The Old Man in the Sea struggled against an elusive eighteen-foot marlin.  Captain Ahab did battle against the great Moby-Dick and for years, my grandfather stalked the mysterious muskie named Leroy who lurked in the dark cold regions of Rush Lake.  According to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources website, “the muskie or muskellunge is one of the largest and most elusive fish that swims in Minnesota.  Waiting in weed beds it will lunge forward, clamping its large, tooth-lined jaws onto the prey which consists of fish and sometimes ducklings and even small muskrats.” 

Grandpa Rudy made a sport of watching for Leroy from the dock outside during the warm months and from his big east bay window when it started to get cold and before the lake froze over.  Grandpa was convinced that he had Leroy hooked once or twice, but the slippery, elusive fiend always managed to escape.  The state record was and still is 53 pounds, but Grandpa had a feeling in his bones that Leroy was much bigger than that, a fifty-five, maybe even a sixty pounder.  So, as one might suspect, the tales of encounters with Leroy became the stuff of great family legend and are still told even today. 

            There is something about a great fish story, isn’t there?  Tales of incredible surprise, of improbable success or in the case of Leroy, stories of startling encounters with elusive glory.  When Simon and crew met Jesus along the shores of Lake Gennesaret, it wasn’t a matter of size so much as quantity, “so many fish that their nets were beginning to break…and Simon and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken.”  Breaking nets, fear and amazement, has a more extraordinary fish story ever been told?     

            As far as recruiting techniques go, I personally think Jesus could have done better.  I mean, whatever lure fishing might have there are lots of better ways of making the case, especially when a bad day’s fishing is to be expected.  The US Army’s slogan has changed through the years, but I think the old one wasn’t all that bad.  “Be all you can be” and before that, “Uncle Sam wants you.”  They’re short, simple and to the point so why try to improve on a good thing?  In Jesus’ case a simple “God wants you” or “follow me” is more appealing than this business of “fishing for or catching people alive”, a pretty weird way to encourage folks to follow you.

            But despite the strange marketing appeal, here by the lake, as his ministry begins there is something appealing about Jesus, a guy who shows up without pretense and simply invites people to come along with him.  Sure isn’t the way people do business these days, from the kids’ sports league, scouts, PTA and even the church where more often than not we employ to the hard sell job, the old reliable guilt trip or the proverbial offer that we simply cannot refuse.  “You don’t want to disappoint people, do you?”  “Look if you don’t step up to the plate, then everything’s going to fall apart.”  Contrast our ploys with that of Jesus.  Look, he isn’t pacing up and down the shore imploring folks to stop and put their names on some apostolic sign up sheet, but meets people where they are, going about their work, in the midst of their every day lives.

            And yet, that isn’t always the way we think genuine encounters with Jesus are supposed to happen.  We’re apt to imagine more a holy quest maybe, going off into the wilderness, devoting ourselves to thinking pure, religious thoughts and spending hours and hours in prayer.  But, if the story of Jesus’ encounter with Simon is true, then Jesus is far more apt to meet us in the midst of the ordinary routine as we go about our lives.  For any number of reasons, be it our cynicism, our unbelief, our lack of imagination, it’s hard to accept the possibility of God at work in our midst to the point that if ever we catch even a whiff of God’s “abundance producing” power we’ll do all we can to get away from it.  I mean, look at Simon, Simon who was to become Peter, the leading, most idealistic and disciple, the rock upon which Christ would build the Church. Overwhelmed at the huge catch of fish, he tells Jesus to get lost!  “For I am a sinner, Lord”.  Last Sunday it was the good folks of Nazareth who wanted him dispatched for his preaching.  Now his closest disciple wants him out because for his fishing.  A guy just can’t win for losing, can he?      

            And yet, something happens to this fearful, overwhelmed fisherman, a kind of movement if you, movement as one commentator suggests “from the security of fixed, failed realty—‘We fished all night and have nothing’—into full, uncontained reality.”  In the midst of the dark, deep water Jesus calls forth something new for Simon and the disciples, for you and for me.  But when the coming of the new, the coming of the kingdom starts to break the old sinner in us reacts with fear, fear finally the charade is over, because finally our unbelief is exposed, laid bare for all to see.  See, when all is said and done, our problem isn’t a lack of fish, but of faith!  And all we can say is “go away Jesus!  Get out!”

            But the good news is that Jesus isn’t about to get out or go away.  He’s right here in the boat with us, as we pass through dark, deep waters that seem to go on and on forever.  He’s with us in those moments and places void of all hope and promise.  He’s right here in the midst of sinful, unbelieving people like you and me stirring up faith, making us new, giving us hope for the new day!  And Jesus is here to stay, through the deep, dark waters of death and the cross to the bright light of Easter and beyond.       

“Put out into the deep water and let down your nets”.  It’s not so much a command as an invitation, an invitation from Jesus himself to learn to fish like him.  Of course by all accounts, his way is crazy.  Any fisherman worth his or her salt will tell you that if nothing was happening early in the morning, then nothing times ten is going to happen once the sun is up and the midday heat draws near, and certainly not out where the water is deep.  But since when did God’s call reflect human logic, propriety of even common sense?  And that’s the thing.  Jesus beckons and calls us into places where no one in their right minds would go, where hope is lost, where promise is broken, where the darkness seems utterly impenetrable.  And yet, it is in the deep emptiness of our live, in the in the terrifying void of nothingness where Jesus finds us. 

So, what does the deep water represent to you?  In what ways do you find yourself “toiling all the night long, with nothing to show for it?”  I think I’ve really come to appreciate Simon’s predicament in my own life—unable to see beyond the fear, the resentment, my own lack of imagination.  Paralyzed in a sense and not even sure which way to go.   But in those moments, through people like you, like my family, in the stirring gift of music that reminds me why God made me in the first place to give him my life in praise.   And the thing of it is, it’s always a complete and total surprise to me, like a path opening up that path in the wilderness, a drink of water in the dry desert, abundance in the midst of scarcity.  showing me the way, filling my hopelessly empty net to the point of breaking. 

And if we ask ourselves about the deep water in our own lives, then we’re also lead to consider where the deep water for us as a community might be, as the people of God at Ascension Lutheran Church?  Disciples toiling and straining through long, dark night with results that are at best limited—sounds a lot like where we’ve been as a congregation.  We’ve dutifully worked through hot, muggy days and may well wonder how much more we’ve got in us.  Are we going to make it?  What does the future hold?  When are we going to start seeing some real change?  Considering our situation as a congregation, it doesn’t take a whole lot of imagination to see ourselves sitting right there next to Simon in the boat and responding with him.  “Master, we have toiled all night long and have caught nothing.” 

But Jesus comes to us today, to speak his word of grace to us once again, a word that invites, that calls and leads us to put down our nets again.  So, what’s going to happen?  Will our nets be so full that the seventy or eighty of us will become overwhelmed?  Will we have to consider a new building project, a bigger day school?  Will we have to add another service?  Will Bank of America have to send out an armored car to pick up the Souper Bowl Sunday offering?  Maybe, maybe not.  Only God knows that.  I am confident though, that as God has provided for us as a congregation, so will God continue to provide for us as we go about our mission and ministry here at 6420 Hart Lane in Austin, Texas.  Finally, it boils down to a question of whose vision of the future we’re going to hold on to.  Are we going to trust a future that we presume to be in our hands, a future shaped and defined by our limited vision and imagination or a future that is in God’s hands, an abundant future filled with the hope and promise assured us all through the death and resurrection of our LORD Jesus Christ?  Though our faith seems paltry, though we are buffeted by fear and doubt, Christ gives us hope, hope in God’s future, a future that beckons and calls each and every one of us today.

God is good my friends.  Into our fearful, uncertain lives, God sends his son, to show us the way, to give us all we ever need.  Leaving everything and following him we’re going to be surprised, surprised at the abundance we discover as we find our lives in him.  Let us ever trust in God’s abundant grace.  Amen.  

Pastor Brian Peterson