Christ the Miracle-Maker

The New Revised Standard Version Jesus Calls the First Disciples

5 Once while Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, 2 he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. 3 He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. 4 When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” 5 Simon answered, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.” 6 When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. 7 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. 8 But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” 9 For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken; 10 and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” 11 When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.

Prayer

Intro

You know how it feels at the end of a long day of hard work. You’re packing up your things. You’ve wiped down the tables or sent the last emails and finished up your notes from the last meeting. The last dish is in the washer, the linens are all put away. You’ve done the sweep around the building, turning off lights, locking doors.

And inevitably, at 5 minutes to the hour, somebody shows up and sits down in your boat and ask you to push out again. Come on!

I remember this feeling well from my time working at a coffee bar. It’d be 5:55pm on a Saturday. Everything was put away, the till balanced, bathrooms cleaned, dishes done. And then…it happens. The curious couple who drove up from Seattle pushes through the door for a cup. Sure, it’s the end of the day. But we’re technically still open…so...

They sit down, you serve them, you walk through the whole liturgy. And, you bide your time. You feel resentful, but really, it’s not their fault. They want the experience you can offer.

When I worked in college ministry, I would often experience this with students. Our gathering began at 9pm on Tuesday nights and we typically let out at about 10:15. Clean up went on and we typically didn’t leave until about 10:45pm.

Inevitably, there would be that one student who wanted to talk. Ugh. Ministry can be sooo demanding! :)

Sometimes I’d even yell out the famous line from Cheers, “You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here!”

You know the feeling, right? I just want to be done for the day. I just want to move on to what’s next. I just want to hang up my nets and call it a night. I’m tired, I didn’t catch much today, it’s been one of those weeks.

Power in the Surprise Moments

Now, before you get distracted and think I’m totally cynical, let me move on to this: In truth, these are holy, surprising, often revelatory moments.

These moments are miracles, often because we’ve reached the end of what we know and expect to happen. These moments are miracles, because they are outside the bounds of what we believe is possible, beyond the boundaries of our convenience and routine.

I can imagine how Simon was feeling in this moment. He just wanted to go home. He’d had enough for the day.

But he also knew something about Jesus and his work. In fact, perhaps days before, Simon had witnessed Jesus’ healings in his very own home. Luke 4 tells of Jesus healing Simon’s mother-in-law from a high fever, from which she had been suffering, it says. Simon knew Jesus was the real deal.

Interestingly, if we look at the texts between our last week reading, of Jesus in the synagogue and move then to this week’s reading of the calling of the disciples, we see that Jesus is doing miraculous things on the fringes of appropriate time and place.

He heals the man with the spirit of the unclean demon on the Sabbath, which was frowned upon. Then he heals Simon’s mother-in-law at the end of the day, a time when they should all have been resting in the final celebration of the Sabbath day.

Then he goes out to pray at daybreak, to seek solitude, and then Jesus gets overwhelmed by crowds looking for him to do his work.

These fringe moments, at the beginning or end of the day, on a day of rest or in a space that is typically set aside — Jesus shows up in miraculous ways.

And so here we are again, with Simon’s boat, at the end of the fishing day, and Jesus pushes to the fringe and asks them to put the boat back out into the water.

We’ve agreed, we know the feeling of being asked to do something at the end of the day or when all the toys are put away.

I think again of the fictional couple who walks in at the last minute to the cafe. Sure, that’s annoying, I want to tell them we’re closing and I can’t serve them.

But in these fringe moments, something miraculous does happen.

Through the normal day, we are all hustle and bustle and busyness and oftentimes it is easy to miss the offering of a more significant conversation or miraculous encounter. We just want to get things done and move on.

But when we can pause, when we can let the surprising encounter happen, the serendipitous occurs.

For a moment, I need to let go of my annoyance or my expectation that the specific times and dates for God’s arrival are to be orderly and prearranged. This is a position of great privilege, to dictate when God will act, to call on God when we need God to help out. This is a profound gift that many people do not have (do any of us have the ability to call down God’s power with the snap of our fingers?)

Instead, this story calls me to embrace the possibility that Jesus might intervene miraculously in my life in times and ways that I cannot arrange or predict, but that I most desperately need.

Simon watches Jesus walk up to the boats. They know each other, obviously from the story before, but not well yet and so we can feel Simon saying internally, “come on man, don’t do this, I’m just finishing up my day.” “Alright, fine..you’re getting in anyways…ok then.”

It’s comical, in a way.

But we can see in this moment the beauty of letting this unexpected teaching moment from Jesus play out.

Simon responds to Jesus in faith: “Master, we have worked all night long but caught nothing. YET…if you say so…I will let down the nets.”

Simon gets it. He knows that Jesus is the miracle maker and so he trusts. Really, what is it going to hurt? He has clean nets and no fish. He’s tired, yes, but he also knows that the possibility of something in the nets is worth more than the nothing he has right now.

And we know the rest of the story: the nets fill to bursting. Christ has made a miracle happen. There are so many fish, Simon needs help from the other boats and other fishermen.

They finish the catch and Simon falls to his knees. He has seen two miracles now and is overwhelmed — why me? I don’t deserve this. I’m a sinful man, he says. He and his partners, James and John, are awestruck.

The last minute encounter. The fringe moment. The time outside the boundaries and expectations of the appropriate time: This is when Jesus shows up to call us and show us his power.

All of a sudden, the recently cleaned nets and a hot shower waiting at home no longer matter. An astounding witness to the More of God’s way has stunned these fishermen.

And here, Jesus opens it up wide and shows them all a whole new way of understanding their purpose.

Out of this surprise encounter, we see three rough and smelly fishermen be called by the Son of God to trade in their nets and begin searching out to heal and help and restore and call other people to bear witness to what Jesus is doing.

Jesus is the miracle maker — he takes this fringe moment and transforms it into a sacred time, a holy place, set aside and outside of all routine and plans, in order to bless the world through the ministry of these fishermen.

Do not be afraid, he says. For they would have had to feel afraid at what they’d just seen. Do not be afraid, because now — you’re with me.

Two things we can hold to from this text.

First, we hear a call in this text to attend to the fringe moments of our lives. When is it time to go home? When is it time to hang up the phone? Do you have moments in your day when you say, that’s good enough, I’m done? Well I wonder if we can leave those edges, those fringes, a little wilder, a little less planned, and a little more open to be astounded by the possibility of what God may reveal to us.

Think about the table that we will gather at in a moment. We may feel the pull to head home, to be done with the service already, to go get our Super Bowl party all set up. We’ve got things to do, so we’d rather not linger.

But what if we did linger, for a moment, to embrace a holy pause. What might Christ, the miracle maker, have to show you there?

The second thing leads from this first thing and it is this: God has more for us. Do you feel like you’re done? Like you’ve done all that you can do? That you’re spent? Well, God has more to offer you. Perhaps your work needs to change, perhaps you have been burned out and you’ve just finished cleaning up and you’d like a nap. Well, perhaps the invitation is then to receive the blessed rest of God’s true sabbath and presence — a sustaining, growing, miraculous presence that holds us even when we are at the end of our ropes.

I think about this also in our season of volunteering and sharing our times and talents. Perhaps we have an inkling that God can use us in a new way, but we’re also tired and so we will stay put, following the path we’ve always walked. It’s easier, we know the territory.

But what if the invitation here is to slow down and listen for the more (or the different) path God is directing us to. Maybe it’s time to be done fishing with nets. Maybe it’s time to let our skills as fishers expand to something greater. Maybe, maybe, God has more for us.

I wholly believe in this — that God has more for us. I think we settle, I think we think we’re only so good, only so loved, only so capable. And yet we were meant for so much more! So much more than we even realize.

Christ meets us in the fringe moments. The liminal spaces. The in between and inconvenient. May we discover the invitation to step further into his way, deeper into the journey, casting our nets again to discover God’s abundance and bounty and possibility that await.

Then, the disciples set down their nets, leave their boats, and follow Jesus.

From the fringe moments, where we encounter the miraculous, serendipitous power of Jesus…may we too, drop our nets, and step into the more of God.