[Machine transcription]
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God, our Father,
and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Amen.
Our text for this morning comes from our gospel lesson
from Luke chapter five.
You may be seated.
Do you like to fish?
I like to fish, although I wouldn’t say
I really have any idea what I’m doing.
I don’t fish often.
I don’t catch much when I do, but I enjoy it.
It’s relaxing.
For Father’s Day a number of years ago,
My family bought me a device that’s supposed to help attract fish.
You turn it on, and you drop it in the water a little ways from the boat, and it starts making sounds.
Sounds like small shrimp feeding or minnows flailing around in the water.
Supposed to sound like fish prey.
The hope is that the fish are attracted to the sound. They’ll see the bait floating by and strike.
We’ve tried it a couple times.
And typically, I’ve caught just as many fish with it as without it, which is usually zero.
Nevertheless, it’s an interesting idea, a fish attraction system based on sounds.
Our gospel lesson for today has quite a bit to say about fishing and about boats, really.
Peter and his partners have been out fishing, but not doing so well.
and as they’re cleaning their nets, Jesus sees the boats, and as the crowd is pressing in on him,
he gets into one of them and asks Simon to put out a little bit from shore so that he can teach
the people from the boat. When he’s done, Jesus speaks to Peter, telling him to cast their nets
out into the deep and try one more time. Maybe their luck will be better. This, of course,
makes no sense to anybody. They’d been fishing all night, they’d caught nothing,
they had just cleaned their nets. But for some reason, Jesus obeys this request
from Jesus, and the catch? So many fish that the nets were breaking, and Simon
needed to call for help with the fish, and the amount of fish filled both boats,
and they began to sink. But where did all the fish come from? I suppose it was a
divine fish call, if you will, the voice of the creator himself, his voice, commanding Peter
to throw the nets into the deep, summoning the fish, and Peter trusting that call from our Lord.
Did you notice Simon’s reaction to the abundance of the fish? We read a lot about a lot of
miracles in the New Testament. And people’s typical reaction to seeing a miracle is wanting
to see another miracle. Or consider the case of the ten lepers who were healed. Only one returned
to give thanks. Nine were never seen or heard from again. Or when Jesus fed the 5,000 with
five loaves and two fish, the people wanted to make him their king in order, no doubt,
to keep the free lunch coming. But Peter’s response to the miracle of the
fish is much different. His response is one of fear and repentance, a recognition
of the greatness of Jesus and of his own sinfulness. Depart from me, for I am a
sinful man, O Lord, Peter cries. Peter realizes he’s in the presence of
Almighty God, and that strikes fear into his heart. Much like Isaiah in our Old
Testament lesson, upon seeing the Lord of hosts upon the throne, cries out,
Woe is me, for I am lost. 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.
Should this not also be our response when we realize that we are in the presence
of Almighty God? It is. This holy fear and reverence is ingrained in our liturgy as
one of the first things we do in this worship service is kneel and confess our
sins to God and to one another. In the real presence of God in this place of
worship, we receive his gifts in a posture of humility and repentance.
Peter received absolution, received forgiveness from Jesus when Jesus said
the words, do not be afraid. And you heard the words of God’s forgiveness from my
lips. And upon receiving forgiveness, Jesus has a new career for Peter. Well,
it’s the same career, but new prey, if you will. He will no longer be a catcher of fish,
but a catcher of people. And so begins the story of the church. Twelve disciples,
Peter among them, learning from Jesus for three years, learning his word, which then they would
use as a net to catch people, living people, they and others after them,
casting out the net of God’s Word of repentance and forgiveness of sins in
the death and resurrection of Christ beginning on that first Pentecost. Others
hear the call, are led to repentance, receive forgiveness, are baptized, and
brought into the boat, into the ship that is Christ’s Church. And the story
continues today. The story is your story, because you have been caught up in that
same net of God’s Word, been brought into the ship through the waters of your
baptism, and continue to be nourished with God’s holy food on board the ship,
his body and blood, and his precious word. Instead of a life of pointless swimming
around in the chaotic waters of this world, pursuing things that don’t satisfy,
you have been brought to a new life, the life of a fish, mercifully caught up in
the net of Christ’s gospel, brought into the boat, fed and nourished here in this
modern-day fishing vessel, Christ’s Church.
You probably know that the fish
was one of the earliest symbols of Christianity.
Christians used it to signify their faith in Jesus,
and the story has been said that,
especially in times of persecution in the church,
when a Christian would meet a stranger
and not know if they were a Christian or not,
would draw half of the fish symbol in the sand,
And if the stranger completed the fish symbol, one another knew that it was safe to talk
about matters of faith openly.
And still to this day, we see fish in Christian houses of worship, maybe you have one on the
bumper of your car, in Christian art, et cetera.
We have even seen Christian churches title their church Fishers of Men.
And not only the fish, but the ship is a symbol representing the church and has
been for millennia. Many congregations will explicitly build their building to
look like a ship. The part of the church where you’re sitting, this is called the
nave, which is from the Latin word for ship. And St. Paul’s nave, if you look at
that looks like the hull of a ship upside down.
Fish and fishing and ship building
are some of the enduring symbols of the Christian faith.
We’re calling to our minds that we too have been caught
by the fishers of men that have come
and been a part of our own lives.
It’s true, I suppose, that to be compared to a fish
isn’t particularly much of a compliment.
Fish usually aren’t considered very intelligent.
They just sort of swim around looking for their next meal,
hoping not to get eaten by a bigger fish.
But in the case of your incorporation into the church,
that is exactly what you and I are blessed to be.
Fish, caught by the fishers of men that God has appointed.
Those first apostles and the early church leaders who followed them, the fathers of the Reformation,
the pastors, the teachers, the parents, and the grandparents that God has placed in your life,
God has used these fishers of men to catch you. You have been caught up in the net of God’s Word
in your baptism. You have been brought into into the boat, into the ship of God’s
church. And unlike those fish caught in Peter’s boat in the gospel lesson, you
are safe in this ship. Ships on the high seas or even on the Sea of Galilee, as we
see recorded in the New Testament, face storms. Storms come up that batter the
ship. And the same is true for the ship of the church. Think about Noah and his
wife and children and the animals on the ark. God protected them in that ship
from the storms that he brought upon the evil world. They were safe, preserved by a
gracious God. And so God provides us, his church, with the means by which we might
survive the chaos that goes on around us. Whether it be governments or economic
systems or even just popular opinion, these things often batter against the
sides of the ship of the church, threatening to overturn us. But to the
extent that these things are opposed to God’s Word, they will not prevail. And
the loss of a job, wayward children, struggles with others, these two will not
be able to extract you from the safety of the church to which Jesus Christ has
made you a member. Not even your own sin will cause Christ to throw you
overboard. As you return to him in repentance and faith, you are safe in the
ship, captained by the Lord of the church, Jesus Christ himself. Thanks be to God
that he has called us as fish. Those who have heard his voice, heard his divine
call, and been brought into the safety of this boat, his church, is here that he
cares for us, here that he provides for us, and here that he ferries us through
the storms of life to that safe harbor of eternal life forever with him. May you hold fast in that
faith. Hold fast to the greatest of the fishers of men, our Lord Jesus Christ. In his name. Amen.
And the peace of God which passes all understanding. Keep your hearts in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
