Where Do We Go From Here?

C – 5^th Sunday in Ordinary Time: 4 FEBRUARY 2007

Isaiah 6: 1 – 8; Psalm 138

1 Corinthians 15: 1 – 11; LUKE 5: 1 – 11

Where Do We Go from Here?

A Sermon by John C. Bush, Interim Pastor

First Presbyterian Church

Birmingham Alabama

Transitions in life are never easy, though some, admittedly, are easier than others. The circumstances of our lives change, sometimes in quite unexpected ways and at unexpected times, and it is left to us then to make the necessary adaptations to new conditions that offer us new challenges or produce new stresses in lives we are quite sure are already stressed quite enough. But, then, sometimes the changes come from our initiative, or least with our concurrence, and those are the transitions we find easier to handle. You have heard an awful lot from me over the past year and a half about transitions and change. This congregation has faced several of them recently, and you are still dealing with several. Transitions in pastoral leadership, now in anticipation of welcoming your new pastor, Shannon Webster, and the on-going processes of renewal and change in the center of the city.

The lesson from Luke’s Gospel today is about transitions. Jesus had attracted quite a crowd that day as he preached beside the Sea of Galilee – which Luke calls by its ancient name, Lake Gennesaret. The crowd presses in so close that Jesus is practically pushed into the water, so he borrows a boat from some nearby fishermen and proceeds to teach from there while the boatmen go on with the task of cleaning and mending their nets nearby.

Then comes one of the Bible’s really big fish stories. When Jesus finishes what he is saying, he calls to Simon Peter and tells him to go back out into the deep part of the lake and let his nets down again. Peter and his friends – James and John are mentioned by name, but the story implies that others were there, too – were bone tired. They had worked all night and had just finished cleaning their equipment. As soon as Jesus got out of the boat they were prepared to stow everything for the day and go home for a good meal and some sleep. Now here is this landlubber – this carpenter from Nazareth turned itinerant preacher – trying to tell them how to do their job. We toiled all night and took nothing, Peter protests. They are the words of a person who has already made the effort – already done everything the job required – but with a disappointing result. How often has than happened to you? You have tried everything you know how to do – run the program through every system you think might relate in any way – and the matter just sits there unresolved and seemingly unaffected by anything you do. What do you do when the challenge has lots its glamour under the test of tedious endurance? Is there anything akin to faith that sparks the inspiration to keep trying, keep on keeping on in the face of one disappointment after another?

But, to his credit, Simon Peter was willing to take the risk, to try again. And the result was two boats full of fish and several amazed fishermen. No matter how many times we have tried and failed, no matter how intense our skepticism about the possibility that things can be different this time, the future is always made of hope and life filled the possibilities for renewal. I think it was Winston Churchill so said Success is never final; failure is never final. It is courage that counts. And that is the view of the future which Jesus Christ makes possible for us. At the same time, we must be clear that there is more to life than full nets or a hefty investment portfolio. One can have full nets and still have an empty life.

I can’t explain how or why, but I believe there are powerful elements of good that come into the life of a person who continues to trust, who holds on to hope and is unwilling to give up even in the face of seeming impossibility. The question asked by the spirit of faith is not directed toward the past and its failures, but toward the future and its opportunities. And so the question: Where do we go from here?

The early church understood this event as a parable about its own life and work, about the church. The fish has long been a symbol of the Christian, and a boat is a symbol for the Church. Under the leadership of Peter the Church undertook to extend its teaching ministry, and the result was that Christians soon gained the reputation of being the people who were out to turn the world upside down. And people remembered that Jesus had once said to Peter and the first disciples, From now on, you are going to be catching people. And they will remember how, when these fishermen brought their boats to land they left everything and followed Jesus.

The story leaves us moderns with many questions: what do you suppose happened to all those fish when Peter, James and John walked away and left them there by the lake shore? What did Peter’s wife think about this sudden change of career paths? And how did Zebedee, father of James and John, reorganize his fishing business without his two sons? And did Jesus really mean that those of us who would be brought to the Lord as a result of the work of these disciples were nothing more than fish trapped in a net? Those are all questions beyond the scope of the story as we find it in the Gospel, because this is a story about calling people to follow Jesus and to take on the task of bringing others into a life of discipleship.

As a community of faith now on the verge of welcoming new pastoral leadership – best I can tell, this will be the fifteenth such change of leadership in your 135 years on this corner, not counting interim pastors – you are about to enter yet another a new phase in your life. There is work to be done, of course: welcoming Shannon and Lou Ann Webster, helping him get acquainted with each of you and all of you. (Remember what Drew said about name tags? Many of you did that for Sara and me when we arrived, and it REALLY helps. In fact, it would also help other members and friends of the congregation if you would develop the habit of using them all the time.)

There is also the on-going happy task of continuing to welcome new people into this church community. Typically, during the early stages of a new pastorate there is a slight up-surge in new members joining a congregation. And beyond that, there is the work of remaining the open, welcoming kind of place this is as new people move into the center of the city.

And then there is the continuing need of a city like Birmingham for a church like this one: a church with both spiritual depth and a strong social consciousness. A church with a strong, historic sense of itself and a strong willingness to be led into new areas of service and ministry in response to God’s call and identified needs.

Put out into the deep. It is as if those words of Jesus were being said directly to this congregation today. Let down your nets. As you move from this interim time into a new future, you will continue to re-evaluate the elements that have comprised life as you have known it, in response to some further vision of what is yet to be.

Like Peter of old, we human being are likely to experience some doubts, fears and feelings of inadequacy as we take on the tasks God call us to. But, like these ancient fishermen, we too may be astonished at what God can do with us, for us and through us if we are willing to be faithful to the opportunities God is putting in our hands.

So, then, where do we go from here? Put out into the deep, and let down your nets.

NOW TO THE ONE WHO

BY THE POWER AT WORK IN US

IS ABLE TO DO FAR MORE ABUNDANTLY

THAN ALL WE MAY ASK OR THINK:

TO GOD BE GLORY IN THE CHURCH

AND IN CHRIST JESUS

TO ALL GENERATIONS,

FOREVER AND EVER MORE. AMEN.