Noble. He walked away, and spent three years in an abandoned fort communing with God before going on to create the monastic system that saved Western Civ after the fall of the Roman Empire.

Why do I bring this up…look at our OT reading for the day.

4. I made great works. I built houses and planted vineyards for myself. 5 I made myself gardens and parks, and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees. 6 I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees. 7 I bought male and female slaves, and had slaves who were born in my house. I had also great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem. 8 I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces. I got singers, both men and women, and many concubines, the delight of the sons of man.

18 I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me, 19 and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity. 20 So I turned about and gave my heart up to despair over all the toil of my labors under the sun, 21 because sometimes a person who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. 22 What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun?

Like Peter God may bless all your toil. Some of us here are very blessed. And yet what help will that be in when we all breathe our last. Maybe you will be remembered for a generation or two. And if you beat all odds and are super famous maybe a century or two…and like a vapor like a vanity all will be gone one day forgotten to the dustbin of history.

But to be on mission for the eternal, and Holy God. To know that you are written in the book of the life of the lamb that was slain written at the foundations of the universe. What would you leave behind for that? A good catch, nice things, a successful company…what if the wisest and most successful king Soloman told you those things are vanities that lead nowhere. Could you walk away then? What if you got to see the most Holy God!

If I could leave you with one main point it is this: When are given to see the Holy God in the person of Jesus Christ, we will see ourselves as unworthy and yet be equipped to do his work.

Remember that many of us have hearts prone to cling to the things of this world. Yes a lifetime of following Christ for many of us has given us perspective and we do leave much behind. And yet many of us know those little idolatries that hold us hostage...

Oh Lord you may ask for much but please dont ask for this...Is it family, health, control of the agenda, career, leisure time? In the power of the Holy Spirit many of us are being shaped by God to see these things and give them over but none of us perfectly, none of us to the standard of God’s perfect obedience.

So in our place stands Jesus Christ. Who though in very nature God did not see equality with God as something to strive to but made himself nothing. “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Cling to the perfect obedience of Christ. It has been given to you on the Cross, and on the power of the Holy Spirit we can begin to live into this new identity.

We back to the seaside boat encounter. There is our Lord and the the first leader of his Church. Peter and the first disciples walk away from a boat full of temporal food, to pursue he who is the bread that leads to eternal life. And today you are also invited to respond to that bread that leads to eternal life. The communion table is a place where the disciples of Jesus can kneel before the Holy God forsaking all that is vanity and taking to eat that which sustains for ever.

May it be so of us.