Cruise Ship or Fishing Boat?

Cruise Ship or Fishing Boat?

Luke 5:1-11

Rev. Brian North, Westminster Presbyterian Chehalis, WA

September 5^th, 2010

Once while Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, ²he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. ³He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. ⁴When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, ‘Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.’ ⁵Simon answered, ‘Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.’ ⁶When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. ⁷So they signalled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink. ⁸But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, ‘Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!’ ⁹For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken; ¹⁰and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, ‘Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.’ ¹¹When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.

This morning we conclude our summer series, such as it’s been, under the theme of “potpourri.” Next Sunday, however, the potpourri thing comes to a halt as we return to two services: at 9:00 traditional and 10:30 modern, with a common fellowship time in between services. We’ll begin a new series under the theme of “Back to School With Jesus”. Jesus was a master teacher, not just because he gave great answers, but because he asked great questions. That’s what good teachers do. And so we’re going to look at some of the questions that Jesus asked in the gospel of Mark. That begins next Sunday at 9 and 10:30, with fellowship in-between.

But, before we get there, we have one final message in our “potpourri” summer series. As most of you know, “potpourri” has been more than just the theme of the series, as our services each Sunday have been different in style and in arrangement of the parts of worship. Like this morning: we moved the announcements and greeting your neighbor to just before the message because I wanted to have you all stand up and get the blood moving a bit before the sermon. It’s kind of a dull one, and I thought this might help you to stay awake! Anyway, in this passage we just read, we see Jesus’ invitation to three people to follow him as his disciples with a new calling on their lives, and what this all means for us. Pray Here!

This passage in Luke brings us into a new era of Jesus’ ministry. Up until now, all of his teaching has taken place in synagogues. He’s been within the walls of the church, so-to-speak, preaching and teaching the Word of God. This is the first time we see him teaching outside of the walls of the buildings. In fact, in the last verse of chapter four, which is the verse just prior to where we began reading in Luke this morning, we read these words, “And he kept on preaching in the synagogues of Judea” (Luke 4:44). The very next words in Scripture have Jesus preaching from a boat.

Now, I think it helps to picture in your mind what’s going on here in order to appreciate why Jesus hops into a boat from which to teach. Imagine being at the edge of the lake with this huge crowd of people trying to hear Jesus. He’s recently been healing people – in fact, in 4:40, 41, he healed numerous people of sickness and even demon possession. The result of those healings would be even more people clamoring to hear what he has to say and to bring more people to him to be healed.

So they’re by the water’s edge. I imagine that Jesus is standing right near the edge of the water, with his back to the lake, facing the crowds. Perhaps he didn’t start out that close to the water, but that’s where he’s ended up as the crowd grew and moved in on him. The people are pushing in toward him, so that he’s getting closer and closer to the water. Pretty soon he realizes he’s left with three options: He could wade into the water and preach, risking that the people keep pushing after him to the point that he’s preaching with the water level at his neck; He could just walk on the water and preach, but that would probably be really distracting for most of the people; or he could get in one of the boats that are nearby and preach out on the water from there. He opts for the last alternative, taking Simon Peter with him.

So he commandeers a boat to be used as a pulpit, floats out a bit and preaches and teaches from there. You know, it’s occurred to me that we could try this some time…Maybe next August instead of worship in the Park we should do worship at the lake and I’ll preach from a boat!

Anyway, from the boat, Jesus teaches the crowds some amazing and deep things; they’re completely wowed by what he had to say. Did you catch that? Actually, we have no idea what he taught them. Apparently, for Luke, his teaching paled in comparison to the rest of the events that transpired on the boat and the beach the rest of the morning. Maybe Jesus had an off day in his teaching…and it just wasn’t a very memorable sermon. We all know it wouldn’t be the last time that happened from a pulpit of any sort – including this one. So…we aren’t told much about what he said. But we are told that the people gathered around him listening to the word of God. They had a hunger to hear what Jesus had to say.

Now, after teaching, Jesus turns to Simon Peter. Things become personal at this point and the crowd fades away in the storyline as Luke focuses his, and our, attention on what happens between Jesus and Peter. Why did Jesus perform this miracle? It’s not one for which Peter asked. Maybe Jesus saw the despair in his eyes over not catching any fish after working all night. Maybe he wanted to do this as a way of saying “Thanks” for letting him use the boat as a pulpit. Maybe he knew that Peter was going to follow him for the next three years and he wanted Peter’s family to have a good supply of food. Maybe Jesus thought the fish would still be available when he needed to feed the crowds a while later. Actually, Jesus does this to show Peter, and us, what it means to be on Jesus’ fishing crew. We’ll come back to that in a couple minutes.

So the haul of fish is so much, that it nearly swamped not one boat, but two. Simon Peter had to call out his partners in the other boat just to help bring the fish in, and still it nearly wasn’t enough. This miracle fish catch is enough that he falls down at Jesus’ feet, out of a sense of unworthiness to be in his presence. Again, I ask you to picture this: The boat is filled with smelly half-alive fish, to the point of even taking in some water if it tips one way or the other a bit too much, and Peter falls down on his knees in these fish, in front of Jesus, maybe even with his face down in the hull of the boat, buried in fish. It’s almost comical, and definitely gross, when you think about it!

And yet, that was Peter’s instantaneous reaction! He didn’t care about his surroundings, he didn’t care about the fish, he didn’t care about falling on his knees into the fish, he didn’t care about how he would smell from falling down into the fish; suddenly, all he cared about was the holiness of Jesus and Peter’s own contrasting sinful nature which suddenly loomed so large in his own eyes. “Go away from me Lord, for I’m a sinful man!” Peter’s response is one of utter humility: I don’t belong in your presence. It’s like he was worried about contaminating Jesus somehow, as if his sins would rub off on Jesus and tarnish him, not knowing that three years later Jesus would take those sins to the cross. Never mind that Jesus is at least knee deep in the smelly fish himself: It’s his sin and therefore his unworthiness to be in Christ’s presence that Peter’s worried about. He’s a messy guy who’s made mistakes in his life and is far from being holy as Jesus is holy. And yet Jesus is there with him in the boat standing there amidst the fish.

And isn’t that the way it is with Jesus? He’s not afraid to come into the yucky, smelly, slimy parts of our lives. He’ll stand there waist deep if he has to in order to get us to follow him. He’s not afraid of smelly fish, and he’s not afraid of our sins, either. In fact, he’s stared down every one of our sins already and taken them on headfirst on the cross and in his death. That’s how much he isn’t afraid of our sins! He couldn’t care any less about the fish squirming around him: He’s concerned with this man Simon Peter who’s bowed down before him.

He’s so concerned with Peter that he ignores Peter’s request for him to leave. Peter told him to go away because he’s a sinful man. But Jesus won’t leave. In fact, not only will he not leave, he’s actually going to invite Peter to come with him. He wants Peter on his crew! Isn’t it strange how that works? Jesus wants this guy with him who stinks with not only the stench of fish, but with the stench of sin. And, Jesus doesn’t want just Simon Peter – he wants his buddies, too! James and John are invited along as well. And the text tells us that they pulled the two boats up on shore, left everything and followed Jesus to go catch people for Christ.

And today, he still wants to invite others to follow him and be a part of his crew. If you aren’t a follower of Jesus Christ, he’s inviting you to come on board and be his disciple. Maybe you’ve pushed him away as Peter did, for whatever reason. Jesus invites you to follow him anyway. For those of us who already follow Jesus, he wants to invite others through you and me. 2,000 years ago Jesus did it himself. He invited these three, and then others, to follow him. But since Jesus’ death and resurrection, he’s been largely dependent on people who follow Jesus to invite others to follow him as well. That’s why Jesus said to his disciples “…go and make disciples of all nations…teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19). It’s why Jesus invited these guys to follow him and catch more people for Christ.. And that’s what Jesus wants you and me to do. That’s what he wants WPC to do.

Question: How many people have you and I caught for Christ? As you reflect on your life, how many people have you or I caught for Christ? Does it come close to how full the boats were? Have we caught anyone lately? And let’s make sure we’re honest with ourselves and make a distinction between catching fish and having them jump in the boat on their own. Sometimes our “catching for Christ” is more like the guy who had spent a fruitless day fishing and then picked out three fat fish in the market on his way home. “Before you wrap them,” he said to the store manager, “toss them to me, one by one. That way I’ll be able to tell my friends I caught them and I’ll be speaking the truth.” That’s not what our catching people for Christ is to look like. Now, at WPC we have had people join with us here the last three years. WPC grew at a really healthy rate through the 90’s up until 1998. Then we weren’t catching many folks, and in fact were losing quite a few.¹ After losing people for a 9 year span up through 2006, WPC has been a growing church the last 3 years or so, as measured by Worship attendance:

It’s modest, yes, but there seems to be a slight turn-around. And in 2010, up through the first 6 months of the year we were averaging 138 in worship. Keep in mind, we’ve also lost a number of people to death, or they’ve moved, or they can no longer get out of the house easily due to age and health, and so forth. So there’s been a greater influx of new people to WPC than this illustrates. And the growth of WPC has been greater still than the worship attendance number shows because there are a lot of people who are new to WPC and consider this their church home but their Sunday attendance is sporadic. WPC is their home church…they’re connected to Christ through here…but for various reasons, worship attendance is sporadic. We see this in younger families in particular. And it’s not something that’s unique to us. A few months ago I talked with Robin Hogue, a PCUSA pastor friend of mine in Tacoma at Skyline Presbyterian (very similar to ours), and she said that they’re experiencing a very similar phenomena when it comes to new, younger families. So what we’ve experienced here isn’t an isolated thing.

Anyway, given all that, the question to ask is this: Is the growth we’ve experienced because all of us have been actively living out Jesus’ directives to catch people for him, or because people happened to walk through our doors? Are we crew members on a fishing boat actively participating with God, or are we on a cruise-ship bound for Puerto Vallarta passively welcoming people who walk on board? Now, God brings people to faith in Christ and involvement in the life of a church through different ways, and if you’re a guest this morning or if you’re new to WPC and God brought you here through your own set of circumstances, I want to personally welcome you (probably I’ve done tht before) and invite you to join with us in following Christ and in helping others to do the same. But just like when he walked the face of the earth, Jesus still wants his followers to actively invite others to follow him, too. That’s how we participate as crew members on his fishing boat.

In fact, according to the U.S. Congregational Life Survey from 2001 – which was the largest and most representative survey of worshipers in U.S. History – 75% of people attend a worship service for the first time because someone invited them to come. That might be news to some of us, but not to Jesus. Guess how he got people to be his disciples? He invited people to follow him. And now we are charged with doing the same thing just as he did to Peter and his buddies. And as Jesus models for us, and according to statistics, inviting someone is the most effective way of reaching people for the cause of Christ.

So, I want to present a challenge to each of us who are a part of WPC that comes right out of Jesus’ challenge to catch people for Him: Before the end of this calendar year, I challenge each of us, myself included, to bring someone to church here at WPC who is not currently worshiping Jesus in a different church context. It might be someone who’s never set foot in the door of a church and never heard the gospel message, or it might be someone who used to be an active Christ follower but has now let their faith and their church participation slide. You might even bring someone who used to attend here but now is no longer participating in the life of any church. You might bring a co-worker or a neighbor or a friend or a relative. Be praying about who to invite, and sometime in the next few months, step out in faith and invite them. You may have to try with a few different people. Not everyone is receptive. But pray about who to invite, and be sensitive to their life situation, and when the opportunity presents itself, invite them.

You see: Jesus isn’t the captain of the Love Boat or some other cruise ship. Jesus is steering a fishing boat. And you and I are the crew, and he tells us to go fishing. Jesus told Peter to go fishing, and he brought in so many he needed another boat. I pray each of us will have that same experience in our lives, and in the life of WPC as God’s kingdom grows deeper in us and wider through us. Let us pray…Amen.