Luke 5:1-11

5th Sunday after the Epiphany | 6 February 2022 | Luke 5:1-11 | by Paul Bieber |

Luke 5:1-11 Revised Standard Version

¹ While the people pressed upon Jesus to hear the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret. ² And he saw two boats by the lake; but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. ³ Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, he asked him to put out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the people from the boat. ⁴ And when he had ceased speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” ⁵ And Simon answered, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.” ⁶ And when they had done this, they enclosed a great shoal of fish; and as their nets were breaking, ⁷ they beckoned to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink. ⁸ But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” ⁹ For he was astonished, and all that were with him, at the catch of fish which they had taken; ¹⁰ and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; henceforth you will be catching men.”¹¹ And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him.

also

Isaiah 6:1-8 [9-13]

Psalm 138

I Corinthians 15:1-11

Put Out into the Deep for a Catch

Grace, peace, and much joy to you, people of God.

The striking parallel between the story of the miraculous catch of fish and the story of Isaiah’s call is the response of Peter and Isaiah to their encounters with the holy God—in the temple in the case of Isaiah, in the presence of Jesus Christ in the case of Peter. Holiness evokes humility. “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord,” says Peter, immediately after what must have been the single most successful fishing trip of his career. Not his usual “let’s keep this thing going” attitude, as when he hunts Jesus down as he seeks solitude in St. Mark 1 or when he offers to build booths to make the Mount of Transfiguration a permanent attraction. No. He falls down before Jesus and implores him to go away.

In the year that King Uzziah died, Isaiah has his vision of the temple as God’s heavenly throne room. As the building shakes and fills with the smoke of heaven’s incense, and fiery winged angels call out the praises of the thrice-holy God, Isaiah isn’t caught up in the wonder of it all. He says, “ Woe is me! I am lost.” Holiness evokes humility. And humility evokes a response. For Isaiah, it is a seraph touching his unclean lips with a glowing coal from the heavenly altar of incense, taking his sin and guilt away. It is a potent image of forgiveness. In the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, when all have communed, the celebrant echoes the words of the seraph to Isaiah, saying of the body and blood of Christ, “Behold, this has touched your lips and has taken away your iniquity.”

For Peter, the response is the reassurance of Jesus’ own words, “Do not be afraid,” and his commissioning, “henceforth you will be catching men.” And when they have brought their boats to land, Peter and his partners James and John leave everything and follow Jesus. The fishermen have become fishermen-disciples. For Isaiah, the commissioning is the voice of the thrice-holy Lord himself, asking, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” In words reminiscent of the virgin Mary’s assent to God’s choice of her to become the mother of Jesus, Isaiah answers, “Here I am; send me!” The visionary becomes a prophet.

God’s response to Peter’s and Isaiah’s sense of unworthiness in the presence of holiness is one of grace. “Do not be afraid.” “Your sin is blotted out.” This reassurance that God’s grace goes before those he sends and accompanies those who follow equips the disciple and the prophet for mission. Peter’s mission will come to fruition after the cross and resurrection, the ascension and the gift of the Spirit, when his apostolic preaching will lead to the conversion of three thousand souls on the first Christian Pentecost, the conversion of Cornelius, and, finally, martyrdom in Rome.

Before his apostolic fishing nets this saintly, miraculous catch, though, he will have more reminders that he is “a sinful man, O Lord.” His impetuosity, his sleepiness at Gethsemane, his denial that he even knows Jesus later in the night in which he was betrayed—all these keep Peter among those who need forgiveness and reassurance of God’s love and faithfulness in order to press on with the mission. Saint Peter remains, as Martin Luther might say, among the sinners.

Isaiah’s mission is even more paradoxical than simul justus et peccator. The description of Isaiah’s mission is in brackets in the Lectionary so that preachers don’t have to trouble their hearers with it, but it is quoted in all four gospels as the reason Jesus teaches in parables, and at the end of Acts as the reason Paul carries his message to the Gentiles, the nations other than Israel. It is not inconsequential.

But it is troubling, in that it takes paradox about as far as it can be taken: Isaiah is to prophesy—and Jesus will preach in parables, and Paul will preach the gospel—to people who will not understand. In what is classically called the “blinding passage,” Isaiah is told that God has blinded the eyes and hardened the hearts of those to whom his word is sent, precisely so that they will not understand, and turn, and be forgiven. The apparent failure of his prophetic mission is foreordained.

“How long, O Lord?” Isaiah asks. Until the land of promise lies desolate and God’s people are sent into exile. This is the mystery of God’s will set before us in stark relief. The God of love and faithfulness, the God who forgives and reassures, is the God who decrees vast emptiness in the midst of the land. The land of promise will no longer be a forest of trees planted near streams of water, bearing fruit in due season, but a burnt-over region of stumps.

But this paradoxical, troubling word is not God’s last word. Even this prediction of failure to understand and failure to repent ends with a word of hope, a reference to “the holy seed.” The burnt-over forest of stumps will grow again and bear fruit. The Lord’s love and faithfulness endures forever. He will not abandon the works of his hands. He will make good his purpose, bringing life out of death.

So what, then, are we called to do? We have been baptized, called to follow Jesus, called to be saints. Yet we remain among the sinners in the vast emptiness of blinded understanding and hardened hearts. What is our calling?

With Paul, we hold fast to our faith that God’s grace toward us has not been in vain. We have not come to believe in vain. In our Baptism and through the Word, the Lord calls us, too, as his messengers. And the message is the gospel that was proclaimed to us, in which we stand, through which we are being saved. Of first importance we remember the heart of the Creed: Christ’s death for our sins and the witness of his resurrection. We will spend the next few Sundays in chapter 15 of I Corinthians, as Paul preaches the resurrection of the dead, the final paradox of life out of death by which God’s good and gracious will puts his whole creation to rights, and you and me, too.

So when we encounter someone who doesn’t understand why the troubles of life persist, whose life seems to them a vast emptiness or a burnt-over region, we need not be afraid of apparent failure nor let the guilt of our own past sins silence us, nor should we keep our conversation on the level of surface platitudes, afraid to venture into the deep places of life. By the grace of God, each of us can say, I am what I am. We can leave every shallow thing behind and follow Jesus. Here I am, a sinner in the presence of the thrice-holy God; send me. I will not be afraid. I will put out into the deep for a catch.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Rev. Dr. Paul Bieber, STS

San Diego, California, USA

E-Mail: paul.bieber@sbcglobal.net