Casting nets into the deep

The text of my sermon at St Aldhelm’s on Sunday 10th February 2019. Following its composition I felt it was too long and failed to link the three readings.  Preaching it, however, I sensed a positive response. 

Readings for this fourth Sunday before Lent were Isaiah 6, 1-8,   1 Corinthians 15, 1-11  and   Luke 5, 1-11.

‘He shall feed me in a green pasture : and lead me forth beside the waters of comfort.’ That line did not form part of our readings today. You may recognise it as a verse from the 23^rd Psalm. According to ancient Christian tradition, the ‘green pasture’ in which we feed is the Bible. If so, then our worship this morning, as always, invites us to delight in this pasture, to be nourished by the Word of Christ as we hear and explore a selection of sacred scriptures.

 

The Old Testament reading took us into the Temple, and relayed Isaiah’s encounter with God. It was an experience so awesome that he was driven to confess his unworthiness – and yet when it is clear that God’s holiness must find expression through human lips, he, with fear and trembling, has no choice but to respond, ‘Here am I; send me…’

 

Note, both, his acknowledgement of unworthiness and his willingness, all be it with dread, to speak for God. I guess every priest, and every preacher, will identify with Isaiah’s feeling of worthless inadequacy – and also with Isaiah’s feeling impelled to step forward. At the bedside of one who is close to death, or sitting on a bench beside a struggling alcoholic, or approaching the flat of a young family requesting a baptism, or stepping up into this pulpit, the feeling is similar: ‘Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips’….and yet, because the Lord has at times to scrape the barrel and there’s no one else available right here, right now…’Here am I; send me’…

 

Moving to our second reading: you may have noticed that the New Testament readings have formed a sequence lately from Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth. If so, you will have picked up the vibe. The church there is divided. Its members are arguing and falling out. They form separate factions, each preferring a different minister: some were keen on Cephas, some on Apollos, some on Paul, and others, rather piously, said they were focusing on Christ. Perhaps as in many such arguments this was all a cover for preferring their own sweet voice. No such arguments can be imagined among Christians today, of course. But, if ever we were inclined to complain about each other, Paul reminds the Corinthians, and us, that it really is all about Jesus, not the personalities who make up the church, its members and its clergy. All each of us can do ultimately is to pass on what we in turn have received, that Christ died for our sins, he was buried, he was raised on the third day, and by his grace (not that of any individual) ‘so you have come to believe.’

I can’t help feeling that today’s Gospel reading is all about us, it’s all about the church, and about this church as much as any other.

 

Jesus commandeers the fishing boats of Simon, James and John, in order to speak to the crowd on the shore. I see these boats as a symbol of the church and those fishermen as us. Here at first, the church is being portrayed as the means by which Jesus is able to be both, set apart and yet close to the people, just as this building and this holy fellowship are both, set apart, and yet close, so that our community may encounter the teaching and the person of Jesus.

 

Jesus then directs his bemused associates to ‘Put out into the deep…’ They are convinced, with reason, of the futility of such an undertaking. We in our day can be equally pessimistic, or realistic, about the prospects for this boat, our church. In the shallows, it has its tried and trusted role. Venturing into deeper water we are quite sure would be foolish, pointless and risky.

 

He then directs them to cast their nets, exactly as they had done so uselessly before, and now the fish are so numerous that their boat-church can barely cope. Indeed they are only able to manage by assisting one another.

 

But now Peter doesn’t do as we might (that is, thank God loudly for the success of our catch or outreach or Alpha or Confirmation Course or the popularity of our Spring Fair – all in hopes that the Bishop and Archdeacon will be listening.) Instead, Peter falls down at Jesus’ knees, saying, This is out of my league, this is scary. I am nobody. I’m not up to seeing this through…’Depart from me, for I am a sinful man.’ Peter here speaks for us all. You may have heard me say before and you will hear me say again that there is only one attribute that is essential in anyone wishing to attend this church. Amid our diversity – and we are, let’s face it, quite a diverse assortment here – there is only one characteristic we all must exhibit in order to attend this church, and that is to acknowledge that we are each of us a sinner. So if anyone here isn’t a sinner I must insist you leave now… In this case, however, an admission of guilt is good news for us. Such that we may hear those words of Jesus, addressed to us as to Peter: ‘Do not fear, do not be afraid, from here on you will be drawing in people, not fish…’ And so they left everything and followed Jesus.

 

 

Shortly before Christmas we had something of an inundation. One Saturday of the Christmas Tree Festival the rain came down and quite a lot of it was pouring through the Choir Vestry ceiling. The guttering along the church roof empties into a hopper which was blocked by twigs and leaves. Therefore the rain was overflowing and cascading down the wall and a fair amount was running behind the aluminium roof covering and then through the ceiling. The first dry day following, Richard and I climbed up onto the vestry roof. From there it is still a long way to extend a ladder to the hopper above. A bigger problem was the sloping roof. So while I perched near its top, and reached up into the hopper to pull out the debris of a few autumns, one leg of the ladder rested on the roof far below while the other was supported by a block of wood, against which (I trusted) Richard was keeping his foot firmly planted. My carefulness extended to wearing a bicycle helmet, just in case. It was scary at the time, and more scary thinking about it now. And I mention it because although being a Christian doesn’t have to be quite so precarious, or scary, it is always likely to lead us a little more towards a life that is based on trust and faith, a life that is adventurous (though not necessarily in the usual, spectacular way) and a life that is generous and wonderful but not always predictable and risk-free. And we will need to trust one another just as Richard and I had to that day. Oh, and I am glad to say that there have been no further leaks through the vestry roof. Several through the roof at the back of church – but that’s another story, another blocked hopper, another ladder (and, I hope, another person to scale it…) for another day.

So, our church-boat may spring the occasional leak. Each of our crew and complement may be a sinner. Yet, this our church-boat has set sail and carried Christ Jesus and his message of love and forgiveness through many a year and many a storm. We, though unworthily, will continue to set our bearings according to Jesus’ directing – and we will dare to put out betimes into the deep, and cast our nets.

 

My friends, we have explored just a small portion of that green pasture that is God’s scriptures. But so nourished and fed, let us allow him to ‘lead us forth beside the waters of comfort…Yea, though we walk in the valley of the shadow of death, we will fear no evil – for thy rod and thy staff comfort me against them that trouble me – thou hast anointed my head with oil and my cup shall be full. But thy loving-kindness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life – and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.’ Amen.