• "We Are Called to Hear the Word of God and Respond"
• Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after Trinity
• July 3, 2005
• The Reverend David A. Brounstein

In this morning's gospel, St. Luke supplies us with a chronologicals narrative of the events surrounding Jesus calling Peter, James, and John-first to be his disciples, and later to be apostles. By definition, a disciple is the follower of a teacher. An apostle is one who has been taught and sent out.

There are a number of lessons to be learned that are applicable in our own lives. We are called to hear the Word of God and to respond in both generosity and obedience to it.

The Galilee is a region of northern Israel, far removed geographically, culturally, and theologically from Jerusalem in the south. The inhabitants were average working people. They had neither time nor inclination for rabbinical debates on the minutia of the Law. These were farmers, fishermen, and tradesmen, all eking out a meager existence and seeking to provide for the needs of their families. These Galileans also had a hunger for the word of God.

St. Luke tells us that the people pressed in upon Jesus, the Incarnate and Living Word of God, to hear the life-giving word of God. This, in itself, is a profound indication of a growing and vibrant spiritual life. If we have an earnest desire for a relationship with God, Jesus-through the Holy Spirit-will invariably meet us where we are and begin to teach us all things and deepen our faith. This is one of the reasons we emphasize the development of a Life of Prayer grounded in the daily offices of Morning and Evening Prayer as found in the BCP. It provides a daily lectionary for reading the Word of God and provides a worship format that includes adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication - the solid and basic building blocks of a life of prayer.

To accommodate the crowds, Jesus asked Peter to use his boat as a makeshift speaking platform. Notice how God works with the ordinary. Peter is not asked to go on a heroic quest or perform some superhuman feat typical of pagan mythology. He is asked to lend out his boat for an hour or so. Peter responded in obedience, despite the inconvenience of all those people getting in the way as he probably continued to clean his nets. What does this say about our attitude concerning time or our relationship to possessions, especially when their use by others will not be detrimental to us - only inconvenient? Peter had been fishing all night. It was time for him to go home, to have something to eat, and get some rest. Peter did not permit himself to be annoyed with this unscheduled interruption in his life. The boat was pushed away from the shore and Jesus sat down and taught the people.

Following the teaching, Jesus again speaks to Peter. He tells him to get the nets and take the boat back out into the deep water. Peter replies with a common lament of many who fish. I have said similar words myself on numerous occasions. Peter was out fishing all night and had nothing to show for his efforts. Still, Peter had a choice. He could respond in obedience to the Incarnate Word of God speaking to him. Peter could drag the half clean nets back into the boat in the heat of the day for what amounted to a double work shift. Alternatively, he could choose to call it quits for the day and take a well-deserved rest. Launching his boat into the deep and letting down the nets for a catch during daylight hours was a seemingly ridiculous request.

St. Luke tells us that Peter responds to the Word of God in faith. The nets are let down and the resultant catch of fish breaks the nets and begins to sink the boats of three professional fishermen. It must have been a somewhat surrealistic scene - after having fished all night and having caught nothing, to be breaking nets and seeing fishing boats come close to sinking because of the quantity of fish taken! One would imagine that an improbable catch of this magnitude would cause euphoria, but it has the opposite effect.

St. Peter immediately realizes that the miraculous catch is the work of God. Rather than boasting on how great a fisherman he and his partners are, Peter is on his knees before Jesus acknowledging his sinful nature. In doing so, St. Peter provides us an example for living out the Christian life.

We are first to listen to the Word of God. But listening is not intended to be a passive intellectual exercise. The Word of God calls for an active response in our lives. We are called to be faithful in our ordinary daily activities including our worship.

Unlike St. Peter, few of us have ever experienced a day of fishing as described in our gospel lesson. Nonetheless, we too are beneficiaries of the grace of God. Through our eucharistic worship, we participate in a feast as miraculous as that great catch of fish, but whose end is a foretaste of everlasting life. Our response to this gift of God's grace to us parallels that expressed by St. Peter. We are on our knees before the King of Kings confessing our own (BCP 75) "manifold sins and wickedness." And (BCP 82) "We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies."