The Rev. Curtis Almquist
St. Margaret's Episcopal Church & School
Judges 6:11-24a | Psalm 85 | Corinthians 15:1-11 | Luke 5:1-11 Luke 5:111
Once while Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. He 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." Simon answered, "Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets." When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, "Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!" For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken; and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, "Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people." When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.
There's the marvelous image about God's love for us in this gospel lesson appointed for today: that we are caught up in God's love, like with a fishing net that has been let down into the deep water, to the depths of our soul. We are netted by God's love. Now I'll have to tell you that I grew up in the Midwest in a town along the Mississippi River _ Moline, Illinois _ and so I can't help but read this gospel lesson about God's fishing for us except through the lens of my own life's experience (which is something that we all do). And I have experience fishing in deep water, and with nets. And I know what it is to haul up a net-full… of Mississippi River catfish, and Northern Pike, and an old rubber boot, and folding lawn chair… all in one net-full! Fishing nets are not very discriminating _ they're much less precise than fishing hooks _ and in a net you can haul in a catch that is quite an assortment. Which I think is Jesus' point. We are netted by God's love. And you need only look around at the church _ not just here at St. Margaret's but to look around the world and down through the centuries _ to see the extraordinary diversity of people who have been netted by Jesus: from princes to paupers, young and old, from the most solemn of Russian Orthodox believers, to the most charismatic of Brazilian Pentecostals, from those who are the happiest and healthiest and wealthiest, to those who are in the deepest of grief, whose bodies or souls are wrought with pain, who live in abject poverty…. Down through the centuries and across the cultures of the world Jesus has netted quite a catch of people who call themselves "Christians."
And as different as we all are from one another, one thing we have in common is love. I would say it's our need to be loved, our need to be loved by God. And I want to tell you something: God does love you. And I could call God's love for you "unconditional love." I'll tell you what I mean, what I believe, most of whom I don't know at all. And yet I'll stake my life on this. That God has this passionate love affair going on with you. God has created you as you are.1 God knows you, who you were and who you are. God cherishes you. God longs for your companionship. In God's scheme of things, God has plans for a relationship with you that lasts forever, a relationship which only grows in intimacy over the years. It's like an eternal infatuation. You're always on God's mind: when you're sleeping, God is dreaming up ways to be with you. When you're working or walking or weeping, God is catching up with you in the wind across your face, in the call of a bird, in the free-fall of laughter, in the soothing touch of a friend. God's wooing you, wanting you, whispering love ballads into your ear.2 You are the apple of God's eye.3 Whoever you are, really; what you are, where you are, however it is that you've become the way you are... God knows and God desires and God loves. God can't get enough of you. You make God's day! _ I would say that's true, and true for all of us here. God does love you, and God's love for you knows no end. I said a moment ago that we could call God's love for us all as "unconditional love." But I don't think that's the best word for it. I think it might be more accurate to call God's love for us as "conditional love." (I may be playing a bit with words here, but life is inescapably full of conditions and predicaments and situations, and God's love for us isn't theoretical or cloned, it's very real and very personal.4
God's love for us is "conditional." Here's what I mean…. The parents to whom we were born: whether we were desired by them, whether they had enough money or space or time or patience to raise us. How their love for us was informed by their own needs and desires. Whether our upbringing was, for us, an experience of liberation or of incarceration. Whether we learned about courage or shame or joy or perseverance or fear or patience from our earliest days was very much informed by the conditions in which we were raised. The effect our siblings (or absence of siblings) had on us; teachers, coaches, military officers, pastors, relatives, neighbors, co-workers, friends, all of them sharing in our formation or, perhaps in some ways, tragically, in our deformation. Our experiences of joy and forgiveness, of sickness and health, of acclamation and success, of justice and cruelty, of favoritism and prejudice. Our experiences of what was dependably old and what was excitingly new... in the tiniest and in the greatest of ways. Our experience of knowing or searching for a home or dwelling place, for a place to be safe and to belong; our occasions to travel into worlds otherwise unknown. Those are the conditions in which we have experienced life, through which we must survive and ultimately thrive, we pray. Those are the kind of conditions _ often times less than ideal _ but that's life, and it is a real and it's quite an adventure.
And the reason I'm more fascinated with these "conditions" for knowing God's love is because of Jesus who comes to us, stooping down to us at our own level. We're no longer talking only about a God of the Law, whose ways were unknowable, whose face was unseeable, whose name was unpronounceable, whose heart and hands were untouchable, but Jesus who entered the conditions of this world as an innocent and needy child, just as we have, to reveal the real presence of God's love. God Emmanuel: God with us, not just God above us or beyond us, but God with us. God with you in the conditions and in the relationships in which you have known life, past and present. We are loved by Jesus, not despite our history but in light of our history. God loves you. God loves you. So I want to go back to this picture of fishing that we hear about in today's Gospel lesson. Jesus uses the metaphor of a fishing net, our net worth in God's eyes is beyond calculation: it's infinite and eternal… and it's very personal. And this is where the metaphor of fish and a fishing net isn't quite a big enough metaphor. Because we're not just passively netted by God's love; we respond to it, those of us who do. Now I don't know most of you at all. But this is what I will guess. The reason that you have responded to God's love for you is not because you are so bright, not because you are so gifted or successful or eloquent. How God has caught your attention is not because you are so handsome, so disciplined, so healthy, so secure; it's not because of your glittering image. I suspect that God's love has "hooked you" because something is broken in your life _ something about the conditions of your past or your present that is broken or incomplete or vacuous. That break has been God's entry point. That break is God's break, God's breakthrough to you. The Gospel tells us that Jesus has come "to seek and to save the lost" _ lost childhoods, lost chances, lost hopes, lost relationships, lost needs... and to love us back to life.5 Someone has said that the Gospel _ the good news _ is bad news before it is good news. The bad news is that our lives our incomplete and perhaps even unmanageable without the God who created us. The good news is that God knows it. God knows you. And God love you. And this is not just good news. This is terrific news!
There's an old adage that says, "Love is blind." It's not true. It's quite the opposite. Love sees beyond the moment, beyond the surface, deep inside the other, what could be called "insight," seeing through the eyes of mercy. Which is how God loves you. Who you are, where you are, how you are, why ever it is you've gotten to be the way you are, God knows, God desires, God loves.
One last fishing story. This is actually a story, 700 or so years old, told by a Dominican Friar named Meister Eckhart.6 He says, "God lies in wait for us with nothing so much as love.
Now love is like a fishhook. A fisher cannot catch a fish unless the fish first picks up the hook. If the fish swallows the hook, no matter how it may squirm and turn, the fisher is certain of the fish. Love is the same way. Whoever is captured by love takes up this hook in such a fashion that foot and hand, mouth and eyes, heart and all that is in that person must always belong to God. Therefore, look only for this fishhook, and you will be happily caught. The more you are caught, the more you will be liberated."
Be caught by the love God has for you… and for everyone else in the net. It's real, and it's forever. Who you are, what you are, however it is that you've gotten to be the way you are, God knows, God desires, God loves. God does love you. It's the truth.
1 Note Psalm 139, which paints a beautiful word picture of our formation in God's heart and eyes.
2 From Jeremiah's prophecy (29:11) "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."
3 Psalm 17:8 "Guard me as the apple of the eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings…"
4 Isaiah 43:1-3 "But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior…"
5 Paraphrased from Luke 19:10 "…For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost."
6 Meister Eckhart (c. 1260-1327), German born, who entered the Order of Preachers (the Dominicans) around age fifteen. He became a popular preacher at Strasbourg and Cologne, a prominent theme being the union between the human soul and God.