What preoccupies you?  Is there something you want to achieve, but just can’t seem to grasp?  Perhaps it’s something you want very much, but your attempts just are not bringing the results you want. 

          That’s how it was with Simon the day Jesus came along.  Simon and his fishing buddies had been fishing all night long, and they had caught nothing.  Fishing, for them, was not a sport—it was their life; their livelihood.  When you fish for a living and you’ve spent the whole night fishing and caught nothing, you have something to worry about, don’t you?

          We all know stories of farmers whose crops have failed, and they’re not sure where their next meal is coming from, let alone whether or not they will lose their farm properties.  Fishermen have the same problems when the fish aren’t biting—or swimming into the nets.

          On that day when Jesus came along, he knew exactly what was troubling Simon and his friends.  But he said nothing about it.  Instead, he asked Simon to let him use his boat as a makeshift pulpit, and he taught the people from the boat.  Later on, Jesus addressed Simon’s personal fishing problem in a very spectacular way.  So spectacular, in fact, that Simon gave up fishing.  Not because he wasn’t catching fish, but because he experienced something much greater than catching fish.  And since today is Super Bowl Sunday, may I just say that giving up fishing would be about as likely for Simon as giving up football would be for a football player.

          I’m reading from Luke 5:

¹One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, with the people crowding around him and listening to the word of God, ²he saw at the water's edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. ³He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat.

          There were a lot of people around, and Jesus wanted everyone to be able to see and hear.  So he got into this small fishing boat, and asked Simon to put him out a little ways from the shore.  Simon would have had an anchor that kept the boat in one spot while Jesus spoke.

          Now, as Jesus talked, Simon listened.  But don’t you think that even while he was listening, he was brooding about his miserable failure the night before, when he had fished all night and caught nothing?  Jesus, of course, knew this.  So here’s what Jesus did.

 ⁴When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, "Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch."

 ⁵Simon answered, "Master, we've worked hard all night and haven't caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets."

          Right away, Simon is showing a rather amazing willingness to listen to Jesus’ advice.  He tells Jesus, “Look Master, we've worked hard all night and haven't caught anything.”  Simon has been listening to Jesus speak, and he is impressed with this man’s wisdom.  Notice he calls him “Master.”  But certainly he has no reason to think that Jesus knows anything much about fishing.  Simon is the expert when it comes to fishing.  That Jesus tells him to go out into deep water probably means Jesus is asking the tired fisherman, who has been out all night fishing with no success, to do some rowing and get out into the middle of the lake.

          In spite of all that, Simon is impressed with Jesus, and so he says, "Master, we've worked hard all night and haven't caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets."  Simon is, in a way, humoring Jesus.  He certainly does not think he will catch any fish, any more than he did the night before.  But he says, “because you say so, I will…” and here’s what happened.

 ⁶When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. ⁷So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.

          When Simon obeys Jesus’ fishing advice, the catch is way, way beyond anything he ever expected.  He expected to catch little or nothing, but now he has so many fish that he has to call another boat to come and help, and their boats are almost sinking because they are so full of fish.  Simon knows fish.  He has been a fisherman all of his life.  So he knows a miracle when he sees it, and this is clearly a miracle.  Here’s how he reacted:

 ⁸When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus' knees and said, "Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!" ⁹For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, ¹⁰and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon's partners.

          Simon has had a glimpse of the holiness of Jesus.  He liked Jesus’ teaching earlier, but it is the fish that get him.  Jesus communicates his power to Simon with fish.  That’s often the way God does things.  He comes to us in the ordinary, mundane things of our lives, and he transforms them.  For Simon, Jesus transformed fishing into an encounter with God.  And when Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus' knees and said, "Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!"

          What has happened is that Simon has had a glimpse of the holiness of God.  When he sees who God is, he immediately understands the holiness of God and, in comparison, his own sinfulness.  In the same way, when we see who God is, we also see ourselves, and we realize that while God is holy, we are sinful.

          The same thing happened to Isaiah, when he had this amazing vision of God, in all his glory.  In the passage from Isaiah 6 that we read earlier in the service, Isaiah said “I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple.  Above him were seraphs, each with six wings….And they were calling to one another:
       "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty;
       the whole earth is full of his glory."

 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.”

          Isaiah had this incredible vision that showed him how glorious and holy God is.  And how did Isaiah react?  He said, “Woe to me I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.”

          When Isaiah saw who God really was, he also saw himself as he was.  He realized that God was holy and he was not.  And God forgave his sin.  But that was not the end:  not for Isaiah, and not for Simon. 

          Isaiah tells us, “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?"
      And I said, "Here am I. Send me!"

          God calls Isaiah to be a prophet—to bring the word of the Lord to the people.

          And what about Simon?  Like Isaiah, Simon has had a glimpse of the power and holiness of God, and he has seen his own sinfulness.  And he has just caught more fish than this seasoned fisherman has ever dreamed of catching.

          And here’s the interesting thing.  Before this encounter with Jesus, fish were Simon’s life.  Now, Jesus has given Simon all the fish he can haul in and more, but suddenly there is something far more important than fish.  And Jesus knows this.  So he speaks to Simon.

   Then Jesus said to Simon, "Don't be afraid; from now on you will catch men." ¹¹So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him.

          Do you see what has happened to Simon?  He has realized that nothing he wanted before is anywhere near as important as following Jesus is. 

          In both of these accounts, the person has a spiritual experience—that is, he suddenly realizes who God is.  That realization of who God is involves seeing God’s holiness, and this immediately causes him to understand his own sinfulness. 

          But it doesn’t stop there.  A lot of us get stuck somewhere around that spot.  We see who God is and recognize our sin.  But then we stay there, bemoaning our sinfulness.  That’s where the monks of the Middle Ages got stuck.  So they went into monasteries and spend their lives in prayer, but also in endless confession and beating themselves up—both literally and figuratively.  Or we get stuck right after we realize that our sins are forgiven, and we spend the rest of our lives resting on our laurels, maybe even praising God for saving our souls. 

          Jesus doesn’t save us so that we can spend the rest of our lives being holy creatures.  Jesus says to us, as he said to Simon, “Don't be afraid; from now on you will catch men.”  He asks us, just as he asked Isaiah, “Whom shall I send?”

          God’s kingdom is not a matter of floating on clouds and contemplating our navels.  Following Jesus means more than believing:  it means allowing God to use you.

          Often, allowing God to use you means being willing to row out into deep water and try something you have tried before and failed at.  Remember, Simon had just had a spectacular fishing failure.  He knew all the techniques; he knew all the best spots; he even went out in the night, when the fishing was best; but he had caught nothing.           So when Jesus asked him to row out into deep water and let down his nets, Simon very well could have refused.  He could have said, “Look, I was up all night fishing, we caught nothing, and I’m tired.  And besides, I know much more about fish than you do.  You stick to preaching, Jesus, and I will do the fishing.”

          That’s not what Simon did.  Instead, he obeyed Jesus—not without some misgivings, but he did it.  He said, "Master, we've worked hard all night and haven't caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets." 

          I think there is a message here for our church.  We’ve been a church for a long time—over a hundred years, in fact.  We might be tempted to start thinking we’re experts at the business of being a church.  We’ve already done everything there is to do.

          As our members have moved away or died, our numbers have dwindled.  There are a lot of rational reasons that explain what has happened here.  And we have certainly tried things to turn things around and get this church going again.  Most of what we have tried has not worked very well.  So we’re a bit like Simon, listening to Jesus.  We are listening, but our minds are on our feeling of failure.  Our minds are saying, Yes, Jesus, that’s all well and good, but we have fished all night, we are tired, and we have caught little or nothing.  We’re discouraged.

          Jesus comes to us in our moment of weakness and invites us to catch the vision of who he is.  We are in the very presence of Almighty God.  And he is holy.  As Isaiah said, “I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple…  Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.”

          As we look upon his holiness, we recognize our own lack of holiness.  Jesus wants to forgive us and call us to move forward.  As a church, we know we have failed God in many ways.  But Jesus calls us not to dwell on our sins; not to dwell on our past; but to accept his forgiveness and move fearlessly into the future. 

          There is always fear when we step into the unknown.  Jesus calls us to move out into deep water and try again.  And he says to us, as he said to Simon Peter, “Don't be afraid; from now on you will catch men [and women].” 

          There is work to be done, but if we are afraid, we will not be able to do what needs to be done.  If we say we have already tried that before and it didn’t work, we will miss out on the miracles that God wants to perform in and through this church.

          Moving into deep water can be frightening, but if God calls us, we know that he will be with us every step of the way.  Let’s pray that we will see who God is, and that seeing God, we will recognize our own sinfulness, and seek his forgiveness.  But let’s not stay there.  Let us, like Isaiah, say “Here am I. Send me!”  Let us be willing, like Simon Peter, to leave everything behind and follow Jesus.

Prayer:

Lord God Almighty, you are holy.  Your glory fills the temple, and we stand in awe of your holiness.  We confess that we are totally unholy.  We are sinners.  Help us to see ourselves as we are—sinners who stand constantly in need of your grace; your forgiveness. 

Forgive us, and renew our call to follow you.  Remind us that being your disciples means obeying you.  And when you call us to move out into deep water and we are afraid, remind us that you are always with us.  God, we want to follow you.  Make us, like Simon Peter, fishers of people who need to know you and to feel your loving touch in their lives. 

Amen