YPSILANTE, MICHIGAN– In one of the children’s books, a little boy for whom nothing goes right opens with these words: “I went to sleep with gum in my mouth and now there’s gum in my hair and when I got out of bed this morning I tripped on the skateboard and by mistake I dropped my sweater in the sink while the water was running and I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day… I think I’ll move to Australia. And that’s just the way it turned out. That night the little fellow said, “It has been a terrible, horrible, no good, awfully bad day. My mom says some days are like that. Even in Australia.”(God’s Gift by James Garrett, C.S.S. Publishing Company)
Our gospel lesson tells us that at the beginning of his ministry, Jesus was preaching to an eager group of hearers by a lake in Galilee. Sometimes this is called Sea of Galilee.
It is a beautiful body of water, and is still full of fish today. It is 13 miles long, and eight miles wide. Because it is 680 feet below sea level, it has almost a tropical climate.
During the time of Jesus, there were nine towns clustered around the Sea, none with less than 15,000 population. While Jesus was preaching near the lake, the crowd was so eager to hear him that they pressed him right up to the edge of the water.
Pulled up on the shore were two fishing boats. The owners were down the beach mending their nets after a night of fishing. Seeing the empty boats, Jesus got into one, and asked the owner Simon to push the boat a little further from the shore, as he continued his teaching from the boat.
As Jesus finished his sermon, he looked at the four fishers. They were not strangers to Jesus because when he spoke to them, they called him “master” or “teacher.”
These fishermen looked dejected. They had fished all night, and had only an empty boat to show for their efforts. They had worked hard but had failed. It was a terrible, horrible, and very bad day for these fishers.
I remember of a time when a friend asked me to go with him fishing. We took his small boat, and started fishing at four in the morning. While we were fishing, it rained so hard that we were all soaking wet. And it was cold. After fishing for two hours, we did not catch any fish. We decided to go home soaking wet, with no fish.
According to my friend, it can happen in fishing. And we just changed our clothes, and had breakfast.
However for Simon and the others, coming back from fishing empty-handed was a crisis. They were not recreational fishers, but workers whose families went hungry if there was no catch.
Jesus then told Simon to go to the deep, and once more, drop their net. “Won’t do any good,” replied Simon. “Fishing in this lake isn’t what it used to be. We’ve worked all night, and don’t have a single fish to show for it.”
“Nevertheless,” Simon said, “if you say so, we will try again.” Weary as they were, they got into their boats, rowed to the deep water, and let down their nets.
Ever been there? I have. You do your best, work hard, and the results are zero. An important personal relationship goes sour, and there is nothing you can do. You watch a marriage dissolve before your eyes, and you can’t save it. The harder you try, the less you produce. Life dries up.
You and I have seen the pictures of people whose homes were devastated by the typhoon, or people who lost loved ones because of the coronavirus, or of people who lost their jobs because of this pandemic. We prayed hard that this pandemic will be over.
However, from the original coronavirus, now we have variants. Sometimes we feel there is no end to it.
If we look at the faces of people, we can see frustration, hopelessness, anger, and some of them questioning God “why?”
I also talked with some people whose loved one was shot. They kept on searching and praying for justice day after day, but until now, the murderer has not been apprehended. We can say life is unfair.
I know a man who has been looking for a job more than a year. He has a solid resume, checks the want-ads every morning, is at the personnel offices when they open, follows every lead, and his nets are empty. Week after week, no catch, and he wonders if he is too old to get a job; too stupid; or has the economy simply ground to a halt? Nothing he does seems to work. He is desperate. Maybe there is no job out there for him, no matter what he does.
It is one thing to fish when they are not biting — they might get hungry any minute. It is another thing to have the vague feeling there are no fish in the water. There is desperation and hopelessness.
Luke 5:1-11 brings to us the good news as we enter the second month of 2022. This is the Word of God of great encouragement and hope.
You know, hope is the unique signature of the Christian gospel. What makes a Christian a genuine Christian is this inability to quit hoping. A new gift from God is at work on our behalf, at all times, in all circumstances.
This tells us that life is anything but predictable! In the midst of hopelessness and desperation, God comes to us. And if we trust God, something great will come out of it.
At the outset, Simon is reluctant: “We toiled all night, and took nothing!”
The words of a person who has already made the effort and failed. Why should he want to put himself in the position of failing again? How useless this all seemed.
Many times, quitting is the easiest thing to do once the challenge has lost its glamor in tedious endurance. But to Simon’s credit, he was willing to take the risk. “…at your word, I will let down the nets,” he replied.
And when they did, to their utter amazement, there was churning of the waters as the nets were drawn up, with all the silver bellies flip-flopping in the air, and spraying foam everywhere. There was such a catch that they had to signal the men in the other boat to come and help them. Both boats were loaded with fish.
No matter how many times a person has failed, there is always the chance the next attempt will succeed. I can’t explain it but I know there are powerful kinds of good that can come into a life of a person who continues to trust, to love, and continues to hold on.
Simon Peter saw beyond the miracle. He realizes the holiness of the One in his boat. He gets a glimpse of the power and knowledge of Christ. He falls before Jesus saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, o Lord.”
Now, we come to the real meaning of the story. There’s more to life than “full nets”. One can have full nets, and still have an empty life.
Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; henceforth, you will be catching men (and women).” When they brought their boats to the land, they left everything, and followed Jesus.
I believe that God does not only come to us giving us hope and strength when everything seems dark in our lives, but God challenges us to either go on, and try again, or guides us to a different path in our lives.
Max Lucado says that “failure is the grit in the soul that puts the dare into dreams.”
Yes, faith is hanging tough when the evidence would have us bail out. Faith is launching forth when everyone but Jesus says, “Go on.” Or “how about taking a different route in your life?”
I often wonder where Jesus will tell us to lower our nets next. It may be helping with victims of typhoon Odette and the flooding, or helping build homes for the homeless, or helping families affected by the pandemic, and for health care workers, going on for the second mile even if the physical body would like to give up.
Or doing fresh styles of worship, and being involved in a different kind of ministry, or fighting to save the environment, or helping bring justice to those who are searching for it.
The question for us: What are we going to attempt this year which we did not do last year? Into what deeper waters will we venture? What will we risk making God’s love real to those who need it?
It may be that our happiness, our sense of well-being, our security rests on how we answer that question. Some of us will be made whole, saved, fulfilled because they dared. Many will be lost because they sat quietly waiting for something to happen.
In 1972, NASA launched the exploratory space probe ‘Pioneer 10’. Its main mission was to reach Jupiter, and send back information about that planet. It was a bold plan because at that time, no satellite had gone beyond Mars.
‘Pioneer 10’ eventually accomplished its mission, and so much more. It swung past Jupiter in November 1973, then passed Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. By 1997, ‘Pioneer 10’ was more than six billion miles from the sun. Despite that immense distance, ‘Pioneer 10’ continued to beam back radio signals to earth. The most remarkable thing was that those signals were powered by an eight-watt transmitter, which radiates about as much power as a bedroom night light. Not even the most optimistic scientist could have ever imagined what that little eight-watt transmitter could do. (Larson, Craig Brian, Pastoral Grit: The Strength to Stand and to Stay, Bethany Press)
The same thing happened to the great musician George Frederick Handel. He was dogged with misfortune. He had debt upon debt, despair upon despair. He had cerebral hemorrhage, and was paralyzed on his right side. For four years, he could neither walk nor write. The doctors gave up on him. He wrote several operas, but again he fell in debt. At age 60, he thought his life was finished.
Then a friend challenged him to write a sacred oratorio. He read the Scriptures and went to work. For 24 days, without eating a crumb, he worked fanatically to produce the piece.
Handel thought his work was finished, and then inspired by a friend, he wrote his crowning achievement: The Messiah. Today it is considered the greatest oratorio ever written.
The scriptural message should be abundantly clear. At this crucial time of typhoons, floods, and a pandemic, Jesus calls us to take risks, to launch out with him into the deep. Everything that is prudential, timid, and conservative tells us to play it safe.
Part of a poem by Amanda Gorman, New Day’s Lyric, which she wrote for the year 2022, says: The hope is our door, our portal,/Even if we never get back to normal,/Someday we can venture beyond it,/To leave the known and take the first steps,/So let us not return to what was normal,/But reach toward what is next.
My friends, shall we all dare step up with Simon Peter, and declare boldly: “Nevertheless, I will launch out into the deep with my Lord!”
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