The Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ According to Luke.

Once while Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. 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. When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” Simon answered, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.” When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break.

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.

But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!”

For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken; 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.” When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him. (Luke 5:1-11)

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My dad told me this story once. He was standing in the doorway of a garage, talking to the mechanic, and a woman drove her car slowly to the garage.  One of the front tyres was obviously soft. It wasn’t dead flat, but it was very low.

The mechanic said to my dad out of the corner of his mouth, “ I bet she says the steering has gone.”

The car pulled up. The woman got out, walked over to the mechanic and said, “Would you have a look at my car. I think the steering has gone.”

Now I am not criticizing women drivers. Women can drive as well as men. Some are much better.   What I am getting at is the attitude of some mechanics when someone  takes  a car in for repair and tries to describe what is wrong.

“It makes this cruck,cruck,cruck, sort of noise when I go over a bump in the road. I think it is the rear spring that is broken.”

“Oh yea,” says the mechanic.  His face showing that he doesn’t believe for a moment that you could possibly know what is wrong.

It happens with any sort of trade or profession. 

We bought a new house once which had a washing machine in the basement.

The first time we used the washing machine it leaked. We called the builder, and he sent a man along. Of course, by then the water had all dried up. We explained what happened, but he didn’t believe us. “I can’t find anything wrong with it. Call me if it happens again,” he said, and then he left.

I called him again, but just before he arrived I threw a bucket of water on the floor under the washing machine. “Oh my,” he said, “That does look bad. We had better get that out of here and replaced as soon as possible.”

There is this thing about people who know what they are doing, and how they treat people they think don’t know what they are doing.

That’s probably what Peter felt like when this landlubber, this fellow from the hill country of Nazareth, told him where he should cast his net to catch fish.

Peter was a professional fisherman. He knew the lake. He knew where the fish would congregate. He knew the best time to catch fish.

But this Jesus, a man who had borrowed Peter’s boat from which to preach to the crowd, told Peter where to cast his net.

Like he knew something the professional didn’t?

Peter explained very patiently to this rabbi, “Look, we have worked all night and haven’t found any fish.” 

But there was something about this man Jesus. Maybe it was the way he looked. Maybe the way he said what he said. Maybe some quiet authority about him, which  persuaded Peter to pay heed.  

“If you tell me to, then I will let the nets down,” he said, and he did.

And what a bonanza. They had to call James and John in the other boat to come over and help with the oversized harvest of fish. The boat  was in danger of sinking from the weight  of the catch.

An ordinary kind of miracle, would you say?

But isn’t that how Jesus comes to us all sometime?.

In an ordinary way.

We have had an argument with someone, and we have been there many times before, and we know darn well that it can’t be mended, and we turn away, and a voice tells us to go back and try again.

We have had a great partnership with someone and we lose them, and we know life will never be the same. And we don’t want to try any more. And we don’t want to face life any more, but something tells us to get up and face the day, and try again.

Maybe we have worked in  a hostile environment and have reached a point when we know exactly what will happen today, as happens everyday, and we can’t  face going to work, and we want to quit. And yet, something tells us to give it one more try and even though we know it will be the same, we drag ourselves in.

We know our situation, and we don’t need anybody telling us to give it one more try, but reluctantly, we do.

And we go back to the person we argued with, and try a different tack, and we give a bit, and they give a bit, and a miracle happens. Two people who have almost come to hate each other fall into each other’s arms and are friends again.

Or we who have lost someone so good, and so close, and who can’t be replaced, and we do get up and drag ourselves out, and miracle of miracles, we can make it . 

And we go back to that job where the  boss doesn’t appreciate us, and where we don’t feel valued and  a colleague comes up and lets us know how much some people, the people who really know us, value us.  And we find a boatload of self-worth coming from a totally different direction.

This is about trusting. About surrendering. Surrendering the hurt we have felt, and suffered, to Jesus and trusting him to show us a better way.

This is about finding a new way to succeed in the world, a way that involves changing direction a bit, learning to trust a bit, letting go of the hurt we have been holding onto, a bit.

The story of Miss Haversham in Great Expectations – do you remember?  She was jilted at the altar. And twenty years or so later when Pip went into her house, she was still wearing her wedding dress, the wedding cake was moldering on the table. She had marooned herself in the moment of her greatest hurt, and had never been able to let go of it.

Didn’t want to let go of it!

Peter had to let go of his pride as a fisherman, and trust this rabbi, Jesus, when he was pointed to the place where fish were, but he would also have to let go of the way he worshipped, the way he earned a living, the way he lived – if he were to later, follow Jesus.

His pride might have prevented him from casting that net again. His attachment to his trade, and his pride in it, might have prevented him following Jesus.    A person’s trade says a lot about who you are and what you are, and giving it up is hard to do.  What would be left?

What was left was a new life!

A new beginning!

A new thing!

Jesus called Peter and the others to a new thing,

He changed their lives around dramatically.

And as it happened, changed the world for all time.

The Gospel, the Good News, was entrusted to these men, and  to women, and they founded the church, which is as William Barclay calls it, ‘the repository and the transmitter of the Gospel.’

As one of the Fathers of the Church once said, “ No one can have God for a Father unless they have the Church for their mother.”

And in his letter to the Corinthians, an excerpt of which we would have heard today, Paul reminds us what the Good News is.

“The most important part,” he says, is, “that Christ died for our sins, as the scriptures say. He was buried, and three days later he was raised to life, as the scriptures say, and Christ appeared to Peter, then to the twelve,” and Paul goes on to list the great number of people who witnessed the Risen Lord – who saw Jesus – after his resurrection.

“Finally,”  Paul says, “He appeared to me.”

And Paul, a respected Pharisee, a man knowledgeable of the law, a learned man, a true Jew, someone with a mission to stop the Good News in its tracks, was led by Jesus to take a new direction – one where he would have to give up the trappings and importance of his trade, as it were,  and to follow Jesus.

Jesus had been speaking to Paul’s heart for a long time. And Paul had stubbornly resisted until that one day on his journey to Damascus,

Jesus asked, “Paul, why are you kicking against the goad?” 

When a farmer ploughed his field, using an ox to pull the plough, he had affixed on his rig, a board with a large nail in it. This was his accelerator. When he wanted the  ox to go faster, or, just  to get it started, he would push a lever and this goad, this plank with the nail in it, would come down sharp onto the ox’s flank, and the ox knew to move.  

“Why are you kicking against the goad?”

Why do you refuse to see the true way?

I have called you, and you have ignored me.

Paul knew what he was doing.  He knew where he was going. He had done it for a long time. He didn’t need anyone to tell him what to do, where to go.

Until he met Jesus.

And he turned from working against Christ , to become, perhaps, the greatest worker for Christ the church ever had.

Once he had let go of the old way!

Peter had to let go, too, when Jesus told him that he would become a fisher of people.

Some years ago,  there was a movement in this diocese to awaken people to telling the good news to others.

That was something most people found hard to do. And I don’t know how successful it was.

You see, we can tell people about our arthritis, or other illnesses, and sometimes even about very personal parts of our life.  People tell their modern day confessor – the barman –  about their most intimate relationships.    

People on television, ordinary people, tell the whole world the darndest things about  their love life, their peccadilloes, their most secret desires.

But we can’t tell people  the good news, that since we found Jesus, and joined a church community, our life has become so much better.

We can’t talk about the fact that we have found a Saviour who is always there for us, and will always love us.

We can talk about very personal stuff, but keep our religious beliefs to ourselves. I wonder if it’s because we haven’t given ourselves wholly to Him.  We want to keep one foot  in the world – where we know what we are doing. 

We don’t want to risk letting the net over the other side.

If we did and there were no fish, no ‘miracle’,  we would look pretty stupid, wouldn’t we?

But maybe, the fish will be there. Maybe there is a person waiting   for  someone to throw them a lifeline. And maybe Jesus is calling you to be that  person..

Be like Peter. Say, “ Well Jesus I know people, and they don’t respond to talking about – that stuff – I have already tried it- – – – but, if you tell me to, I will do it.”

And a miracle might just happen.

An ‘ ordinary ‘ miracle, maybe, but a miracle.