READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:
1 Kings 19:11-21
1 Peter 3:8-15
St. Luke 5:1-11
"We are the little fishes of Christ"
In the Name…
Dear Saints, Grace to you all and Peace from God our Father
and our Lord Jesus, the Christ.
Who speaks to you today, from His Gospel heard in His
Church, saying:
“Do not be afraid;
from now on you will be catching men.”
But catching men is the hard part. Not just because no one
seems interested in Church these days, and not just because we fumble at trying
to talk to people about Church these days, but because most of the time we
can’t catch anyone or they don’t want to be caught. Fortunately, the nets of
Christ’s Gospel do not ask for permission or consent, but rescue at His Word,
as St. Peter teaches today.
That is the Truth and the hope we find in any of our speaking
to anyone. That the Word of God’s cross is the power of salvation and not our
words. We can talk or argue until we are blue in the face, but if we are not
using the Word, our persuasion is in vain.
For, we must fight spiritual powers without the supernatural
ability to see into the hearts of men. So, if we are honest, we must admit that
we prefer to just give up on our sin-loving brothers and sisters. Not only do
we prefer it, in our sin, but we can find Scripture to support us.
God’s Word tells us things like, “Do not speak in the
hearing of a fool,” or we can substitute sinner, there, “for he will
despise the good sense of your words” from Proverbs 23:9. We also hear St.
Paul getting in on the tolerance in 1 Corinthians 5, “you are to deliver
this man [who has sinned] to Satan for the destruction of the flesh.”
Yikes.
This is the kind of stuff our sinful nature loves to be a
part of. We are sore losers. If we don’t get our way, win the day, or win the
argument we take personal offense. And when we take personal offense, we shut
down. No more Mr. nice guy. No more patience. No more 8th Commandment.
Good news everyone. You are not God! You don’t have all the
right answers! When you give up on your neighbor, you do not consign him to
anywhere except back to his own life without you in it. Thinking you have such
authority over your neighbor is a sin and does the opposite of “catching them”
as Jesus said.
But, there is another way to “give up” on your neighbor,
that does not involve your sin or you sinning. “Giving up” does not have to
mean you act as big a fool as your sin-loving neighbor. As usual, when dealing
with your sinful nature, simply turn things around. Don’t give up on your
neighbor. Give up on yourself.
Yes, give up on yourself being the one to “save” them! In
your sin, you declare with Elijah, “God. I am the last one.” God says, “Easy
bro. There are 7000 others that you missed.”
Repent. When it comes to loving your neighbor, you are only
interested in them as far as they take your side. And no one is safe from this,
not friends, not family, not even your pastor. How dare he try to change my
thinking.
When Jesus said His yoke is easy and His burden is light, He
meant it. Salvation is not found in your zeal or your anger: “the anger of
man does not produce the righteousness of God”, reminds St. James (1:20).
Instead, “a gentle Word turns away wrath” (Prov 15:1) and Jesus says, “I
am gentle” (Matt 11:29).
Jesus is the Gentle Word that turns away God’s Wrath from
us, onto Himself and He is the net.
First of all, the entire Gospel reading is one big action
that presents Jesus’ death and resurrection to us, which is the true net of the
Gospel. Look at it again. He has come down from heaven and His preaching and
teaching are His words He has already given in the Old Testament, as He speaks
from the boat, or Ark.
Pausing that Word, He takes action Himself in a second Word,
the New Testament. That is, he demands that St. Peter hover the Ark over the
face of the depths of sin, death, and the devil and let Him down for a catch.
In other words, throw Him in. “At your Word”.
Here Jesus is repeating what He told Jonah to say, some 700
years earlier, “Pick me up and hurl me into the sea; then the sea will quiet
down for you, for I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come
upon you” (1:12). Only with Christ it is the cross.
And as the net is raised, so too is the Son of Man. And on
the third day, having drawn all men to Himself being lifted up on the cross (Jn
12:32), He produces an hundred-fold, fulfilling His own saying from John 12, “Truly,
truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it
remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (v.24).
Being sinful and corrupt means being against everything that
God is or does or wants. This is why men are often described as “hardening
their hearts” towards God. St. Peter confesses this for us here in saying, “We
already went fishing, Jesus, don’t you have anything new?”
So, when Jesus shows up, the same reactions take place.
Hearts are hardened and its depths, which house sin, death, and the devil are
stirred up to a tempest. And St. Peter is right. It is at Jesus’ Word that the
storms are calmed. It is at Jesus’ Word that the fish show up and are caught.
It is at the Gentle Word that St. Peter falls on his face in the bottom of his
boat to worship God, standing right in front of him.
What is the Gentle Word? “Do not be afraid”? “Peace
be with you”? No. The Gentle Word is “Behold the Lamb of God that takes
away the sin of the world” (Jn 1:29). The Gentle Word is “He joyfully
and willingly endured the cross” (Heb 12:2). The Gentle Word is “we
preach Christ crucified…the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor
1:23-24).
The Gentle Word is not very gentle towards sin, but is very
gentle towards those whom He rescues and forgives. He is not gentle in that He
takes sin, judgement, and God’s wrath into Himself, absorbing it, making it His
own transgression, for you, in your place. This violence is easy to see as it
manifests itself in the beatings, suffering, and crucifixion of Jesus.
But, in this action of the Word made flesh, the Word of the
Cross is the power of God for salvation (1 Cor 1:18, Rom 1:16). The Gentleness
of the Word is that the payment has been made. You are no longer required to
pay the price for your sins. Not through any work you did, but simply because
Christ wills it for your life.
He wills that you hear and believe in His Work. He wills
that you be caught alive in His net of His Body and Blood. He wills that you be
brought into His boat, His Ark of the Church, to be cared for and nurtured by
Him and His Sacraments.
In the case of us “catching men”, He wills that the plan and
purpose for each one of us is the same. That He break and hinder every evil
plan and purpose of the devil, the world, and our sinful nature and that He
strengthen and keep us in the one true faith until we die.
In this sense, the saving of each and every person has been
accomplished. The payment for their transgressions has been offered in full. In
the most perfect way, Jesus has secured forgiveness, faith, and eternal life
for all. No one is left out.
That is the belief you need to go into when debating,
arguing, or discussing. Jesus does not need you to win. He has already won.
Jesus does not need you to expand the Kingdom, His Word accomplishes its
purpose. Jesus does not need you to burn bridges, by telling people they’re
going to hell.
Is it ever acceptable to talk to the people for whom Christ
died like this: "You son of the devil, you enemy of all
righteousness"? Is that really necessary, or the way of biblical
discourse? I don’t think so. Unless we want God to talk to us that way, we will
believe in the Gospel. And part of that means we trust that God can do His work
of salvation, with or without our prayers.
Instead, we should be content with being invited. We should
be content with becoming weak, that we may win the weak (1 Cor 9:22). “For
his sake I have suffered the loss of all things”, says St. Paul in
Philippians 3, “and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.”
But wait, there’s more: “and be found in him, not having a righteousness
of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in
Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith” (3:8-9).
To catch men alive is the job of the Gospel of Christ. To
botch it up, but still be invited to the party, is our job. It is our duty to
witness that goodness of Christ and His free forgiveness of sins. It is our
duty to confess our weakness and believe in the strength of God to accomplish
all things for us, even using our speech to expand His kingdom.
For it is the Lord Who catches, it is the Lord Who spreads
the net and properly so, in His Church. There were nets decorating the Temple
(Ex 27:4-5; 1 Ki 7:17), there were nets used by Jesus, thus today those same
nets are cast on you in Word and Sacrament.
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