"Because He Says So"
May 21, 2006
by The Rev. Mrs. Laura Stellmon

The Old Testament Lesson: Jonah 3: 1 - 10
The New Testament Lesson: Luke 5: 1 - 11

          Have you ever noticed how human beings struggle willfully and powerfully against the very things that will bring them growth and health and strength?  We would a million times rather make excuses than do the thing we so desperately need to do.

It was like that with some of those first disciples Jesus called.  Here are the fishermen at the shore, working on their nets after a thoroughly unproductive night on the lake; probably grumbling that the price of fish is decent this week, so OF COURSE they didn’t catch anything.  They’re discouraged, ready to call it a day and go home to rest.

And here comes Jesus—a motley crowd of hangers-on, looky-loos, seekers and outcasts hemming him in on every side.  He gets into Simon’s boat and asks Simon to put out a little from the shore.  From there Jesus teaches the crowd.  And when he’s done, he turns to Simon and directs him, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.”

Well now, Simon doesn’t pretend to think of himself as a highly educated man, but he does know fishing.  And he knows that he’s been out all night (which, by the way, was the right time of day to be fishing), and caught nothing.  So he’s entirely confident that Jesus’ directive will come to nothing.  Now, in his response to Jesus, Simon sets up the perfect scenario for the “I told you so!” he’s sure is coming.  “Actually, Master, we’ve been fishing all night, and caught nothing.  But if you say so, I’ll do it.”

Now, we know the rest of the story, so we know that Simon and his partners enjoyed a lavish, abundant catch.  But Simon doesn’t know that just yet.  He’s simply thinking that he’s tired, he’s got better things to do, and he’d rather do just about anything else in the world than make another run at catching fish again today.

Simon is so like the rest of us in the church isn’t he?!  Jesus shows up and instructs us to do something which strikes us as being entirely ludicrous and unproductive.  And how do we respond?  We laugh out loud.  We make excuses.  We tell him all of the reasons we are not yet doing what we need to be doing.  We find other, more important things to distract ourselves.

          It’s rather like the second week of April.  You know the 15^th  is coming.  You KNOW what you need to do.  There isn’t much time left.  The dreaded tax deadline looms just a few days away, and you REALLY need to dig out your receipts and W-2s, and get your tax forms completed.  But suddenly the importance of long-ignored projects can no longer be denied.  You cannot get these other things out of your mind.

          The dog is overdue for his shots.  The china cabinet carries a layer of dust which was merely annoying last month, but today is unbearable. You realize that you simply must, this very minute, tighten up the hinge on that squeaky door in the basement.  Funny how you never noticed these things until it was truly time to get down to the business of figuring your taxes.

          Every week, every month, every year in the church is like that second week of April.  Confronted with the ominous, and continual, decline in membership; faced with dwindling mission giving and an increasingly undefined sense of purpose; we, in the church, look around for pleasant distractions.  We reorganize our governing body structures.  We ask ourselves what necessary piece of training our new pastors are missing in seminary.  We sigh heavily and tell stories about the glory days.  We look to our past with nostalgia, and we at our present circumstance in dismay, but we often fail to take a serious look at the future.  And I would suggest that we often plug our ears to the voice of Jesus calling us to cast our nets into the deep water.  Jorge Azevedo, who was one of the guest speakers at the Presbyterians Seeking Purpose Driven Ministry seminar in Florida last month, puts it this way, “We often get so involved with church work that we neglect to do kingdom work.”  Jesus doesn’t call us to build a church, he calls us to build the kingdom.

          What I want to know is: what are we avoiding?  What is it we KNOW we must do, but are afraid to even start?  What are the words, the challenging words of Jesus, that ring in our ears, that we’d rather forget?  As a denomination, or as a presbytery or synod or congregation, what scary thing are we hoping to avoid by distracting ourselves with less than significant tasks?

          Today I want to confess to you that I had a very unsettling experience as I went to Louisville for my training for General Assembly.  I agreed, a couple of months ago, to be vice moderator of a General Assembly committee.  That means I’ve got a little more leadership work at the General Assembly than some of the other commissioners, so I needed some special training.  Fair enough.  I put the training dates on my calendar.  I arranged my airplane tickets and other travel details, read my assigned reports, and collected together all the things I needed to take with me.  Last Saturday I got an e.mail from the person who was making the arrangements for the training meeting asking if I would lead Saturday morning’s brief worship time—call to worship, a couple of hymns, a prayer and a brief message.  Nothing horribly complicated.  I tried to think how to graciously say no.  But I don’t have a lot of practice saying no.  So I said yes.

          Over the next couple of days I began to prepare things.  Everything was falling in place.  After arriving I got a couple of people signed up to help by leading the call to worship and the prayer.  Things were looking good.  The sermon was not quite done, but was coming along.  I began to feel reasonably prepared and confident.

          And then on Friday night, after two full days of intense training, my brain began to function at peak level.  I could see Saturday morning in my mind with perfect, HORRIFYING, clarity.  I was going to be preaching in front of the Stated Clerk of the General Assembly, the Executive Director of the General Assembly Council, all four candidates for moderator at the upcoming Assembly, and a whole room full of people with years and years of very significant service to the church.  What on earth had I been thinking?!!  What temporary lapse of intelligence had allowed me to say “yes.”   My heart started pounding.  My mouth went dry.  Contrary to expectation, I did NOT pass out.

          Thankfully, within a few minutes I recognized that I was being sent out into the deep water.  I hate water.  I don’t swim.  I don’t even want to learn to swim.  But I took a deep breath and I held my nose and I prayed, “Jesus, help me!” and I jumped in.

          And you know what?  I actually had fun preaching yesterday morning.  Go figure!  But I think I only enjoyed it because I got a grip on both my ego and my fear.  I reminded myself that it didn’t matter at all how well anyone thought I did.  What did matter was whether or not people would hear God’s word faithfully preached.

          For a few minutes Friday night I was Simon Peter, “Oh, Lord, I’m thinking this sounds like a really stupid idea!  But, it’s your idea, and not mine, so I’ll trust you, and I’ll do it.”

          How has Jesus been leading you toward a new adventure lately?  Have you heard or felt him challenging you to do something that seems perfectly ludicrous, perfectly unproductive?  Have you heard him telling you to put out into the deep water?  What would happen if you took that leap of faith, not because you thought it would be safe or easy or productive, but simply because Jesus said so.