SETTING THE CONTEXT

Similar stories of Jesus calling his disciples appears in three of the gospels. However Luke is the only one who has this story about fishing out in the deep water. Perhaps the writer of Luke, a Greek was particularly aware of how big the sea of potential new converts were. This story echos another story found in the Gospel of John. After Jesus’ resurrection when he appears to the seven disciples who are out fishing, he again invites them to cast their nets into the sea even though they have not caught anything all night. Their nets come up full. At the end of this story at the end of the Gospel Jesus reinterates, “Follow me.”

Read Luke 5:1-11

As we continue reading from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, he shows the chain of people who have witnessed to Christ and that chain eventually leads to the church . He also summarizes the essential elements of the Good News. It seems to me that a lot of preaching and proclaiming of the Good News today focuses on the death of Christ but Paul focuses on the resurrection.

Read 1 Corinthians 15:1-11

THE SERMON

I’ve had a couple of experiences lately that make me think there is a backlash to conservative Christianity that is spreading over to Christianity in general. Recently I read a fiction novel. It was a pretty good read. Like the DaVinci Code novel, it mixed real things like the Catholic Church, the Knights Templar and the names and some information about the four gospels with the fiction.^[i] Part of the premise of the book was that there were no accounts close to the death of Jesus confirming his resurrection. As I read this part of the book, I thought about this passage from Paul and I even said to George, “he left out Paul’s witness” which was within about 20 years of Jesus’ death. “How can he leave that out? He’s misrepresenting the Bible to support his premise.” The next thing that happened was a segment on Nightline last week, January 30, 2007 about an atheist challenge.^[ii] A 30 year old man named Brian broadcasts a weekly Internet radio show about God not existing. He has issued an atheist challenge based out of his Roman Catholic and Conservative Christian background to blaspheme the Holy Spirit. He encourages people to commit the unforgivable sin according to a misguided interpretation of Mark 3:29 by recording themselves saying they don’t believe in the Holy Spirit or that they blaspheme the Holy Spirit and then posting it on the Internet. It reminds me of a child drawing a line in the sand and saying cross this if you dare. What is this guy’s image of God that he has decided doesn’t exist? Brian stated, “There isn’t any good reason to believe in God. It’s that simple.” I was left wondering what happened to change a young man whose best friend early in his life was Jesus (as he described himself) to this man who is actively recruiting people away from God. There is no doubt that sharing our faith is part of being disciples of Jesus, how do we respond to challenges such as these? How do we “fish” for people in an apathetic or even hostile environment?

Part of our challenge is to share the Good News in a way that makes sense to people today. I think sometimes it’s hard for those of us in the church to define what is meant by the Good News. Paul sums it up very concisely, “Christ died for our sins, was buried, and was resurrected.” Christ as a sacrifice for sin made sense in Paul’s day because sacrifice was a common practice, but what does that mean to us today? Scholar Marcus Borg, clarified it for me.^[iii] In Jesus’ day, for many Jewish people the only way sin or separation from God could be dealt with was through sacrifice at the Temple in Jerusalem. Temple theology then had a monopoly on the forgiveness of sins and because your sins had to be forgiven before you could have access to God then the Temple had a monopoly on people’s access to God. When Jesus became the sacrifice for sin, he took that monopoly away. As we hear in the Gospel story, at his death the curtain in the temple separating the area between the people and Holy of Holies where God resided and only the high priest was allowed was torn in two representing that barrier was torn away. God in Jesus provided the sacrifice once and for all taking care of whatever separated you from God. This is an image of radical grace. We continue trying to put up walls between ourselves and God and God keeps pulling them down. People today know what it means to be alienated and separated. They know about broken relationships. What are some images of radical grace today? The Good News is that “nothing can separate you from the love of God, your Creator through Christ Jesus.” You should recognize that statement from our definition of Jesus as Savior. God provides a way from separation to at-one-ment, not someday but now.

How do we talk about the resurrection today? Talking about a physical resurrection is OK, but are most people concerned with what happens after death especially young people? How do we communicate an understanding of the resurrection to help people live today? The resurrection was about transformation, the power of God overcoming the power of evil, the power of God over the power of death, the power of God to make us new.  In Jesus, God showed us God’s power to transform our lives and the lives of others. Now that is Good News. We see the power of that transformation demonstrated in Paul’s life. He went from brutal persecutor of Christians to one of the greatest missionaries for Christ. How many of us have places in our lives that need transformation, unhealthy habits like perfectionism or insecurity, cycles of addiction, dysfunctional relationships, places of arrogance or apathy? Anyone who’s been through a divorce knows about the need for transformation and hope for the future. Recently, I have seen several articles about the level of debt that young adults are taking on and the lack of savings by middle aged adults. Someone who has faced bankruptcy would surely understand the need for transformation and hope for a new future. Jesus reminds us that that transformation is not only possible but we’ll not have to go it alone. He’ll walk through it with us.

So why should people believe the church can make a difference? Paul gives us some fishing lessons. Did you hear the links in the chain of those witnessing Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances in Paul’s letter? It started with Jesus, Cephas (Peter), the twelve, a group of more than five hundred people, James, all the apostles and finally to Paul. He talks about his experience of Christ and how he was radically transformed by that meeting. I think many of us tend to forget how badly Paul persecuted the early followers of Jesus before his conversion. He says, if you think you are bad, you should have seen me, but God’s grace is big enough for the both of us. He experienced Jesus, he received the story from other witnesses (the church), he was transformed by the experiences and the story, and he proclaimed it. He shared how Christ and the church made a difference in his life. You don’t need lots of training to do that process. For example, we can think about and share times when God helped us when we felt alone and alienated. We can think about and share times when we felt Jesus close at hand. We can share times when God helped us through changes, especially difficult changes. When I stop and think about it there have been so many times when I have experienced the Good News in my life.

Together as a body we weave a net with the many facets of our experiences and the reality of God’s Good News shown through Christ and then it’s time to go fishin’. Now is the time to share your experience of faith with someone. If you don’t know someone who hasn’t heard it, I invite you to help us with Sidewalk Sunday School, an exciting new ministry where we are going out into the streets to share the Good News with children in an impoverished neighborhood.

The last question that comes to me is “how do we fish for the comfortable, for those who aren’t sure they need transformation?” Apathy can be just as hard to break through as antagonism. Luke’s Gospel gives us a word about that. After all is said and done; after we weave the nets and lower them into that great sea of people with all sorts of different ideas, experiences and agendas some open to us and some not; Jesus will work with us to bring in the catch of the day. We don’t do it alone. We just have to keep casting that net and I’m going to keep praying for that atheist Brian I’m so convinced of God’s amazing grace, I think we can reel him back in, too. Amen.

Sermon delived by Rev. Nancy Cushman on February 4, 2007.