4 Before Lent

Sermon Preached by Sarah West

I wonder what it was that stood out for you in today’s gospel reading. Maybe it was Jesus teaching the crowd from a boat? Was it the miraculous catch of fish? Or perhaps Peter’s calling to be a fisher of people? For me, it was Peter’s response ‘Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man’.

It appears to be a common response to being called by God. In our other readings, Isaiah sees the Lord of Hosts and exclaims ‘Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips’.

Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians tells them ‘For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God’. 

Each is called by God, and each accept their calling, but not one of them does so without proclaiming their unworthiness – they have unclean lips, they have persecuted the church, they are sinful.

Peter’s story of calling starts with Jesus standing beside the lake of Gennesaret (that is the sea of Galilee) and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God. In Luke, Jesus starts his ministry before calling his disciples. Jesus is known - he has astounded them with the authority of his word and has demonstrated his healing power by healing Simon’s Mother-in-Law. This is the Simon that becomes Peter.

Jesus’ notoriety is such that a huge crowd has gathered around him on the shore. The crowd is hungry for his words of hope and are all trying to get closer so that they might hear the word of God. So, Jesus, asks Peter to take him out a little way from the shore in his boat.

I always thought that Jesus got in the boat to get some space from the crowd, but it turns out that there is a bay on the lake that forms a natural amphitheatre, which has been shown to transmit a human voice effortlessly to thousands of people on the shore. Jesus wants the crowd to hear him, and so, with creative evangelism, he teaches from a boat.

I wonder what Peter was thinking. He had been up all night fishing for his living and had caught nothing. He is disappointed, tired and dirty and had almost finished cleaning the nets – when Jesus appears with a huge crowd and asks him to put out again away from the shore. After Jesus had finished teaching, he turns to Peter and tells him to go out into deeper water and put down the nets again. This has got to be the last thing that Peter wants to do after last night. It made no sense, he was even less likely to catch anything by day. Maybe he was surprised that a carpenter was trying to teach him his trade?

But Peter recognises the authority of Jesus, He replies: ‘Master, we have worked all night long and caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets’.

I wonder if he wanted to resist Jesus’ request, if he wanted to point out that it would be a waste of time. I wonder how often we resist because what God is asking us to do seems illogical or just impractical, a waste of time. How often do we resist pulling into the deeper waters to bear witness because we don’t believe that anything different will happen?

For Peter, the result is a catch so large that the nets were beginning to break, and he had to call his friends to help them. Christ made all the difference - there was such an abundance of fish that both boats began to sink.

Peter is suddenly overwhelmed by the proximity of the divine and falls to his knees before Jesus in the boat. Like Isaiah, he protests his unworthiness saying: ‘Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!’

Jesus just replies: ‘Do not be afraid, from now on you will be catching people’

It is in self-knowledge of his unworthiness before the Lord, that Peter receives his calling.

 Jesus’ word falls on the ears of a crowd hungry to hear it. Peter, James and John are afraid, but have been caught by the word of God. They leave behind the miraculous abundant haul of fish, they leave everything, and follow Jesus.

In the end it was never about the fish. From now on they would be part of something much bigger – catching people.

I wonder what you think about when you think of being called? Calling is one of those words that tends to induce panic in people. There is a nervousness around the idea that God might have a purpose for our lives; that we might be called to a path a lot less comfortable and secure than the one we had planned for ourselves.

Sometimes it is difficult to discern what that calling might be and we are nervous of getting it wrong. It doesn’t usually come with a miraculous catch of fish and clear instruction from Jesus. What are the things that hold you back, that act as barriers to accepting God’s call?

I tried to ignore my own sense of calling for many years hoping that God would change his mind, but in the end, it was easier to just accept it and follow where I was being led. That was my Emmaus road moment. When I recognised the feeling of being called to explore ordained ministry it was like my heart burning in my chest, a feeling of joy and fear. Joy of feeling surrounded and held in love, a certainty that God was with me - and fear that I was just not good enough.

The story of Peter’s calling tells us that God calls us where we are to be ourselves: there is no ‘not good enough’ with God. As Paul says to the Corinthians: ‘But by the grace of God I am what I am…’ 

It is easy to put up barriers, but our own feelings of inadequacy are no barrier to God. God calls us in all our sinfulness and weakness and unworthiness.

God does not call you to be someone else, but to be you – the best version of you. By our baptism, we are called to be disciples of Christ. We are called to be Christ-like, to reflect the nature of Christ, but how we live that in practice depends on who we are, our experiences and our gifts.

The story tells us that God does not wait for the right moment, he does not wait for us to have our lives sorted - he comes at the end of a long unfruitful shift when we are tired and all too aware of our unworthiness.

The story tells us that God’s call has a cost and changes everything. Peter’s life was re-oriented; he left everything and followed Jesus. He was not just called to believe and change his life. Peter was called to catch people alive – to proclaim the word of God to others. This is our calling too, to live the life to which we have been called and share the good news of Jesus Christ. We are not just called to hear the word, but to act on it.  

Although, we live in a fairly accepting society regarding faith, it can be difficult to proclaim a belief that may be different from our friends or social peers. Jesus’ words to Peter ‘Do not be afraid’ are for us too. We are called to participate in God’s mission in the world. We have to trust that Jesus will keep working with us and through us, catching others as he has caught us.

We live in a world filled with noise and distraction, where it is difficult to hear God’s word or see it made manifest in miracle. We have clogged ears and closed hearts and are not always ready to hear and heed God’s call. But God is faithful and continues to call and pull us into life in relationship with him. He is continually calling us to re-orient our lives and priorities – to use our gifts to share his love in the service of others.

We are called to let go of our doubts and insecurities; of the need to be in control; of the things of this world that entrap us. We are called to find our freedom in God.

To let go and embrace the love of God, which has the power to free us from our nets.