"Go Deep" by The Rev. Deacon Bette Kauffman
I must begin with a bit of a confession that I think you folks here in proximity to a lovely lake might appreciate. My confession is that I’m not wild about “fishing” as a metaphor for evangelism.
Of course, the soon-to-be disciples of Jesus were fishing with nets in the story we just heard. Nevertheless, I have done plenty of fishing in my life, and I associate fishing with a giant hook in the jaw and being rudely reeled in against the hapless critter’s will!
Somehow, that’s not an imagine of evangelism that works today. Nevertheless, this story has a lot to offer.
The first thing I take from it is, don’t be scared off by failure. Simon Peter and his crew and partners had been fishing all night and had not caught a thing. So when Jesus says to put down the net, they were understandably reluctant. What’s the point? they were very probably thinking. And I can hardly blame them.
I’m reminded of my dear, deceased father. When it came to fishing, he had more patience, more persistence, than I thought humanly possible. He always loved it when I agreed to go fishing with him. And—another confession—I didn’t do it very often! Why? Because I knew that I would be stuck in that boat the entire day, sun up to sun set, whether the fish were biting or not.
My dad was undeterred. Me? After a few hours of fishing without a hit, I was more than ready to go home. My dad? No way. He was absolutely convinced that in spite of 5 hours without a bight, the very next cast would produce the big one—the fish of a lifetime. Maybe, actually it is entirely possible, my father was influenced by this story!
In any case, Simon Peter is reluctant to expend more energy on fishing that morning. You can hear it in his voice: Well, Jesus, if you say so… And he lets down the net and, indeed, hauls in the catch of a lifetime. Don’t be scared off by failure. Success really could be just around the corner.
Of course, the corner you must turn might not be the one you expect. This is the second thing I take from this story: Dare to think outside the box. Jesus doesn’t just say, put down the net. He says, put down the net into the deep water.
Again, I know from experience that deep water is not where you usually find the fish. If you’re fishing for bass, you put your boat over the deep water and cast back toward the shore, into the shallower water. If you’re bream fishing, you’re typically putting your bait into relatively shallow water.
But Jesus instructs them to think outside of the box. Go deep, he says. Try something different. Put your net into the deep water.
This is probably the hardest lesson of all. We humans really don’t like change, by and large. We are devoted to the comfort zone of doing things the way we have always done them. Even after those ways no longer produce the results they once did because of changing circumstances, we tend to keep doing them. We might even double down and do them with even greater energy and commitment—hoping against hope that we will get a different result.
And here, brothers and sisters, is where we encounter probably the hardest part of all: Of all the institutions of our society that need to think outside the box, try something different, cast our net into deeper waters… the church might well need to do it the most. Yes, the church.
Our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry has written several books. I think it is in Crazy Christians that he talks frankly about the church and how desperately the church needs to change. See, the pews in our churches are not thinly populated today because people no longer need or want the church. More importantly, they are not thinly populated today because people no longer want or need Jesus!
Michael Curry says, and I agree, our churches are thinly populated today because people are no longer sure they will find Jesus here! Or, maybe it’s that the “Jesus” they will find here has been turned into a stay-in-my-own-lane, middle class rule follower!
That’s just not the Jesus of Holy Scripture. The Jesus of Holy Scripture argued more with the religious leaders of his day about their devotion to rules, especially rules for “doing church,” rules for being devout followers of God, than about anything else.
You’ve got it all wrong, he said to them. You follow the rules and totally miss the point. Love God and your neighbor as yourself, he said; that’s what matters. Love even your enemies, he said, do good to those who persecute you. How much more subversive can you get than that?
See, I will accept that the death of a church is inevitable when there are no people left within walking or driving distance of that church who need Jesus. Because if they need Jesus, they should be able to find Jesus—the true, radical, think-outside-of-the-box, go deep, rule-breaker Jesus—who defined the Kingdom of God over and over as the absolute subversion of the norms of religion and society... they should be welcome and able to find that Jesus here.
Our Bishop has said, “People come to church looking for Jesus and all they find is us.” I’m not certain that quote is original with our Bishop, but I have heard him say. I have also heard him say many, many times: “Go ahead and try stuff. Risk failure. I’d rather you step out of your comfort zone, take a risk, try something… and fail, than do nothing and die comfortable.”
Sadly, too many of our churches will not risk thinking outside the box, will not risk casting their net into the deep water. They would rather die comfortable than change. And, BTW, a church does not have to literally vote to die. But they do vote to die figuratively by declining to think outside the box, refusing to take risks, rejecting change.
Of course, one of the risks of casting your net into the deep water is that you can’t necessarily predict what all kinds of fish you might bring up! Your catch might not be limited to the fish you are accustomed to seeing in church. Some might be rather exotic looking, some might look dangerous to our eyes that are so comfortable with seeing other people in church who mostly look just like us!
So be it. That’s the kind of company Jesus kept, so he will be right at home in the midst of the mess.
Indeed, there’s a bottom line to what I’m saying, and it’s this: Ultimately, we cannot tame Jesus, no matter how hard we try. We can die trying, but Jesus cannot be contained inside our comfort zone. He cannot be contained inside our churches. He is already out there, in the world. To follow him, we must go out there. To know him, we must learn to see him in the face of every other human we meet.
In the name of God, Father, Son & Holy Spirit, AMEN.
[Year C, 5 Epiphany, Isaiah 6:1-8, 9-13; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11; Luke 5:1-11]
