Grace Is Everywhere

Sermon-Year C-5 Epiphany February 7, 2010
The Cloud of Unknowing, "O God, our great companion, lead us ever more deeply into the mystery of your life and ours, that we may be faithful interpreters of Life to each other, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Ok, you’ve heard this story so often you missed the weird parts. THE FISHERMEN WERE WASHING THEIR NETS. Odd? Ok, how about this, THEY FISHED ALL NIGHT. Weird?
Any fisherpeople here? Ever fished with a net? Simon and his friends were fishing with trammel nets. We know this because they were washing them AFTER they were used. Trammel nets were made of linen and had to be washed and mended every time they were used. Another thing about trammel nets is that they are set in three layers-and are easily seen by the fish-IN DAYLIGHT. This is why they fish at night. So Jesus, telling them to put the boats back out-IN DAYLIGHT-WAS CRAZY.
The fishermen humored him. But they thought, THE RABBI IS CRAZY. And so Simon says, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.” You get it that Simon’s rolling his eyes when he says this, right?
And Jesus tells him to put down their nets in deep water. Listen, if Luke the gospel writer includes a detail in a story, it’s ALWAYS important. Jesus wants Simon to go deep, deeper than usual. He wants Simon to take a risk, to step out in faith. They catch so much fish-when they shouldn’t; where they shouldn’t- that Simon realizes that he’s in the presence of the divine. The gospel says, “he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, ‘Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!’” In the contemporary Bible, The Message by Eugene Peterson ,the translation is a lot better "I'm a sinner and can't handle this holiness. Leave me to myself,".
Simon is not just a surprized, excited fisherman who has an great fish story to tell-he is now called, Simon Peter, a person who is called, a witness to power and holiness, a simple man who is overwhelmed by what he has seen-and terrified of what it all means. In other words, Simon Peter is supposed to represent, us.
Every week I talk to a lot of people, and frequently I am talking to people about jobs-what they’re doing now-what they hope to do in the future. I am amazed at how many people , in their 30s and 40s are all saying the same thing-“I want a job that matters, I want a job that makes life better for people, I want to do a job that I love-not a job, just for money.
I know I also throw in a lot of Mother Teresa stories, but this one was to good not to tell-it comes from Kate Huey a UCC pastor:
Once, years ago, I had the opportunity to hear Mother Teresa speak. Now there was a person who walked away from everything and spent her life serving the poor. It sounds downright romantic, in a way, and many of us have dreamed of leaving it all behind so we can go off to a foreign land and spend our lives doing good. But I'll never forget Mother Teresa's words that evening. She said that Americans are always saying they want to leave their lives here and go to India to work with her. And she says, "Stay here, right where you are, and love the people God has given you to love. Care for people right where you are."
When we hear the story of Simon Peter and James and John walking away from their boatload of fish-we are grabbed by their sacrifice-and we should be. Luke includes this story here to show us what radical obedience looks like. But it is too tempting to think that giving up everything and going to a far away place is what we are called to do. Some are, but most of us are called to follow-here.
This is a rather long story, but worth hearing. In fact, it’s so good I sent it out to all the downriver clergy this week-it’s from The Journey with Jesus: Notes to Myself
Reflections By Dan Clendenin
“Next year will mark the seventy-fifth anniversary of Georges Bernanos's novel The Diary of a Country Priest (1936). If you've ever struggled with the call of God to follow Jesus the Lord, I highly recommend this little book. Bernanos tells the story of a young and earnest parish priest in rural France who feels like a total failure. From a human perspective, he's not mistaken.
The entire novel is a diary in which the priest records "the simple trivial secrets of a very ordinary kind of life." He describes with brutal honesty his doubts, loneliness, social isolation, and sense of futility. He clashes with clergy colleagues. He broods over the history of his own family dysfunction. He knows that he's physically clumsy and socially awkward. He's even repulsed by his own body due to chronic stomach pains caused by an impoverished diet that's aggravated by an inadequate salary.
Nor does the priest enjoy much satisfaction in his ministry. When he shares the gospel he sometimes feels like he's merely play-acting and parroting clichés. He feels powerless in the face of suffering and ponders the absurdity of prayer. He describes his parishioners as bored, boring, and petty. They gossip about him as a "secret drinker" and a womanizer, both of which accusations are ludicrous. Still, the priest loves his flock; he visits every home every year, and he prays for them.
The cumulative effect of this candor and introspection is a sense of disillusionment. The priest is an astute observer of the weakness, frailty and fallenness of human nature, especially his own, and as a consequence he wrestles with his sense of vocation and call. He compares his restlessness to "a hornet in a bottle." Reflecting upon his "wretched weakness," he struggles with an ominous sense of total failure, that "my best is nothing." And so he questions his call: "Am I where our Lord would have me? Twenty times a day I ask this question."
By the end of Bernanos's novel, the priest has a keen sense of history and of his own obscure role to play. His elders advise him to persevere amidst his questions: "Keep saying your lessons. Go on with your work. Keep at the little daily things that need doing, til the rest comes. Concentrate. Think of a lad at his homework, trying so hard and his tongue sticking out. That's how our Lord would have us be when he gives us up to our own strength. Little things—they don't look like much, yet they bring peace. Like wild flowers which seem to have no scent, till you get a field full of 'em."
"Keep marching to the end," they encourage him, "and try to end up quietly at the roadside without shedding your equipment." When the priest dies of stomach cancer at a young age, we realize that Bernanos has painted a portrait of a genuine saint. On his deathbed at the end of the book the priest confesses, "Does it matter? Grace is everywhere."What a wonderful book.
We hear three call stories today-Isaiah who says “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips,
Paul who writes 8Last of all, as to one untimely born, (Jesus) he appeared also to me. 9For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle,
And Peter, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!”
Each is unworthy, every one unprepared, all too average for the calling they receive. Like us. And yet, God speaks to each of us, asking us, inviting us to face our selves and follow.
Dr. Robert Linthicum, who I seem to quote every week writes: Partners in Urban Transformation, 2010
[Jesus told him], “Do not be afraid”. For, Simon, you are not in this alone. Jesus is at work in this situation. And Jesus will bring to pass through you what he has already designed your work to be. You must just do it – and the miracle will occur. So “do not be afraid”. Begin doing, and keep on doing what you have been called by Jesus to do – catching people for the kingdom. Live fully into this new call to you – live without timidity and fear. God will accomplish what God wants to do through you and this new ministry. And in that doing, you will find true fulfillment!
And Peter and James and John and Paul and Isaiah and Teresa and a simple country priest all leave the life that looks normal, their “catch” for a new life. Grace is everywhere. We hear these stories not because they are about great people who are called to extraordinary things. They are ordinary people who feel ordinary-and are called to extraordinary things. We are told these stories because they are invitations for us to become fishers of others. Amen.