Gospel: Luke 5:1-11
He likely didn’t think Jesus saw him … but he was seen. He may have thought Jesus wouldn’t notice that he wasn’t paying attention as the crowd gathered and grew … but he was noticed. Perhaps he thought he’d be off the hook for whatever Jesus may ask of him – if he asked at all – because of the work in which he was already engaged … but he was kept on the hook.
For Simon, what was taking place around him wasn’t nearly as important as the fact he and his partners had worked the lake all night and caught – nothing. He was more worried about cleaning and mending the nets, preparing them for the next night’s work. I’d wager his concern wasn’t that Jesus was drawing near but rather that no fish meant no income. His focus was on his current vocation, not on some event he couldn’t predict – a new vocation to which he was about to be called: the call to discipleship.
This new call appeared amid what he was already doing. It drove a wedge into his work, breaking Simon apart from his labor in the boats. It threw him off one path and cast him onto another. As Pamela Cooper-White writes, that’s also the way a call work for us. “Our vocation too,” she says, “comes to us in the midst of our everyday life and work—not apart from it or before we even get started doing things with our lives.”[1]
Because of the gaps in our lectionary readings from week to week, it’s easy to forget Jesus had already impacted Simon’s life, albeit not necessarily directly. One chapter earlier in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus healed a man in the synagogue at Capernaum and then went to Simon’s house. His mother-in-law was suffering with a high fever, and when they asked Jesus about it “he stood over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her.”[2] Then he went beyond that, staying at the house overnight and spending part of that time healing all those who were brought to him.
Nowhere do we see that Simon was there. It only mentions that Jesus was in his home. But there or not, he’d certainly heard about what Jesus had done: healing one person after another, including his own mother-in-law. So it’s remarkable to me that Jesus is now here, very close to his boat, and he’s focused on his work. If you look in the gaps of the text, he seems to be concentrating on what’s right in front of him rather than who’s near him. Knowing what had happened, knowing that who had caused what had happened was right there, Simon focused elsewhere.
And in that moment Jesus again steps into Simon’s world. First it was his house; now it’s his boat. There’s neither an invitation extended nor a request made to come aboard; Jesus simply climbs in and asks Simon to move the boat out a bit so he can preach to the entire crowd. Then in an instant, once he’s done talking to the crowd gathered on the shore, Jesus turns his attention – his focus – to Simon. From speaking to many, Jesus now changes course and speaks to just one, and it’s because of that change of focus in this drama that Simon moves from bit player to major character.
There are so many ways to go in preaching in this passage. There’s the abundant harvest of fish; there’s the humble request from Simon for Jesus to leave him alone, “for I am a sinful man”; there’s the immediacy with which Simon, James, and John give up everything without hesitation and follow Jesus. But this morning I want us to stay focused on the two points already raised: the moment of call, and our noticing what’s going on around us.
In one way or another I’d wager all of us have experienced the work of the Trinity – creator, redeemer, and sustainer – in our own lives or of those around us. I’d wager all of us have either directly benefitted from the work of the Trinity or seen its impact on (or indeed in) a friend or loved one. Despite that, there are still many, many times when it’s difficult to look at a challenging situation and think God will be at work in it. Taking it a step further, it’s difficult to see some of those situations and think we can play any role in easing the pain or burden of another. Yes, it’s sometimes hard to think God could be calling us to something – and if we’re honest with ourselves, it’s frankly far easier often to focus on our own personal world and leave others (and our call) on the periphery.
Simon, that poor, flawed, remarkable man, got a lot wrong early on. Here, however, he got something right – and it’s something to which we should aspire. From isolating himself from what was taking place on the shore, Simon allowed Jesus to enter his world and directly engage him. He was a participant in a new, miraculous moment. Once Jesus was there, once the miracle had taken place, once the call was extended, Simon demonstrated the “appropriate response to the ministry of Jesus.”[3]
He went, without hesitation, to be an active participant in the new ministry of Jesus. In a way, he reversed the process we’d seen up to that point. Jesus went from focusing on the crowd to focusing on Simon, and now this new disciple moved from focusing on himself to focusing on the world. He moved from a desperate situation of having no catch to the exciting mission of catching many. In the words of former Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, who was with us last October as part of our bicentennial celebration, “That’s really what all mission is about – an interruption of the world’s way of seeing reality as grim and pretty hopeless, of assuming that … anonymity is the best way to get along. Mission is about co-creating a different reality. It’s about partnering with God to insist that there is hope abundant for [the] world.”[4]
When you see something happening near you, look to see what it is – and to see where Jesus is. Look to see if it’s where you should be. When you get the call, go without hesitation. Go in peace, to love and serve the Lord – and go with the recognition that “the one body of Christ – all who believe in Jesus – has many parts, each essential to the functioning and flourishing of the whole.”[5]
You, your ministry, and your call: all are essential, and all are needed to make this hurting land and grieving world whole once more.
Amen.
[1] Pamela Cooper-White, “Luke 5:1-11 – Pastoral Perspective.” Feasting on the Gospels: Luke, Volume 1, p. 347 (Kindle edition).
[2] Luke 4:39 (NRSVUE).
[3] Joel B. Green. The Gospel of Luke, p. 230.
[4] Katharine Jefferts Schori. The Heartbeat of God: Finding the Sacred in the Middle of Everything, p. 78.
[5] Jefferts Schori, p. 90.