"Caught Between Miracles" - Luke 5:1-11

Jesus got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, "Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch."

Did you know that Jesus has a facebook page? It’s true. For those of you who aren’t familiar with facebook, it’s a sort of personalized spot on the internet where folks like you and I (and apparently Jesus) can post thoughts, information about ourselves, photos, blogs, and random links to Youtube videos…

Apparently jesus.com, jesus.org, and jesus.net were all taken by religious groups, so Jesus found himself on facebook. He used to be on myspace.com, but nobody uses myspace anymore, and so neither does Jesus. His profile is perhaps what you would expect. His interests include do-it-yourself carpentry and mass catering. According to his profile, he’s single, a Sagittarius, and in a relationship. He doesn’t want kids, and uses facebook to look for friends and to network.

And just when you think that Jesus having a facebook page is just silly, listen to some of the things that some of his 89,024 facebook friends have written: (these are facebook users who’ve officially declared themselves “fans” of Jesus)

Thank you! you amaze me everyday! I am so in love with you! You always make it turn out right, even when it feels so wrong! you fix me, and you complete me.

Thank you Lord for the blessings that you have given us. Please forgive us of our sins.

I love you. Please guide me in the right direction.

Jesus i love you, you are amazing thank you for everything... love ur close friend tanisha. ♥

jesus
when i say your name
it's like a party in my mouth
thank you jesus thank you

Long time no talk

Everywhere Jesus goes, he draws a crowd, Even on facebook.

We’ve got a crowd in Luke’s gospel this morning. According to the fourth chapter of Luke, Jesus has been teaching in synagogues throughout the countryside, and if his teaching’s been anything like it was in his hometown, he’s been making people pretty mad. If you remember that scene you’ll recall that when Jesus did a teaching in the Temple back in Nazareth, he so infuriated the clergy-types that they chased him out of town and tried to throw him off a cliff, which is not a good way to start a career in public speaking. That was at the beginning of Luke’s fourth chapter, a chapter that ends with this sentence: “So Jesus continued proclaiming the message in the synagogues of Judea.”

It’s sort of interesting to think of Jesus’ ministry as one that involves getting kicked out of a list of gradually more prestigious religious institutions. From Nazareth to Jerusalem that’s basically what happens. The negative publicity, however, seems to be working in Jesus’ favor, and the crowds can’t stay away.

Jesus is standing by the lake and they’re doing what crowds do. Lots of people are just there. Some need to get healed. Others are curious about what this guy said to make their pastor so mad. And, of course, a crowd draws a crowd and we’ve got a nice little sea of humanity by the Sea of Galilee.

It’s a beautiful picture, really, to paint in your mind’s eye. Loads and loads of people doing what people do at the lake! Men, women, and children, gathering with friends, seeing what all this fuss is about, talking. Some are fishing and some are just washing clothes. Nobody thought about childcare, so there’s a bunch of kids doing what kids do when they’re at the lake: swimming, splashing, running, throwing rocks in the water. If you can, take a moment to let yourself hear the sounds of this wonderful human mass gathered by the lake.

Jesus shows up, and probably gradually at first, but then with increasing fervor, the crowd presses in on him to hear the word of God. And Jesus begins with a miracle. Maybe it’s a hidden miracle, actually. On the surface it’s nothing, really—nothing like healing somebody or walking on water. But it’s a miracle or sorts.

What does he do? First, he sees these boats sitting there on the shore. Then he gets into one of them, Simon’s boat, and asks him to put out in the water a ways. You could say he’s just being creative—trying to find a way that everybody on shore can see him and hear him. But then Jesus does this little miracle: he sits down.

Now I know what you might be thinking: “He ‘sits down.’ That’s it? Well, I guess every little thing Jesus does is a miracle, then? Oh, look! Jesus sat down! It’s a miracle! Oh, look, Jesus stood up again! Another miracle! But according to Jewish custom, one stood to read scripture, but sat down to teach.

Now we could say, “Well, maybe we shouldn’t read into this too much. Maybe it’s really no big deal that Jesus sat down in the boat. After all, aren’t you supposed to sit down in a boat?” But sometimes the little details are worth our attention. In Luke chapter four, when Jesus teaches in the synagogue, the author makes a point of saying that Jesus “sat down” to teach. And here by the lake in chapter five, he does it again: Jesus “sat down and taught.” If Jesus’ act of sitting down were really insignificant, we could argue that Luke wouldn’t have included it at all.

But he does. “Jesus got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat…”

Jesus sat down in the boat. And then what happened? What incredible thing happened next? What’s the hidden miracle? Can you see it? Jesus created a synagogue by the lakeshore! In an instant—in the time it takes to sit down—Jesus said to the entire crowd that was gathered there, “Welcome to this holy place!” And suddenly the people—women, men, and children—some of whom under normal circumstances, were not welcome in synagogue, found themselves in a sacred space. Prostitutes, people with leprosy, women and men who were considered “unclean” for various reasons—they were all there. And suddenly, the best seats in the synagogue did not belong to the religious leaders, the wealthy, or the powerful. They belonged to women washing clothes and children splashing in the water.

Holy space—synagogue, temple, church, sanctuary—was redefined! And the crowd found itself caught in a holy moment!

I don’t know if that’s ever happened to you. I suspect it has. It’s probably true that for lots of us, while our most overtly religious moments happen in a building much like the one we’re in right now, many of our most sacred, holy moments pop up in other sanctuaries: rivers and gardens, seasides and lakeshores, pieces of poetry and wonderful novels and music... Often these are the holy places that give birth to our sense of God’s direction in our lives.

That’s a little bit of what happened at the lake with Jesus and the crowd. Suddenly, and without warning, women, men, and children found themselves in a new place—a synagogue of sorts.

There’s another more obvious miracle in this story: the giant catch of fish. Jesus tells Simon to take his boat and put out into the deep water and let his nets down for a catch. He does so reluctantly, but up come more fish than his one boat can handle. They bring another boat out, fill them both with fish.

And I know that this story is a metaphor for “catching” disciples. Jesus even says to Simon, James, and John, “From now on, you will be catching people.” But there is little about this image of a bunch of fish—stuck in this huge net, sucking air, slowly dying while the folks back on shore lick their lips and get a fire going—there is little about this image that resonates with my own sense of sharing God’s love with others—with making disciples.

The whole idea of “catching” people doesn’t really work for us. We Presbyterians don’t like to think of ourselves as “people catchers.” We’ll leave that to some other denominations. No, Presbyterians tend to approach evangelism like wallflowers at a junior high sock hop: don’t make any sudden moves, let them come to us, you can tap your foot, but don’t clap, and for God’s sake, don’t dance.

At second glance, however, I do find a richness in Jesus’ second miracle in today’s story. Jesus says to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” While I fail to connect with the picture of a net-full of wiggly fish, I love the image of putting out into the deep water. That’s what we do, I think, when we nurture real discipleship in ourselves and in others. We get out of the shallows and we find the deepest waters we can. And it’s into those deep and often dark waters that we cast our conversations, our stories, and our questions. And ultimately, it’s in that depth that we long to be caught.

It’s in that depth where we recognize that our sanctuary is more than our church—that, in fact, we carry it with us and create it wherever we go...
...wherever we encounter folks who seem fed up with the shallows
...wherever people long to engage in meaningful dialog about the things that really matter
...wherever we seek to be God’s love in the midst of pain, homelessness, and exclusion.
...wherever we find thirst, hunger…

There’s a wonderful little quote by C.S. Lewis that I enjoy sharing. He said, “You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.” I love it. And I’d say that similarly, “We don’t have a church. We are the Church. We have a building that we meet in.”

So as the Church, may we be called to make disciples of ourselves and one another. May we embody a living sanctuary—a walking, talking, working, loving community of God’s sacred presence wherever we go. And may we put out into the deepest waters we can find, inviting others to join us in the mystery of God’s love there.

Inexplicable blog hiatus

This is my first blog post in over a month. The reason? Good question. My last post was June 8th, and as I look back, I can't see anything major that week other than a sub-par round of golf (and in this case, sub-par means way over par) surrounded by a handful of regular old summery days. Chalk it up to summer doldrums? Anyway, I'm back on the horse today, beginning with this post. I'll also catch up with some recent sermons and an evotional or two. Thanks for stopping by and I'll promise to stay on track. Really. I will.