“LIVING CATCH”
Saint Luke 5: 1-11
Fifth Sunday after Trinity: 22 June Anno Domini 2008
Fr Watson
"So it was…" Yes, it is always the Lord's action. Your sin is when you think you can do something to improve on His way. Eve thought she could improve on God's menu plans and on His creation of children rather than co-gods; she was wrong and it cost her, her life-and yours as well. Your sin is when you think "it," that is, the whole "God thing & man thing" is about your knowledge and effort. That you know the Bible is wonderful, but that you are KNOWN by the Redeemer is freedom. That you try real hard to put the Lord first and to treat other people as you like being treated is helpful in this harried and brutish world, but that you are clothed with the Christ's PERFECT Love for the Father and His PERFECT Love for all of your neighbors is life.
You are not better or more holy than other people by your conscious act and decision to come to this building this morning; no, rather you are blessed in being chosen by the great Fisherman to be netted and brought into His boat. You like the multitude press about Him to hear the word of God not because you are more curious and discerning, more interested and attuned than others; no, rather you too have been drawn like moths to a flame-the True Light of Life, the Light of the World.
The Son of God lived His visible early life (and a sizeable amount of His teaching ministry) near a large lake. He talked a lot about water. Even as blood is life so too water is life. The Son of God lives His invisible life near (and in) the infinitely large lake of Holy Baptism. He still talks a lot about water-about the gracious water of life and the washing of regeneration.
Even as Jesus the Good Shepherd wants you and all His other sheep safe in His special pasture-His sheepfold, so too Jesus the Patient Fisherman wants you and all who will be in His great catch secure in the ship of His choosing.
The thing with fishing is that everyone thinks he knows how to do it. Everyone is quick with his own methods and gimmicks; his own times, places, baits, and special equipment. In reality, only God can make a fish take a lure; only God can make a fish be at the right place for a net to catch it. The thing with religion, is that everyone thinks he knows all there is about it. Everyone is quick with his own reasons, excuses, exemptions, and rules; his own ways of understanding that keep him looking good and hardworking. In reality, only Jesus is religion. Only Jesus is doctrine and teaching and truth. The words of the Bible are, like the blood droplets, and rivulets, and gushing arterial sprays of the Suffering Servant-the very LIFE of GOD in the Flesh!
Jesus is known, apprehended, comprehended, "got hold of," when He is IN YOU and you are IN HIM. This is BOTH declarative (objectively true and real) in the preached Evangel, and Mystical in the Sacramental Union of His Body & Blood in the Supper and His death & resurrection in the Sacrament of Washing.
Everything God wants done will be done. You take joy that you can be his tools and instruments in your families, workplaces and neighborhoods to throw out nets of His words. His Holy Boat, the Church Catholic, delights in being that incorruptible vessel of Joy & Peace that hurls out into the deep the strong nets of His Person and His Work. When Christ Crucified for your forgiveness is preached the net of His Goodness draws you ever tightly in, back to the boat, back to the full catch, back to the Fisherman. When Christ fulfilling the Ten Commandments is taught, when you hear that He obeyed where you don't, the net of His Love encompasses a great and lively catch.
If you desire to know where God truly is for you; for your fears, your disappointments, your bad times and pains, don't look for him in lecture halls, auditoriums, gardens, mountains, or family reunions. God is in His boat, His twin ships of Old and New Testament; a mighty armada of truth and rightness. When you need Him He will scoop you up again with His absolving word of peace and comfort and plop you right down at His feet-here in His unsinkable ark.
And praise be, in this fishing story, the catch, you the fish, are not scaled and gutted. You do not have your heads chopped off and your fins and tails sliced apart. You do not die to become food. No-Hosanna-the Fisherman Himself, not His crew, not His Simons, Andrews, Johns and James,' but the Chief Fisher Himself, had His head chopped with thorns, His limbs cut and pierced with nails, His back scaled and shredded with iron. Jesus became bait for the devil, chum for your trespasses, and the final catch for death and hell itself. And Hallelujah in Highest, this fish, this ICTHUS (Jesus Christ, God's Son & Savior) didn't stay dead. He won all the victories that ever need winning; He paid all the prices that ever need paying; He has binded up all the wounds you'll ever need binded; and He does one more thing. He lets you the catch, eat and drink Him the Master Fisherman. So He swims and lives in you even as you circulate and have life in Him.
In the Name of The Father and of The + Son and of The Holy Ghost