Sermon Text: Luke 5:1-11
Date: February 9, 2025
Event: The Fifth Sunday after Epiphany, Year C
Luke 5:1-11 (EHV)
One time, while the crowd was pressing in on Jesus and listening to the word of God, he was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret. 2He saw two boats there along the lakeshore. The fishermen had left them and were washing their nets. 3Jesus got into one of the boats, which belonged to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from the shore. He sat down and began teaching the crowds from the boat. 4When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water, and let down your nets for a catch.”
5Simon answered him, “Master, we worked hard all through the night and caught nothing. But at your word I will let down the nets.” 6When they had done this, they caught a great number of fish, and their nets were about to tear apart. 7They signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. They came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink. 8When Simon Peter saw this, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, because I am a sinful man, Lord.” 9For Peter and all those with him were amazed at the number of fish they had caught, 10and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon.
Jesus said to Simon, “Have no fear. From now on you will be catching people.”
11After they brought their boats to the shore, they left everything and followed him.
You’re Sending Whom…?
I don’t watch it often, but I love the PBS show Antiques Road Show. If you haven’t seen it, the basic premise is this: people attend an event and bring in old things they have in their homes (perhaps displayed, perhaps stashed away in the attic) to have them appraised. They film many of the appraisals, and the interesting ones tend to be aired on the show. Sometimes they’re interesting because the person is sure they’re sitting on a small fortune, only to discover that what they have isn’t worth much. On the other hand, sometimes people bring something in and it ends up worth 10, 100, or even 1000x what they thought it might be.
As these surprisingly high valuations settle on the people, often you see them looking at things differently. Often, they start handling the item more carefully; some people suddenly start talking about insuring it. Because if you suddenly found out you had something worth a whole lot of money, you’d want to protect it, right? And whether you were protecting it as an heirloom to pass down to the next generation or just keeping it safe until it could be sold, you still need to consider how to handle it in the days ahead.
Whether you’ve known it for a long time or only a very short time, if you have something precious, you want to be careful with it. You don’t store a priceless painting outside or leave that fragile piece of pottery in the trunk of the car. Whether something is valuable monetarily or sentimentally, you are careful with it.
There’s nothing more valuable in this life, in the world, than the gospel message. The certainty that Jesus has removed every sin is eternally valuable, and all the world’s wealth combined can’t even touch its worth. And considering all it cost Jesus to accomplish it—his very life!—you would rightly assume that he will be careful with it and ensure that it is safe and in good hands.
And while that is true, the way Jesus entrusts this message to be shared is surprising. We’d assume that perhaps he’d take the lead in sharing this with the world. After all, who would be better equipped to share the gospel than the one who accomplished it? Or perhaps, if not Jesus himself, then the angels. After all, the term “angel” means “messenger.” After God himself, who better to share this good news than God’s official messenger force?
But then we see scenes like we saw last weekend in our First Reading where God said to Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you were born, I set you apart. I appointed you to be a prophet to the nations” (Jeremiah 1:5). And what was Jeremiah’s response? “Ah, Lord God! I really do not know how to speak! I am only a child!” (Jeremiah 1:6). In other words, “Um, Lord, you’re sending whom…? Me? Oh, that doesn’t sound like a good idea.”
We saw a very similar scene in our First Reading this morning. Isaiah takes in the scene in heaven and is terrified even to be there, never mind being a messenger for this perfect God, “I am doomed! I am ruined, because I am a man with unclean lips, and I dwell among a people with unclean lips, and because my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Armies!” (Isaiah 6:5). Until one of the angels intervenes with a coal from the altar, Isaiah can’t fathom how he could ever serve in this capacity.
And in our Gospel for this morning, which is our primary focus for our meditation, we see Peter freaking out in a way very consistent with Isaiah’s encounter with God. He falls in fear before Jesus at the unprecedented catch of fish, saying, “Go away from me, because I am a sinful man, Lord.”
Scripture is filled with unwilling, terrified, and seemingly inappropriate human messengers for God. The apostle Paul persecuted the Christian church until Jesus corrected and called him on the road to Damascus. When Moses spoke to God in the burning bush, he gave God a similar line to Jeremiah’s: he didn’t know how to speak. And the prophet Jonah was so unwilling to be God’s messenger to the heathen city of Nineveh, that he got in a boat headed the exact opposite direction that God had told him to go, until a terrifying dip in a stormy sea and three nights in a giant fish’s digestive system put him back on the right track (mostly).
To one degree or another, these human reactions to God’s call make sense because God’s actions don’t make sense to us. Why is God entrusting this priceless message to fallible human messengers? Everyone he calls, willing or not, is at least a sinner and thus flawed to the very core. And many don’t seem to have the gifts one would think would be necessary for this work. Jeremiah, Moses, and Paul all mention how they’re not good speakers, and God’s answer is always the same; as God calls these faltering lips, he assures them that he’ll be with them and give them the words they are to share.
This morning’s Gospel has two epiphanies—revelations—about Jesus. The first is the most obvious one. The professional fisherman had been at their work all night (which was the ideal time to catch fish) and came away with nothing. But, Peter’s respect for Jesus is so great that he agrees to try again at the worst time of day to catch fish, even dirtying nets they had already spent time cleaning. And what happens? A catch of fish so great that it strained the nets to the breaking point and even threatened to sink two boats. Quite a change from an empty night’s work!
Jesus reveals himself, again, to be God. In a miracle not unlike the water changed into wine at Cana that we saw a few weeks ago or the healings we saw in Capernaum last week, this miracle stresses who Jesus really is. He’s not some layman who has a hunch about how these professionals can do their job better. No, he is the one who made the lake they’re on and created the fish they will catch. This is why Peter, like Isaiah, reacts in such fear before God, falling before him. For Peter, this miracle went well beyond underscoring the message Jesus taught. Instead, it made him fearful to even be in Jesus’ presence. He knew who he was, a sinful man, and that sinners cannot be in God’s presence and ever hope to survive.
And here is the second epiphany: the New Testament’s gospel ministry will be no different than the Old Testament’s gospel ministry. In the past God sent fallible prophets to proclaim his Word, only very rarely intervening directly to send an angel as his messenger. Here, too, Jesus reveals this will also be the plan: “Have no fear. From now on you will be catching people.” Peter, James, and John would trade in their nets and boats for God’s Word and come away with a “catch” that would be far more important than a ship full of fish: they would share the message of forgiveness in Jesus with the world!
Which, fortunately or unfortunately (depending on your perspective), comes back around to you and me. Who is tasked with sharing God’s Word with others? Well, look around. There aren’t any angels speaking and God isn’t making his presence visibly known and teaching that way. No, you have a deeply flawed mouthpiece here called to be your pastor. The young child hears God’s Word from sinful parents and imperfect Sunday School teachers. Your neighbor across the fence or seatmate on the airplane or train may have a gospel-sharer who makes mistakes, forgets things, and is sometimes overcome by fear and anxiety.
But this is the system God has set up. This is how he’s chosen to bring saving faith to people. He restricts himself to using the means of grace, this gospel message found in his Word and sacraments. And far more often than not, that Word is shared by faltering lips and stumbling tongues, because it’s shared by people like you and me.
We may wonder about the wisdom of God’s plan, but remember that the messengers sharing Jesus also are the ones who benefit from what Jesus has done. We know what it is to be forgiven, whereas the angels and even Jesus himself do not. This is our lived experience, and I believe you can see this choice of messengers for the gospel message as a feature, not a bug; as a blessing, not a detriment. You can share what it means not just that sins are forgiven generally or even that the people listening to you are forgiven, but that your specific sins are forgiven in the blood of Jesus. That’s a powerful advantage to bring to this work that no angel could ever provide.
So, despite all the challenges we bring to the table, God has still called us to share, invite, and call people to hear his good news of sins forgiven. He has entrusted the precious gospel to us. My dear brothers and sisters, let us work together so that we might not cower in fear at this opportunity asking God to go away from us. Instead, when God gives us the chance and in so-doing asks, “Whom will I send? Who will go for us?” may we answer, with humility and joy, “Here I am! Send me!” (Isaiah 6:8). We are forgiven! Let us throw our gospel nets into the sea of this world! Let us share that forgiveness! Amen.
