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Epiphany 5

8 February 2004

Isaiah 6:1-8
I Corinthians 15:1-11
Psalm 138
Luke 5:1-11

The text today begins with Jesus standing beside the lake, and ends with Simon Peter, James and John following Jesus to they are not sure where. The text begins stationary and ends with movement, and a lot happens in between. The text begins with a faceless crowd pressing to hear Jesus, and ends with named, particular people responding to Jesus.

It's as if Jesus must do the crowd thing, but Jesus' word only comes to life when this one hears, and this one hears, and this one hears. So while the word ranges over the whole congregation, it finds settling place with that attentive person, and that attentive person, and that attentive person. We might be crowd people today - listening and lodging stuff in the memory, or we might be one of the few who might respond specifically, because God might speak specifically to us; both stances are legitimate.

Follow the drama through and watch the verbs gathering momentum - from standing to washing to sitting to teaching; from teaching to putting out to catching to sinking; from sinking to falling in amazement to following. And in the middle, fearful confession, followed by assurance. (I make it a practice of underlining the verbs of a narrative, to see where the narrative is going, and watching the flow of energy in a story, and who, and who is not, the carrier of the energy.)

The tried and true ways of developing the themes here, are:
- lending resources - Simon lent his boat
- Jesus coming to people in the place of their ordinary occupations
- acting in faith - putting out into the deep, even when the evidence says it is a waste of time.

Here is another approach: 'Why is this narrative here at all? What function does it serve? What is the very human situation it is addressing? Is that human situation a crisis in Jesus' day and in our day?'

Initially it looks like we are going to focus on the crowd; they were '...pressing to hear the word of God.' But the narrator diverts our attention away from the crowd, to some fishermen engaged in their ordinary, mundane occupation. Who are these people?; what is their world?

They are proper citizens. They have a job; they produce enough to sell, and sell enough to buy - a decent consumer; diligent, hard-working, consistent, persevering. They are not poor, lazy, sick, blind, deaf, crippled, paralysed, dependent, or a burden to anyone. They are not a foreigner, gay, a woman, a child, a tax collector or sinner. Proper citizens, legitimate people, the ones with the right to occupy space on this earth.

Citizenship of the proper world has its religious expression - we saw it last week (Luke 4:16-30) - a religion of conformity which will not admit to any newness. A fixed doctrine handed down by the fathers, and only the proper people have access to its truth. A fixed morality, retributive ethics, intolerant theology.

There is another option proper citizens, secular or religious, may take - drop out into private life. A world organised to serve I, myself, and me, often because they are tired, and battered by the strenuous rule of people who formulate, regulate, and apply the truth system - secular or religious. Pain is these people's launching pad toward withdrawal and isolation. The world of the inner self is serene, but easily degenerates into self-indulgence, living the uninterrupted life which comes on my terms - no commitments, join nothing, let troublesome neighbours get on as best they can, deal with bothersome old parents, greed for me, and if it is bad fortune for you, that's your fault.

Religious life has its parallel - private, self-serving religious indulgence, where God endorses all I do, no cost, cheap grace. And it is probably pain that launched them. There is a faint trace of that posture in today's text - Simon, James, and John were not with the crowd; they were off by themselves attending to their own business.

So, two stances: one of hardened intolerant truth that knows too much; the other which comes out of pain - private , cushioned life, that requires life of my terms. There is no future in either of these; one ends in brutal oppression, and the other ends in isolated despair; one is hardened by the system, and the other pained by the system.

Jesus offers a third option. It's in Jesus' playful but intentional call to these three people. The call to fish is a brilliant and playful entry into the call to follow. And to follow Jesus into a life of people/neighbour care. God offers no other life.

Remember someone once asked him 'What is the greatest commandment?' And he said, 'You shall love the Lord your God with heart, soul, mind and strength.' But before they could draw a breath, he said, 'And the other commandment is like it; you shall love your neighbour as yourself.' They said, 'We only asked for one; we don't want two.' And he said, 'You will never get one; you will always get two.' So they said, 'Who is my neighbour?' and he said, 'The one who shows mercy to the one who needs mercy. Neighbours are mercy-givers and mercy-receivers.'

So Jesus says to Simon, James, and John 'From now on, catching people is our life.' - catching people with mercy, e.g. tax-collector Zacchaeus; the 18-year crippled woman - a son, a daughter of Abraham.

That's why the story is here - to begin this other way of faith expression. Catching people with mercy. Hardened system practitioners, and brittle system survivors both require a catching of mercy, or they die. Catching people with mercy outlives any oppressive system, and penetrates every despairing solitude. The calling one is the prime mercy-giver.

PRAYER

Jesus Christ, catcher of people, mercy-lover, mercy-giver, mercy-practitioner, mentor of mercy,
 to you we respond.

We hear your voice penetrating our hardened selves,
 our jaded selves, our despairing selves.

We hear your voice to follow your way of mercy to any and all who cross our path,
 So that they and we may live in the arena of mercy.

So soften our truth with mercy.
Re-regulate our lives with a mercy clause.
Un-pain us with mercy therapy.
Free us to receive mercy and to give mercy.

In the name of the premier in mercy, AMEN.