Sunday, June 12, 2005
LUKE 5:1-11
In today's gospel reading we see that Jesus is not only interested in crowds, he is also interested in you individually. Jesus is never too busy to meet with you. Jesus could relate to the crowds as a classroom teacher, but he also wanted to relate to a person named Simon as an individual tutor. Jesus is not only interested in us as a congregation gathered to worship him, which he delights in, but he is also personally interested in meeting with each of us one on one.
God can reach you in many different ways, through a Sunday homily or through a friend or even a sorrowful event. In whatever way God tries to reach you, know that God wants to reach you personally, like he did with Simon. What an astounding thought, Jesus was willing to leave the crowds in order to focus on just one person.
But why does Jesus approach just one person? Why would Jesus change his focus from one group to a single person? In other words, why would Jesus change from doing a perfectly good thing? When Jesus meet us, it is to take us from shall faith to deeper faith. This is what happened to Simon. He had been washing the nets while keeping one ear listening to Jesus. He had other responsibilities and duties to do. He had to fish to make a living. His family relied on him to bring in a good catch to eat and to sell. Simon was working hard at his job, like many of you are, in making a living for your family. So he thought he couldn't give up what he was doing and just spend the whole day with Jesus. But Jesus was going to do something special in his life.
Notice that when Jesus asked Simon to sit in his boat, he asked Simon to put out a little from the shore. Then after he had finished teaching the people, he told Simon to put out into the deep water to go for a catch of fish. This movement from shallow water into deeper water I take as an analogy of what Jesus was going to do in Simon's faith life. Jesus was going to take Simon from his superficial, half- hearted and casual attention to him and turn that into a deeper, more personal and real commitment to Jesus.
Simon protested mildly, saying, "Master, we have worked hard all night and have not caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets". In other words, "I've already been there and nothing happened. But, oh well, since it is you, I will give it one more try." And how does Jesus take us from where we are to where he wants us to be? By pushing us, that's how. Jesus pushes us, ever gently, sometimes with words, sometimes with actions, away from one level of stability, as symbolized by the shallow water near the shore, to a place where we are more dependent on God, as symbolized by the deeper water.
And we might also mildly argue with him, saying, "Lord, I've already been there and done that." I've already tried reading the Bible, I've already prayed, and it hasn't worked." But hopefully we won't stop there, but will continue to say, "But if this is what you want me to do, to go once again from where I am now, then so be it." Fishermen never catch many fish from the shore. They have to go out into the deep water to catch larger fish and more fish. Likewise, Jesus wants to take you from your comfortable shoreline to a deeper place where you will find more food for your soul and more dependence on him.
This can come, for example, in the form of an illness, or other crisis, either to you or to someone you know, and all of a sudden, you are drifting away from predictability and one kind of stability to a place that is more mysterious and where you can't see the bottom. But God is taking you there. He is not abandoning you in that illness or crisis. He is actually using that situation like a boat to take you further out into a relationship with Him. And the comforting thing for us to know is that even though we don't know exactly where the boat is going, we know that Jesus is sitting in the boat with us. To know that the captain of the boat is with us is very comforting when we don't know where we are going. But the captain does. And the journey to the deeper water is always to help us to know God better.
God can reach you in many different ways, through a Sunday homily or through a friend or even a sorrowful event. In whatever way God tries to reach you, know that God wants to reach you personally, like he did with Simon. What an astounding thought, Jesus was willing to leave the crowds in order to focus on just one person.
But why does Jesus approach just one person? Why would Jesus change his focus from one group to a single person? In other words, why would Jesus change from doing a perfectly good thing? When Jesus meet us, it is to take us from shall faith to deeper faith. This is what happened to Simon. He had been washing the nets while keeping one ear listening to Jesus. He had other responsibilities and duties to do. He had to fish to make a living. His family relied on him to bring in a good catch to eat and to sell. Simon was working hard at his job, like many of you are, in making a living for your family. So he thought he couldn't give up what he was doing and just spend the whole day with Jesus. But Jesus was going to do something special in his life.
Notice that when Jesus asked Simon to sit in his boat, he asked Simon to put out a little from the shore. Then after he had finished teaching the people, he told Simon to put out into the deep water to go for a catch of fish. This movement from shallow water into deeper water I take as an analogy of what Jesus was going to do in Simon's faith life. Jesus was going to take Simon from his superficial, half- hearted and casual attention to him and turn that into a deeper, more personal and real commitment to Jesus.
Simon protested mildly, saying, "Master, we have worked hard all night and have not caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets". In other words, "I've already been there and nothing happened. But, oh well, since it is you, I will give it one more try." And how does Jesus take us from where we are to where he wants us to be? By pushing us, that's how. Jesus pushes us, ever gently, sometimes with words, sometimes with actions, away from one level of stability, as symbolized by the shallow water near the shore, to a place where we are more dependent on God, as symbolized by the deeper water.
And we might also mildly argue with him, saying, "Lord, I've already been there and done that." I've already tried reading the Bible, I've already prayed, and it hasn't worked." But hopefully we won't stop there, but will continue to say, "But if this is what you want me to do, to go once again from where I am now, then so be it." Fishermen never catch many fish from the shore. They have to go out into the deep water to catch larger fish and more fish. Likewise, Jesus wants to take you from your comfortable shoreline to a deeper place where you will find more food for your soul and more dependence on him.
This can come, for example, in the form of an illness, or other crisis, either to you or to someone you know, and all of a sudden, you are drifting away from predictability and one kind of stability to a place that is more mysterious and where you can't see the bottom. But God is taking you there. He is not abandoning you in that illness or crisis. He is actually using that situation like a boat to take you further out into a relationship with Him. And the comforting thing for us to know is that even though we don't know exactly where the boat is going, we know that Jesus is sitting in the boat with us. To know that the captain of the boat is with us is very comforting when we don't know where we are going. But the captain does. And the journey to the deeper water is always to help us to know God better.
# posted by F O O D F O R T H O U G H T @ 5:38 PM 
