Signs of God's Glory: Jesus Makes Us His Followers

Rebecca Sheridan
Sunday, February 6, 2022
Luke 5:1-11

    I’m curious, what topics or subjects do you know a whole lot about?  What would you consider yourself to be an expert in?  With Super Bowl Sunday coming up next Sunday, I am always amazed at how some people know so much about football, or sports in general!  Some people know not just their favorite teams’ players, and not just current NFL players, but decades of NFL history and probably college football history besides!  My grandpa knew a lot about the Minnesota Vikings and Twins, but he was an expert fisherman.  He had a sign in his office that said, “I only fish on days that end in ‘y,’” and that was pretty much true. In South Dakota, he took me ice fishing in the winter and boat fishing in the summer.  Even at 88 years old, he could remember how many fish, what kinds of fish, and what lake we were on it seemed for every time we had ever gone fishing together.  He never forgot embarrassing moments, either. “Rebecca, remember that time you lost your fishing pole right over here?”  “Remember that time you forgot to put the plug in the boat and we were bailing out water for an hour?” And I’d tease him right back, “Grandpa, remember that time I was catching fish so fast you never got a chance to fish yourself because you were helping me with taking the fish off and putting new bait on?”
    My grandpa wasn’t a fisherman for his job like the first disciples, but he was an expert fisherman, and he taught me a lot about fishing.  He was also a person of deep faith, and we would have great theological conversations out on the boat.  My favorite of his questions was, “Is it better to go fishing and think about God, or to go to church and think about fishing?”  Well, today we see that Jesus doesn’t make the people decide between fishing and God.  He meets the first disciples where they are, out on a boat.  He shows them who he is and blesses them abundantly with a catch so great they need other people to help them haul in the catch.  And then he calls them to be fishers of people, to be experts not just at fishing, but also in following Jesus.  He uses what they know – fishing, to talk about following him in terms they can understand.
    Notice Jesus doesn’t call the religious experts – the Pharisees or Sadducees or students studying to be rabbis.  Jesus doesn’t call people from inside the synagogue, either.  Rather, he goes out on a boat, teaches the crowds, and in entering their ordinary, everyday lives, calls ordinary, average people to follow him – some would argue, below average!  Jesus’ call to the disciples and to us in some ways is very simple and doable.  Anyone can follow him.  You don’t need any special degree.  You don’t need to dedicate your entire life to God as priests and pastors do.  Jesus calls us to learn from his teaching, and be witnesses to what he has done in our lives, just as the original disciples learn from Jesus and share what he has done for them.  We don’t have to know everything about God (and we ought to be concerned if we think we do know everything about God).  We can follow Jesus faithfully wherever God has placed us at work, at school, at home, even when we’re enjoying our favorite hobby, like fishing or watching football.  In these ways, Jesus’ call to follow him is easy. He doesn’t ask us to do anything we can’t do.
    Of course, Jesus’ call is also challenging, though.  After working all night and catching nothing, Jesus asks the disciples to try one more time.  They are exhausted and want to give up. Peter sounds like he is pretty unwilling at first to trust and do what Jesus asks them to do.  Jesus asks them to go into the deep water– deep water is riskier and more dangerous.  The disciples leave everything to follow Jesus, even their full nets of fish behind.  And while evangelism is a natural gift for some people, for most of us, evangelism – catching people – talking about God or religion at ALL is a pretty frightening proposition.  Even though we are thankful and joyful about what God has done for us, we are intimidated and perhaps even frightened to share our faith with others.  I don’t believe that following Jesus requires that we leave everything behind and move into a monastery to devote ourselves to God.  But following Jesus does require us to be open to being changed by the Holy Spirit, and change is scary.  Following Jesus means reorganizing our priorities so that we do make time to read and study scripture, to worship God regularly, to strengthen our prayer life, to serve others and give generously, to think of other people rather than just ourselves.  Like my Grandpa’s example, following Jesus does require us to think about God as well as the other things we like and are passionate about. We might think about how our hobbies and interests go together with our faith, just as Jesus asked the first disciples to fish for people.  Jesus asks us to look for signs of God’s presence and action in our daily lives, remembering that what’s right in front of us is not all there is to life.
    It’s assuring to know that in this gospel story Jesus must know the disciples have some concerns and anxieties about following him, some of the same that we have.  Jesus tells Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.”  “Do not be afraid.”  Jesus gives us the courage to follow him especially when it is difficult.  To come to church for worship and community when it is not the popular thing to do.  To carve out time for prayer and Bible study when we are very busy people.  To offer a prayer for someone else or share our faith when it may be risky.  To serve in an area or among people who make us uncomfortable because they are different, or to give financially to support a ministry when money is tight.  When we are feeling tired and empty and wondering if God is out there and cares at all, Jesus asks us to go deeper into the stores of our faith and throw our nets out just one more time.  And I know from personal experience, and I hope some of you know, too, when we take a risk of faith and trust, we see God fill our nets full of abundance.
    I often find preaching about Jesus calling the disciples difficult to do as a pastor because I am guessing some of you are thinking it is easy for me, because I am a pastor – a religious professional and expert. It’s true, I know a lot about Jesus, theology, church history, and the Bible. I would lose at sports trivia any day of the week but if there’s ever a religion category on Jeopardy, I’m pretty confident.  Knowing a lot about Jesus and following him are two different things.  We can’t all be pastors or church professionals, and God doesn’t want that.  We hear in all of our scriptures today that God calls all kinds of people to different purposes.  And I hope you hear in today’s gospel story the reminder that God uses ordinary, everyday people who are not experts in religion to share the good news about Jesus.  The disciples we know do great things throughout the New Testament, but they also mess up a lot.  They’re more like us than we may think.  As we continue to think about signs of God’s glory this month, the good news is that in the challenge and sometimes in our failure to follow Jesus as we ought, Jesus tells us that he will make us his followers, that he will help us catch people.  We are God’s signs to a weary, materialistic, self-centered world.  God can and does work through imperfect, average people like us.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.