Luke 5:1-11
Epiphany 5 / Year C
A newspaper man
before he answered God’s call to the ordained ministry, it seemed fitting after
Ed Campbell was diagnosed with cancer he would write a weekly article for a
local paper chronicling his fight. After
his death in 1997, Forward Movement published Letting Go, a booklet containing
many of his columns. Ed was my clergy
supervisor when I was in seminary. I
learned a great many things from him, including how to share God’s working in
your life in order to help others better understand how God is at work in
theirs.
This story is from Letting
Go:
Today’s gospel reminded me of an incident a week ago. We were home, when Sheila [Ed’s wife] said to me, “Come, get in the car. We’re going somewhere.” I was enjoying reading a book at the moment, so I asked naturally, “Where are we going?” And she said, “It doesn’t make any difference, just get in the car.” “How long will we be gone?” I asked. “Never mind,” she said, “here’s your hat and your cane, get in the car.”
Do you see the point? I didn’t want to go – didn’t want to respond to the “call” until I knew where we were going and how long we would be gone. I was being asked to leave my comfort zone and risk placing myself totally in her hands. I was really quite uncomfortable. I didn’t want to take a risk, until I knew what was involved…
I believe we are always receiving calls from Jesus. And I think our tendency is to turn a lot of them down because it appears they will take us out of our comfort zone.
As I wrote in the E-News, unless
it is the Godfather who makes me an offer I can’t refuse, my default response
to almost every invitation, opportunity, or adventure is to pass. I don’t know how long I have been this way,
but I first noticed it when my daughters were young and I realized every time
they asked if we could do something I almost always said no… often not because
we couldn’t, but more as an ingrained reflex not unlike when Ed resisted his
wife’s request to get in the car. I
wonder now, how much of the lasting joy of parenthood did I miss out on simply because
at the time I didn’t want to be bothered.
In today’s gospel reading, Peter does something noteworthy;
incredible really. He has been fishing
all night – ALL NIGHT – and has caught nothing – NOTHING! Once ashore and tending to his nets he has to
sit through a lengthy sermon with a congregation so large Jesus commandeers his
boat in order to have a pulpit.
Peter is exhausted. He is
frustrated after a fruitless night of fishing.
He is worried about lost income.
He is embarrassed by coming up empty-handed. If he didn’t pack a meal, no doubt he is
hungry. I suspect he is more than a
little ticked off. Most likely he is
focused on going home, going to bed, and getting some sleep before getting up
and giving it another go when nighttime comes again. So when Jesus invites Peter to head back out
on the water and let down his nets, we can imagine every fiber in his being is
protesting. He has every reason to say no,
but opts to give it a try. It is no
overstatement to say Peter accepts the call.
Ed Campbell noted we often
think of God’s call as requiring sacrifice… you know, like sacrificing a quiet
night at home or giving up watching the end of the ball game. But Ed believed a call requires not sacrifice,
but a spirit of recklessness. This is
how he put it:
[Responding to a call] requires the same kind of recklessness that characterized the shepherd who left the ninety-nine sheep to search for the one that was lost; or the recklessness displayed by the woman who takes a large alabaster jar of an expensive perfume and pours it over the head of Jesus, despite the cries of the more frugal and prudent.
And while Ed didn’t cite
Peter who, after a night of futility, puts out the nets for one more try, he
could have. Now, for Peter, the reward
for saying yes is great; life-changing in fact.
Not every yes ends up with a blessing of this magnitude, but most do
result in a blessing by contributing to the abundant life Jesus promises in the
gospels.
Here is the reward Ed
found:
For what it’s worth, I’m getting better every day – maybe more reckless – when Sheila rousts me from my comfort area and says, “Get your cane and hat and get in the car. We’re going somewhere.” Who knows? The risk of responding might end up with ice cream, or a movie, or stopping by the side of the road to watch a beautiful sunset. I think this is yet another call from God to me. There are many, you know. But I figure that this call is pretty good practice for another call I’ll receive before too long – the call [to] “go home.”
The next time you are tempted to say ‘no’ to an opportunity, why not –
for the heck of it – say ‘yes’ and see what blessing ensues. As Ed wrote, saying ‘yes’ to the minor calls
in life prepares us for those calls of greater significance. So go ahead.
Be a little reckless. Toss out
the nets once again and see what you might catch.
