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Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after Epiphany – February 6, 2022
Isaiah 6:1-8, Luke 5:1-11
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
It can be a dangerous game to try to guess at what the people we read about in scripture are feeling, but I don’t think it is too much to make some assumptions about Simon Peter in our gospel reading for today. Simon Peter had worked all night long in his vocation as a fisherman and hadn’t caught a single fish. Over and over again he tossed out those nets, hour after hour through the dark of night, only to haul them in empty. I think it is safe to assume he was exhausted after all that work. I think it is safe to assume he was frustrated and disappointed and discouraged.
Now it was morning and he and his fellow fishermen were on the shore washing their nets, and Jesus, who had borrowed Simon Peter’s boat to use as a makeshift pulpit in order to speak the Word of God to the people, now told Peter to put that boat out into the deep water and let down his nets for a catch. Simon Peter’s reply is polite, but you can hear the frustration and the discouragement dripping from his voice. “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing,” Peter said to Jesus. And then, in words that are hard to not hear as begrudging, “Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.”
And when Simon Peter brought those nets up from the deep, they were filled to overflowing! There were so many fish that not only did the nets start to break, but the boats started to sink! They needed extra help hauling all these fish to the shore! For commercial fishermen, this was like winning the lottery!
But it was so much more than that. How did Simon Peter react to this miraculous catch? Did he light up a cigar? Did he pop a bottle of champagne? Did he run to the bank? No. Simon Peter saw this miraculous catch of fish and he fell down at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” Now Simon Peter knew that Jesus was more than a fishing consultant. He knew Jesus had done something more than had a lucky guess about where the fish were. Simon Peter knew that Jesus had command over the deep. He knew that it was Jesus’ word that put that abundant catch into his nets. Just as God spoke at the dawn of creation, filling the seas with swarms of fish, now here was the Lord of all creation speaking a Word that filled his nets.
The only appropriate reaction when you come into God’s presence is to fall down and ask for mercy. That’s what Isaiah did in our first reading. That’s what Peter does here. That’s why we sing the kyrie, “Lord, have mercy,” at the beginning of our worship services. When sinful human beings cross paths with a holy God, the only way the sinner survives the encounter is through God’s mercy, God’s grace, God’s forgiveness. Isaiah confessed that he was a man of unclean lips, and an angel brought a hot coal from the altar and pressed it to his lips, saying, “Now your sin is blotted out.” That’s mercy. That’s grace. That’s the gospel! Isaiah was saved and then sent.
And Peter receives the gospel here too. For instead of going away, Jesus said to him, “Do not be afraid.” Instead of leaving Peter, Jesus said, “From now on you will be catching people.” In spite of Peter being a sinful man, Jesus remained close to him. In spite of his sin, Jesus called him into service. That’s mercy. That’s grace. That’s the gospel. Peter was saved and then sent.
This very same pattern unfolds among us. I dare to say it is unfolding among us right here this morning.
The last couple of years have been exhausting for all of us, I think. Whether it is COVID or politics or more personal challenges, it is easy to find ourselves like Simon Peter certainly was: exhausted and frustrated, disappointed and discouraged.
We might even be feeling this way here in church about our ministry. I saw an article in Christianity Today this week which cited a study by the widely respected Barna group which revealed that 38% of pastors are thinking about quitting full time ministry because they are exhausted and discouraged. (I’m not thinking about quitting, so don’t worry – or get your hopes up – about that!) This is not just about pastors though. I think this study is a bellwether for the entire church, which even before the pandemic has been casting its nets over and over again with diminishing returns. How can there not be a measure of frustration and disappointment and discouragement with that? This is true at a deeply personal level too as I hear over and over again about children and grandchildren who have been steeped in the gospel from birth and yet have slipped out of the net and swam away from the faith.
What do we do when we are exhausted and frustrated? What do we do when we are disappointed and discouraged?
Well, we can look to Peter. In spite of his exhaustion after working all night and his frustration from getting skunked, in spite of even his discouragement and his doubts, he did what Jesus said and cast his nets. We can look to Peter and be reminded of the gospel itself, that although we are sinful human beings, Christ Jesus comes near to us, calming our fears and blotting out our sin with his mercy and grace. He then calls us – yes, us! – to catch people, to go out, not with hooks to snag, not with bait to lure, but was the net of the good news of the gospel so that others might get caught up in God’s mercy and grace.
When we are exhausted or discouraged we can also look to Jesus himself. He has command over the deep. His word does what it says, bringing abundant life. While we might be skeptical after so many long nights and empty nets, it is at the point of our exhaustion that Jesus’ word takes over and does the work. The pandemic is certainly making it difficult to fill up these empty pews again, but we don’t lose heart or give up. We keep at it because Jesus has filled our hearts with abundant life and abundant hope.
The Lord Jesus comes to us today through Word and Sacrament to fill our hearts with his gospel of mercy and grace. As we confess that we are people with unclean lips, he touches those lips – not with a hot coal, but with his own body and blood – and as he does so, our guilt departs and our sin is blotted out. As we admit our unworthiness, he draws ever closer to us with his mercy and grace, saying to us, “Do not be afraid.” Our Lord Jesus renews us in what is always our primary and most urgent calling as his church – to catch people for his kingdom, sweeping them up in his saving love.
Like Isaiah and Simon Peter, we have been saved. And now, brothers and sisters, we are sent.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church