I will make you people catchers!
Luke 5:1-11
Rev. Heather Howland Bobbitt

There are two main things that we are meant to learn from today’s passage. There are two miracles happening in here. The first is that Jesus somehow causes there to be a huge number of fish available where just hours before there were no fish to be caught at all. What could this mean? The second miracle here depends on the first one: it is the miracle of being called to follow Jesus, to be Christ’s disciples.

In the great, long Hebrew tradition, miracles happen when God is present and makes God’s presence felt in so that human beings can know that God is truly participating in the human realm. If you look at the miracles of the Hebrew scriptures, it begins in Genesis with God making amazing things happen: the creation of the world itself is presented as a series of miracles concluding with the creation of the first man and woman. Later, God appoints great prophets like Moses and gives them the power to do miracles as a way of proving that God is with God’s people and wills their survival - the parting of the red sea, the manna from heaven. And these are huge public miracles where masses of people witness the greatness and wonder of God’s care for God’s chosen people. Later still, miracles begin to happen on a smaller scale - still coming through the hands of great prophets like Elijah - who provided an abundance of meal and oil, and Elisha who who provided an endless supply of oil and was able to feed a hundred souls with just twenty loaves of bread.

Now we have Jesus, the greatest of all God’s servants, God’s own child, who gives to these humble fishermen a full catch of fish - enough to just about sink their boat. This miracle works in much the same way as Elijah’ miracle - except that this fish is not meant for the feeding of a people in the midst of a famine. It is simply a display of Jesus’ power from God - it has no other purpose except to establish him as powerful and able to answer their prayers in an abundance that is akin to overkill. Simon Peter, James and John the sons of Zebedee are suitably impressed - astonished into realizing that this man Jesus is some kind of supernatural force to be reckoned with.

Simon, whom Jesus would rename Peter later, responds to this miracle, this incredible show of power by immediately becoming acutely aware of his own inadequacy to receive such a miracle. Simon’s words are like those of the prophets Jeremiah and Isaiah. Like Isaiah, Simon is convinced that he is now ruined after being in the presence of the Divine - because in those days that is what people believed. If you were not a good religious person that followed every law in the Torah, when you met God you would not be worthy to look upon God, and so God- who cannot abide sinfulness- would destroy you. But Simon, kneeling at Jesus’ feet, a man who is, in effect, throwing himself on the mercy of the court of God and begging God to "go away" because of his unworthiness, is not destroyed. No, quite the contrary, Instead, Jesus announces to him his new identity. No longer a fisherman, but a fisher of people - a people catcher.

In North Eastern Ohio, where I grew up, my first experience with a televangelist was with Earnest Angely - do you all know this man? He has a thick Appalachian accent, wore cheap suits, dyed his hair, wore it a la Johnny Cash for a while - and he spoke with a special cadence that I know now is simply the traditional style for Pentecostal mountain preachers:

Jee-zus (ah) will-a come down (ah) in a cloud of heavenly smoke (ah) in all Gods byew-tee and gloh-ree (ah) to condemn the unrighteous (ah) to break like a twig the back of the unrighteous (ah) and raise up (Jump up with hand raised) those who feerd (ah) him (ah) and lived in-a tremblin’ trepidation (ah) of the day of the Lord (ah)! Amen! (ah)

And I used to watch Reverend Angely on tv when I was a little kid, and I was mesmerized. I thought he was really entertaining because he was so weird, man. My family always made fun of him, and I can tell you from experience, it is fun to imitate him like I just did. And yet - one day when I was a teenager, I happened to be watching Earnest Angely in the kitchen when my mother walked in: at that moment on his show, Angely was having an alter call, asking all those who have just recently felt called to Christ to put their hands on the tv screen to receive a special blessing from God through him - "Just put your hands on the tv screen (ah) and feel the power of the Holy Spirit (ah) comin’ to ya rat now(ah) Yes, Beeyewtiful Lord Gawd."

And I sort of wanted to put my hands on the tv screen. My mother shot me a look like, "Oh, please." And I just had to say, "You know, somehow think that it would be just like God to call forth someone as dopey as Earnest Angely to be a servant for God."

See, that’s the thing about being a Christian that really takes some getting used to. Jesus calls people into membership and service - not because they have stellar qualifications of any sort - nay, and this is the hassle sometimes, God calls people that God loves into service - and never because anyone deserves to be called. Basically what we have here in the church of Jesus Christ is a great organizational mish-mash of mis-matched talents and capabilities and this makes us have to depend on God for guidance, because if we looked to each other - talk about the blind leading the blind! We have got to turn to God in prayer, worship and study in order to remain in God’s light. It is so easy to get distracted sometimes.

And at no time is it ever permissible to imagine that we have at last gotten the corner on the market of salvation. We are kept humble when we realize that God calls just as many fools into the church as anyone else. Earnest Angely is my brother in Christ and I will honor him that way. May God forgive me if I have been disrespectful to him today. You see, I have no doubt in my mind that if Rev. Angely were to hear me preach sometime, he might very well be saying in his own mind, "That is a crazy woman up there. Still a child of God, I s’pose, but boy howdy, she is peecyewleeyer- huh?" And he’d be right.

The thing about who Christ calls, this may well have been one of the many things that Jesus did to get himself crucified - remember, people like Moses, Elijah, Samuel, Jeremiah, Isaiah - these great prophets were worthy of their calling - high born, synagogue educated, well respected by their peers and superiors, given great honor in their day. Christ’s followers are from all over the place - and this implies that God is spilling out into the streets now - that God’s love and call is no longer limited to the deserving, but is now specifically shifting to include everyone - even the undeserving US! This is a shocking development in the life of Israel! This just sucks the strength of the synagogue system right out the window. And a lot of people really hated Jesus for allowing this crack in that power structure to happen. They knew that if he was permitted to continue in this vein, that all whatever would break loose - and they were right, it did.

I think the picture is clear enough: This is the time of great change and Jesus is the great changer. The time has come to turn the rules upside down and open up the fellowship of God to everyone - even the worst ones. God has suddenly become not all that picky, has opened the clubhouse to everyone. And this is the beginning of a dangerous time for us all. Now the unworthy can no longer hide from God beneath the cloak of their behavior - God may still come for you and love you. Now its not just the well-educated and well-born who will know the secrets and the mysteries of all God has to give to us - longs to give to us. Now no one is safe!

Or maybe I should say, now no one is barred from coming into fellowship with God through Christ Jesus. And this is the great miracle from our scriptures today, that Christ makes the unworthy perfectly worthy to be in God’s presence. That is what it must mean to be forgiven.

In the case of Simon, James and John, I bet they were regular guys like any of the fellows here - just regular guys who went to work and then back home - sometimes doing OK, sometimes really having a bad day. Absolutely ordinary people with personalities that ran the gamut - some of them as articulate and delightful as me, and others with such puzzling manners as Rev. Angely, or any one of you lot. We are all called. God in Christ and through the Holy Spirit has given to each of us divine gifts with which we glorify God and learn to love God better and better. And learn to love and forgive one another, better and better. Not for our own sake, but because Jesus asked us to. And whether you are aware of it or not, we are all people catchers now, too. Just like Simon. What you do out there in the world and at home is all about your call to be a follower of Christ. You don’t live for yourself alone anymore - those days are gone. Now you are a living witness to the living God. May God bless you and keep you in all you do and say so that you may increase in holiness and continue to shed all fearfulness. God knows what God is doing in calling to you. Trust God. Amen.