February 26, 2006
Reverend
Jim Wood Sermon
“Putting Out To The Deep ”
Luke 5: 1-11
Sunday Worship Service
February 26, 2006
“Putting Out to the Deep”
Luke 5:1-11
The story is told about a country boy who finally had an opportunity to see the circus. His father gave him the price of admission when he learned it was coming, and told him to ride the horse to town. He arrived about noon, but already crowds had gathered. The boy hitched his horse, made his way through the people and saw, coming down the street, a sight beyond his wildest dreams. He was enthralled by what he saw: camels, prancing horses, decorated ponies, acrobats tumbling in the street, elephants, brass bands and wagon after wagon of wild animals. Finally, bringing up the rear of the parade were six clowns walking from one side of the street to the other. The tallest clown extended his open hand to the crowd as he went by. The boy, thinking that this was the time to pay his money, took out what his father had given him and put it in the hand of the clown, who bowed in regal splendor and moved on. When the parade ended, the crowd scattered and the boy rode home thrilled by the experience.
Later, however, he met a friend who had seen the real circus under the big tent, not just the parade from the sidewalk. Listening to his friend describe the breathtaking maneuvers of the acrobats on the high wires, the marvelous wild animal show and the hilarious antics of the clowns—slowly, but surely, it began to dawn upon the young country boy that he had not seen the circus at all. While he was pleased with what he had seen, he was no longer satisfied knowing all that he had missed.
I share this story for two reasons. First, and this is not commonly known (I don’t even think Rev. Larry’s aware of this), I used to work for the circus, and I’m not talking about being on staff for our annual conference. No, I mean a real circus—the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey circus—for one day! I was about ten or eleven years old when the circus came to San Diego, and I decided to go down early and try to get a job hauling water for the elephants, or something like that, for the price of admission to the sideshow and the main show under the big tent. I was hired, along with several other older boys, and I worked all morning for the two tickets. I remember the man who hired us saying, “Boys, one of these days you’ll be able to tell your grandchildren that you worked for the Greatest Show on Earth!” Now you know why Rev. Tony calls me a clown.
The second reason, and more important, is this: it seems to me to be both amazing and sad that countless persons today experience life as the parade from the sidewalk and suppose that’s all there is. They live their entire lives in half worlds of minimum satisfactions and partial fulfillment. Not believing God for all they could be and do, they sell themselves short.
In our Scripture lesson this morning, set on the sea of Gennesaret ( Galilee), Simon Peter and his fishing partners, James and John, are washing their nets when Jesus gets into their boat to speak to the people. When he finishes his teaching, Jesus suggests to Peter that his fishing might have been more productive had he known where to cast his nets. Jesus says, “Put out into the deep, and let down your nets for a catch.” Peter replies, “Master, we’ve worked all night long but have caught nothing! Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.” So he drops his nets in the water, and they are filled and overflowing.
Now, we can interpret this event several ways, but the significant thing is that because of this experience these men who had fished for fish now became fishers of people. This story also shows something of how life works out for us as well.
Some have labored for years only to find that life is not productive for them. They’ve fished in the shallows, and they’ve caught nothing. Someone once said that the best way to make a distinction between drudgery, work and play is by a person’s attitude when they leave home for work in the morning. If they don’t anticipate their work in advance and don’t enjoy it when they do it, then it’s drudgery. If they anticipate the day with a great deal of expectation but find it hard going when they get there, then it’s work. But if they anticipate it with joy and work at it with joy because it’s something for them to do as a gift from God, then it really becomes play. Many, though, have never discovered this joy and they live in unending boredom related to their work or profession.
Others have fished in the waters of this life and haven’t found meaningful friendship. An advertisement in the classified ad section of the newspaper read, “I’ll listen to you for five dollars an hour.” Well, somebody out there is aware of the fact that there are lonely people who just need to talk and be heard, but who feel shut out—who feel that no one cares for them.
Others become involved in the great “grab game” of life and wonder why it is they don’t succeed in terms of inner happiness and joy. They wonder why they’re unhappy when they live as little bundles of selfishness.
Still others play away at life, thinking they can pick from it all the joys that are there for the taking. But it doesn’t work out that way at all. If that were true, then the happiest people would be our wealthiest people. Of course, some are very happy because they’ve discovered some other things that go along with material gain. But those who haven’t discovered this have no guarantee of happiness in their material wealth.
And so it’s here that the word of Jesus says something most significant and helpful to all of us. He said to Peter, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” And when Peter did, his nets were filled. If our lives are to be filled with the significance God intends, if we are to experience the “abundant life” as Jesus said we could, then we need to take seriously His word about “putting out to the deep.” Let’s look, then, at three important aspects of what this means.
First, to discover real meaning in life we must do some deep thinking about Christ—about who He is and what He means to and for human life . Thinking is an extremely important exercise. To sit quietly in some place and ponder the great realities that are part of human existence is very worthwhile. George Bernard Shaw once said, “Few people think more than two or three times a year, and I’ve made an international reputation by thinking once or twice a week.” Well, if we could think once or twice a week about what matters most, it would make a difference.
The trouble is we often let others do our thinking for us. Were the people who gathered around Jesus already so conditioned by the packaged propaganda of their time that His word couldn’t break through that shell around their lives to reach their hearts? That could be our problem. Now, I think its all right to be an honest doubter—especially when it comes to some things the world throws at us. But note in our Scripture lesson that Jesus didn’t send His disciples off to some other place to find the solution to their problems. He told them to put out into the deep and let their nets down there. The solution was close by.
If we’re not finding any meaning in life where we are, we’re probably not going to find it some other place. We need to let our nets down where we are, and they’ll be filled. If we could reexamine our lives and open ourselves to what is the fullness of the meaning of God in Jesus Christ, then tremendous things would be coming our way.
That happened once to a woman who was chosen to be the translator of a book written by Emil Brunner. A German theologian, Brunner wrote a book about Christ entitled, The Mediator. Some publishers in America wanted it translated into English, and Brunner agreed if the translator would not only understand the language of the book but the spirit in which it was written. So he was appalled when the publishers revealed that they had chosen a brilliant woman who happened to be an atheist. At first Brunner protested, but the publishers prevailed and she did the translation. When they sent Brunner a copy of the finished work he was greatly pleased, for not only had she been accurate in her interpretation as far as the language was concerned, but she had also communicated the spirit of its meaning. He wrote the woman a letter of appreciation. She wrote back saying that she was the one who needed to express gratitude for in translating his work from German into English, she had learned about Christ and He had become her Lord and Savior. Open your mind to whom Christ is and what His intent is for this world, and it will make an immense difference. Put out into the deep.
Second, to realize the best that life has to offer, we must also choose to be related to Christ . So we open ourselves to the truth about Jesus, those things that belong to Him, and His claims upon our lives—seeing that He is Lord and Savior, and realizing that we cannot save ourselves. Now, I don’t say that every aspect of life has to be related to Christ, but in the most critical aspects of our lives we must be related to Him. We cannot achieve our best without His help. Without His help we simply stumble over ourselves.
What I’m saying is that it does something to people’s lives to be followers of Jesus Christ. Those who trust Him are like great rivers that run quiet and deep. Sit for a while, look around you, and live life as it was meant to be! What you and I have now is a gift. Sit with the Lord and look at the world through His eyes and see it as God has made it. Observe life. Separate from it what is good and what is evil, what is wise and what is foolish. Decide to follow the best with Christ’s help. Relate yourself to Him. Put out into the deep.
Finally, real living—meaningful, heroic living—must include Christ-like living for others in the world . The corridors of authentic living are the ways of love—a love like God’s. This kind of living realizes that we’re not alone and that we have available to us a power to strengthen our lives as we seek to live them out for the sake of others.
Toyohiko Kagawa was a little man, without much strength of body. With one lung gone from tuberculosis, Kagawa was the Japanese Christian who spent years in the Shinkawa slums of Kobe. Doctors here in America told him he couldn’t live, so he went back to Japan and said, “If my life is to be short, then at least it will be full.” He went into the slums, got a little room and there in the stench of the back streets lived among the people. One day he went into the streets to witness and preach. With a small group of people around him he took his favorite text, the love of God. It wasn’t an easy place to preach about the love of God—a dismal street, a dreary day with sleet and rain falling to discourage the small group, and rough men taunting and laughing at the preacher. “The little man,” they said, “and his funny talk about the love of God. What does he know about God or what does anyone know?” It seemed they had the right side of the argument, for even as Kagawa tried to answer them, he coughed, spitting up blood. They laughed again and began pushing him around. “If God loves you, “ one of them scoffed, “why doesn’t He do something for you?” But the persistent little man lifted his arm, wiped the blood from his mouth on his sleeve and went right on with the story about the great love of God in Jesus. Gradually in that cold street their loud voices grew still—for stealing in and on their minds was the realization that right before them was proof of what the man was saying. Kagawa was standing in the cold, spitting blood and yet loving them enough to be standing there doing it with power and strength.
God’s power—the power of love—is found in the moral courage of a person who defends truth and justice and lives out their precepts. God’s power of love is found in a parent that will not give up on a prodigal child; it’s found in the selfless sacrifice of a person captured by a great cause; it’s found in the tender ministry of those who care for the outcast and humiliated, the homeless and powerless. God’s power of love for significant living—moving through persons who are dedicated completely to a purpose that demands our best.
I recently heard, for the first time, a poem that says what I’m trying to say this (evening) morning. It reads like this:
I’m tired of sailing my little boat,
Far inside the harbor bar.
I want to go out where the big ships float,
Out on the deep where the great ones are.
And if my frail craft should prove too slight,
For storms that sweep the billows o’er,
I’d rather go down in a stirring fight
Than drowse to death by the sheltered shore.
Christ calls us, as he did those first disciples, to leave the shallows of this life and to go out where things are deep, where deep thinking and reading and praying and doing are all involved. He commands us to drop our nets there, knowing that when we do our lives will overflow with meaning and joy. Take a chance, put out into the deep! Amen.