SERMON Catches

The Fifth Sunday after Epiphany C (2010):

    Isaiah 6:1-13; Psalm 138; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11; Luke 5:1-11

There's a catch in what we just heard. Actually, a number of catches.

The most obvious catch is one described (at least in this context) only in the gospel of Luke.

In Matthew's and Mark's gospels, Jesus' public ministry begins by his walking by the Sea of Galilee and coming upon two brother fishermen, Simon (who later becomes Peter) and Andrew. Jesus says, "Follow me. I will make you fishers of men," and Simon and Andrew immediately drop their nets and follow Jesus. A little later in the gospels of Matthew and Mark, Jesus comes upon two other brothers, James and John, also fishermen working in their father's business, and calls them. And they, like Simon and Andrew, drop their nets and follow Jesus. No lures. No baits. Jesus simply says, "Follow me," and they do.

That's not what we hear this morning. The Jesus we hear about this morning has established himself before he calls any disciples. He has so well established himself that, when he comes home to preach, his fellow townsmen are enraged in part because he withholds from them the healing that he has performed elsewhere. Jesus is a rising star. So rising that this morning's gospel begins with his being forced by pressing crowds to teach from one of two boats off shore on the lake of Gennesaret (also known as the Sea of Galilee -- the "sea" of Galilee is, by the way, a lake -- Luke is right about that). It is morning and the fishermen who own the boats are cleaning their nets after a night of work. Jesus asks the boat's owner, Simon, to pull the boat off shore. Simon does this. Then Jesus sits down in the boat as he teaches -- the proper teaching position for a Jewish rabbi. The owners of the boats are listening.

And, if Matthew and Mark are any measure, just that teaching alone should have been enough for Jesus to say to the fishermen, "Follow me," and that would have been it. Time to catch the rising star.

But that isn't what Jesus does. Instead, he tells Simon to go back out to the deep part of the lake and put down his nets. Now, remember, it is morning. Net fishing on the Sea of Galilee was done only at night. So Simon protests, "Master we have worked all night long but have caught nothing," But he agrees to do it. And takes his companion (presumably Andrew) out in their boat.

What happens is a catch to end all catches. So large is the catch that Simon and his companion signal their partners in the second boat, James and John, to help them. So large is the catch that both boats are filled and begin to sink. Simon sees the catch and immediately says he is unworthy. Everyone is amazed. And then Jesus, without ever saying, "Follow me," gets all four fishermen to leave everything and to follow him. But not before he introduces another catch. A big one. "Do not be afraid," he tells Simon, "from now on you will be catching men."

So what's the bait that so catches Simon and Andrew and James and John that they abandon everything to follow Jesus? What lures them away?

These are not trivial questions.

In 1986, a boat dating from the first century was discovered close to the shore of the Sea of Galilee. It is 26.5 feet long, 7.5 feet wide, and 4.5 feet high with a rounded stern. Fifteen first century men 5'5" and 140 pounds could fit into this boat. This is probably the kind of boats that Simon and Andrew and James and John owned. And, according to Luke, their families were in partnership in what in most likelihood was a fairly prosperous business in a thriving industry that exported processed fish throughout the Roman empire.

Not only do Simon and Andrew and James and John have every reason to stay in their jobs, but everything that they have been taught, everything they have experienced, tells them to stay with their families. Family was everything in first century Palestine. One was defined by his or her social relations. By his or her family. One did not willy nilly leave one's family. Ever.

So what catches Simon and Andrew, James and John? What makes them do it?

At first glance it would seem that it is Jesus' assurance to Peter that he will be catching people that is the lure -- a lure that leads Peter and the others to abandon ship and family. The words for catching that Jesus uses here literally mean "taking human beings alive." In other words, the kind of catching that Jesus is speaking of here is the kind of humane catching popular with a lot of fishing types these days where the caught are not killed but set free to live. Even so, why? Why would any one -- especially anyone in first century Palestine -- want to catch people?

The answer is, "They wouldn't."

The catch of real fish is another matter. Prosperous as the fishing industry was in Galilee, it had serious problems. Businesses like those of Simon and Andrew and James and John contracted with foreign investors to provide fish for payment in cash or processed fished. First century records show that payment was frequently irregular and inadequate. What's more fishing was part of the tax network. The despised toll collectors leased fishing rights to these businesses in return for a percentage of the catch, sometimes as high 40 percent.

This morning's catch of fish connects with Simon and Andrew and James and John because it signals to them that this teacher -- a teacher who has come "to bring good news to the poor . . . to let the oppressed go free" -- is coming to alleviate their oppression. Jesus will be their patron and they his clients, the only relationship outside of family that could replace family in that world. No one in their families protests when they leave. They understand that latching onto Jesus is in their economic interest as well.

But that, of course, is not what Jesus is about. Jesus is about the reign or kingdom of God which is so much bigger, about so much more, than just the economic interests of the Galilean fishermen.

Was this bait and switch on Jesus' part? Simon and Andrew and James and John might have thought so, at least at first. They probably left their boats and families lured by the catch of fish as much as by the prospect of God’s kingdom. But that's not all. Little did they know, that their leaving would seem to pose another kind of catch -- a Catch-22.

We know about Catch-22's. Joseph Heller's novel Catch-22 was almost called Catch-18. His literary agent was concerned that it would be confused with Mila-18 by Leon Uris. The agent's birthday was October 22, so she changed the title of the Joseph Heller's novel to Catch-22. And "Catch-22" has caught on. It has become part of our vocabulary. It means "a condition or consequence that precludes success, a dilemma where the victim cannot win."

The Washington Post once had a contest inviting readers to combine the works of two authors and to provide a suitable PR blurb for the new book. One of the proposed blurbs was for book entitled Catch-22 in the Rye (that's a combination of Joseph Heller's Catch-22 and J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye). It reads: "Holden learns that if you're insane, you'll probably flunk out of prep school, but if you're flunking out of prep school, you're probably not insane." Well, that's not a whole lot different from Jesus' telling his disciples, as he later did, "For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it."

Simon and Andrew and James and John were in all likelihood lured by the catch of fish into giving up families and livelihood in the belief that they would be preserving both. They become disciples for the wrong reasons only to learn that, in a kind of Catch-22, they will be preserving neither family nor livelihood.

And that can be unsettling. But reassuring as well.

We, too, have been lured here for all sorts of different reasons. Maybe even technically "wrong" reasons. We are not alone. Yet the reality is that in this place, through Word and Sacrament, for us, as for Simon and Andrew and James and John, the real catch is the God who calls us.

For some of us, our first reaction to that reality and call will be unsettling like Simon's, "Go away Lord, for I am a sinful man!" -- and "sinful" here does not mean immoral as much as it means someone whose life is not ready to be redirected. Or, like Isaiah's reaction to the incredible reality of God's presence and call that we also hear described this morning: "Woe is me!" Isaiah calls out. "I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!"

But then we hear Jesus say, "be not afraid," to Simon, and see Simon leave everything. And we see the seraphs touching Isaiah's lips with the coal and Isaiah's shouting out, "Here am I, send me." What could be more reassuring?

And in the end that reassurance not to be afraid means that there are no catches to God's call or to God's grace, both of which we know in relation to God and one another. And because of that call and grace, we share a fellowship and a meal that are a foretaste of the feast that is to come -- a fellowship and a meal that equip us to be the disciples of the living God whom we are called to be. In the world. For others. Now.

Amen.

February 7, 2010

Ruth VanDemark, pastor

Wicker Park Lutheran Church