Drifting to Deeper Waters

Luke 5:1-11

We began the service this morning by taking the net and the fish out of the suitcase to remind us about Simon’s response to the miraculous catch. “Go away from me Lord for I am a sinful man!” This response of Simon to the theophany or the miracle is entirely consistent with other such incidents throughout both the Old and New Testaments. The reading from the prophet Isaiah had very similar sentiments, “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips.” 

This leads me to ask the question about how we experience coming into God's presence and listening for the living Word of God speaking to us in our worship. Simon's response to his encounter with Jesus is one of utter amazement, humility, and I suspect just a little bit of fear. Encountering God confronts us and changes us. Is this how we feel when we come to church? A sense of awe and wonder at the presence of God? Are we ready for this? Or, are we seeking some comfort and a security blanket? Or maybe are we bored and trapped in the mundane because we have made God in our own image?

This morning, I want to consider four reflections from the story of the miracle which might help us listen for what God could be saying to us as a congregation and as individuals. Firstly, some more about being humble. Second, dealing with the temptation to be tethered to the familiar shore. Third, drifting out into the deep water. And, finally, following Jesus and fishing for him.

Simon’s response of falling to his knees indicates a sense of humility and awe before God which is appropriate. But, understanding humility and being humble is a difficult thing. The philosopher and theologian Raimon Panikkar argues that “humility is probably the highest intellectual virtue. It is not about despair, but rather about humour. Humour plays with words and so does the philosopher, and no play would be real if it excluded chance, the unexpected, the unknown.”  (p.16 The Rhythm of Being Raimon Panikkar) 

Humility means leaving room for doubt and the possibility that we are either wrong or in some way have an inadequate understanding. After all we are encountering the mystery of the divine.  I think this sort of spiritual humility is difficult precisely because it involves uncertainty and doubt in our relationship with God. This is something which we should understand because Paul taught us that we only ever see God through a dim mirror. But sometimes we confuse doubt and uncertainty in the face of the mystery of God with a lack of faith rather than understand that faith and doubt are close companions.

At the beginning of his book The Afternoon of Christianity: the Courage to Change the Catholic theologian and philosopher Tomáš Halík begins his first chapter with a reflection on the story of the miraculous catch. He says,

“We have empty hands and empty nets, we worked all night and caught nothing, “said the tired and frustrated Galilean fishermen to the wandering preacher standing on the shore of the new day.” (p.1 Halík) Halík goes on to say, “Many Christians in a large part of the Western world have similar feelings at this time. Churches, monasteries, and seminaries are being emptied, and tens of thousands are leaving the church.” (p.1, Halík)

The trajectory of congregations like this one right across the Western World is one of decline. We have worked hard and sought to be faithful, but we have empty hands and empty nets, and dare I say - empty pews. I suspect there are many of us who feel like those tired fishermen. We have worked all night; we have worked our whole lives. 

Halík calls us to take notice of the last few years as a warning sign. He says, “I regard the closed and empty churches during the coronavirus pandemic as a prophetic warning sign: this may soon be the state of the Church if it does not undergo a transformation.” (p.xii Halík) 

These words of Halík are difficult for us to hear, because they call us to humbly consider our own relationship with God. They challenge us with how we have been and are expressing our faith. Even before the coronavirus pandemic occurred most of us were aware of the decline of Christianity in the Western world. Christendom was no more and so many churches have experienced this decline and so many congregations have vanished. 

There is a moment of realisation in the Wizard of Oz which captures the sense of transition or change in the world that is taking place. Dorothy declares, “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.” We are not in Kansas anymore; we are not in Christendom anymore. We are called to being humble and even starting again in this new environment 

As I thought about this, I recalled the words of Golda Meier, the fourth Prime Minister of Israel, who is credited with saying, “Don’t be so humble, you’re not that great.” To be called to humility is to be called to greatness. To be called to humility is to remember that we are lifelong disciples of Christ and that we have not arrived yet.

This brings me to speak about the temptation to tether ourselves to the familiar shore. We might hear the challenge of Jesus to set out into the deep waters but rather than do this we attempt to cast our anchors back towards the shore. We resist change and transformation. We long for the past, as if it some point there were a golden age.

One of the concerns that strikes me with our need to hold on to those familiar shores is our tendency to develop over simplistic understandings of who God is and what the gospel is. There is an old acrostic that is sometimes used that you may have heard and certainly one that I have been encouraged to consider. It is based on the word KISS and it stands for Keep It Simple Stupid. But in keeping it simple have we kept people simple and ignorant?

Boyd Blundell in his book Paul Ricoeur between Theology and Philosophy: Detour and Return paints an image of two responses to the enlightenment by Christian theology. The ostrich and the long defeat.  The familiar shore of literal interpretations reflects the response of the ostrich burying its head in the sand and ignoring the wisdom of God in the world around us. Showing my age now this imagery also reminded me of the cone of silence which was used in the old TV show Get Smart. It often became an echo chamber of ideas, and the device never worked effectively. I worry that the humour we find in this scene is how the world views the church.

Simplified views of who God is and what God has done in and through Jesus are fraught with problems. God becomes domesticated to our purposes and our needs and rather than place God at the centre of our worship we place our needs and our desires at the centre of our worship and make God in our image. We tell ourselves a convenient and comfortable story about who God is for me.

In his thought-provoking book Thinking Fast and Slow the Professor of Psychology Daniel Kahneman explores the problem of narrative fallacies, the faulty stories we make up. He says, “You build the best possible story from the information available to you, and if it is a good story, you believe it. Paradoxically, it is easier to construct a coherent story when you know little, when there are fewer pieces to fit into the puzzle. Our comforting conviction that the world makes sense rests on a secure foundation: our almost unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance.” (Daniel Kahneman, Thinking Fast and Slow, p.200)

Tethering ourselves to the secure shore of what we know may in fact be denying the possibility of a deep and true encounter with the mystery of God. By tethering ourselves to the familiar shores I wonder if, to coin a phrase, we are attempting to “Make faith great again” rather than realise that in being called to be humble as followers we discover the greatness of God.

The words of Isaiah are instructive at this point:

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts. 

Isaiah 55:8-9

I opened with the idea that Simon’s response of humility came from the miracle but even prior to that moment Simon exhibited faith, which can be translated as hearing and obeying. Simon set out to the deeper water to cast out his net.

Just as Simon set out into the deep water so to, we are challenged to untether ourselves from the familiar shore and set out into the deeper waters. Trusting in Jesus’ instruction we move beyond our tiredness and disillusionment, and we obey by setting out into the deep waters knowing that there is far more than we can ever see or know about God – God always remains a mystery for us.  Halík says in his book, “the word ‘mystery’ is not a warning ‘stop sign’ on our path in search of God through thought, prayer, and meditation but rather an encouragement to have trust in these journeys to inexhaustible depths.” (p.14) We set out into the deep waters in hope that somehow, we might come closer to the mystery of God’s presence. Sitting in the cloud of unknowing should not be a worry to us but come us a reassurance to us for we believe God is with us and that miracles can occur. Our belief is that God is far closer than we can imagine as Halík explains.

“God remains an impenetrable mystery, and God's action in the depths of the human heart (in the unconscious) he's also hidden. The inner life of God is a mystery, which our senses, reason, and imagination cannot understand or grasp … Perhaps it is not because God is alien and distant but precisely because God is so incredibly close to us... We cannot see God - just as we cannot see our own face; we can only see the reflection of our face in the mirror.” P14-15 Halík

Adrift on the deep we cast our nets down, down, down into the silence and mystery of God’s presence curious and hopeful that something will occur. That despite our empty hands and empty nets God might do something new. For are we not like the Psalmists who trusts that God’s mercies are new every morning. 

Casting our nets down is part of our search for meaning and purpose in life, a search that is part of the human condition. Again, Raimon Pannikar says, “There is an urge in the human being towards beauty, truth, and goodness, which entails and demands freedom, joy, and peace.” (p.11) When we cast our nets down is it not our hope that we help people to be caught up in our common search for beauty, truth, and goodness which we believe is God’s presence with us in the world.

This presence of God is our hope. Pannikar explains hope in this way: “hope is not of the future. Hope should not be confused with a certain optimism about the future which only betrays a pessimism about the present. Hope is not the expectation of a bright tomorrow. Hope is of the invisible.” (p.10) As Paul put it, “We hope in things not seen.” 

There is an invitation in our faith to being caught up into a reality of hope in life that is grounded in the present and the presence of God with us, rather than just in some better future in this life or the next. We plunge into the task of discovering the mystery of God with us now. The miracle of faith is drawing in the nets filled with fish and discovering that God is with us, and that God has always been with us, and that God is in all people and God is all things. 

When we discover this how can we but want to follow and fish for Christ? This discovery leads to a change in the very core of our being as we see and perceive the of the world and life in a new light.

In my first sermon with this congregation, I asked what it means for us to be “Growing lifelong disciples of Christ.” I suggested that it means firstly being open to our own journey of faith and growth as disciples. Following Jesus which is an act which requires some humility on our own part. And second, encouraging others in their growth and discovery of the mystery of God’s presence in their lives. In other words, setting out into the deep waters to go fishing for people.

But, in fishing for people, we should not suffer from the illusion that we are saving the souls of others, drawing them out of the deep and troubling waters of life without God. We should not suffer the illusion that we need to colonise their thoughts and their spirituality with our delusion of religious superiority. We should suffer no illusions about the bait that we think we are dangling in front of them. We should always remember the catch of the fisherman was an utter miracle. 

In fishing for people, we should be looking for the signs of Christ already at work in and through them. For Christ’s life, death and resurrection was for all and in is present in the life of all. He is God with us – God’s miraculous catch, not anything of our doing. This is the invisible mystery of the good news, the miracle of grace which might cause us to say, “Go away from me Lord for I am a sinful person!”

But God does not send us away and God does not desert us. Our sin and our inadequacy do not bar us from our relationship with God. No! Rather, like those fishermen who ventured into the deep waters and encountered the miraculous catch, we too hear the words, ‘Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.’ And like them we become part of the miracle following “Growing as lifelong disciples of Christ.” And fishing “Growing lifelong disciples of Christ.”