Broadway Christian Church · Columbia, Missouri

Morning Worship · February 4, 2007

Fifth Sunday After Epiphany

Prayer of the Day

Lord, our strength is unequal to the tasks you have set before us.  In this hour of worship, come, we pray, and speak to us, reassure us, enable us, empower us.  Indeed, thanks be to you, O God, for you always do for us more than we can do for ourselves.  Amen.

Scripture

Luke 5:1-11

So it was, as the multitude pressed about him to hear the word of God, he stood by the Lake of Gennesaret and saw two boats standing nearby the lake, but the fishermen had gone from them and were washing their nets.  Then he got into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, and asked him to put out a little from the land.  He sat down and taught the multitudes from the boat.

When he had stopped speaking, he said to Simon, “Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.”

Simon answered and said to him, “Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing.  Nevertheless, at your word I will let down the net.”

When they had done this, they caught a great number of fish, and their net was breaking.  So they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them.  They came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.

When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!”  For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish which they had taken, and so also were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. 

Then Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid.  From now on you will catch people.”

Message

More Than We Can Do For Ourselves

Rick Frost

Some of you know this is one of my favorite passages, because it always leads into something so easy for me to talk about.  Starting the first week in March, just 30 days from today, various folks of like mind and spirit are going to pack various precious gear into cars and vans at about 5 a.m., drive two hours and fourteen minutes to a cold Missouri stream where browns lurk and rainbows reign.  You tie something lovely called the “preacher’s passion” on to a seven-inch tippet, which is about the diameter and flexibility of a human hair, and you practice the art of fly-fishing.

Norman Maclean, in his wonderful book, A River Runs Through It, says this is what is sometimes called “grace.”  For many of us, grace and fly-fishing are the same thing.  The book is a classic piece.  Some of you have read it.  Maybe you’ve seen the movie.  Maclean talks about his Scottish-Presbyterian-minister father.  He says:

“My father was very sure about certain matters pertaining to the universe.  To him, all good things – trout as well as eternal salvation – come by grace and grace comes by art and art does not come easy.”

“He told us about Christ’s disciples being fishermen, and we were left to assume, as my brother and I did, that all first-class fishermen on the Sea of Galilee were fly fishermen and that John, the favorite, was a dry-fly fisherman.”

Twenty-nine days, eighteen hours, fifty-two minutes.  But who’s counting?

Today, folks, is the Fifth Sunday of Epiphany.  It is the Sunday that Christians all over the world look for signs, look for manifestations, look for clues to God’s power and transforming presence made manifest, made visible, made available to all who will receive it in Christ Jesus.

In today’s gospel story we find Jesus by the Sea of Galilee.  His popularity has increased immeasurably.  It’s off the charts.  People have come from near and far to hear him, as Luke says, “teach and preach the word of God.”  How good it is to see so many who are so clearly hungry for a word of truth, for a word of hope, for a word of unconditional love in today’s world and every day’s world and how those people respond so positively.  There are so many they are pressing in on him, says Luke.  They are pushing him and crowding him on every side.  They seem to want to get closer and closer to maybe be able to hear, maybe to see, perhaps to touch, or, even more importantly, possibly to be touched.  There are so many that this master of the Word must get in a boat and pull away a little bit from the shore, so that he can continue to teach, to preach, so that he can be heard.

It always amazes me to see the sheer number of people in our community, in our world, who want to hear the word of God taught and preached, and are more than receptive to the transforming faith that Jesus offers to all who are willing to receive it.

Then, according to Luke in this remarkable story, Jesus, the master of the word of God, becomes Jesus, the master fisherman.  We, who are so often people who feel powerless in the face of the forces of nature, paralyzed sometimes over the prevailing political arrangement, impotent in the face of our own failures, not to mention the impact that the failures of people who are in very significant places create for us…  We, who so often feel debilitated by experiencing weakness, sickness, injuries, and ultimately, of course, all of us feeling totally powerless in the face of death… We are the people who are thrilled, who are overjoyed, who are electrified to see, to witness, to behold the unveiling, the awesome, mystical, mysterious, unmanageable, uncontrollable power of Jesus.  It’s right there in the text.  “Let down your nets.  No.  Not there.  Over here.”  They do.  Bingo!  More fish than they know what to do with.

It’s an epiphany.  It’s always part of the Scriptures at this time of the year.  It’s a sign.  It’s a clue.  It’s just a clue.  It’s just a sign of what’s to come.  It’s just a sign of the power of the Spirit of the Christ. 

“Don’t worry,” he says.  “There’s nothing to worry about.  From now on, you’ll be fishing for men and women.”  We are given our assignment right then and there.

Now, I don’t know about you folks, but when I think about spiritual power, when I think of the power of Jesus Christ, it stirs, quite frankly, the depth of my soul, and at the same time, scares the living daylights out of me.  You know what I’m talking about.

The fact is, it’s there.  It faces us here today.  Today’s text finds Jesus bringing us face to face with the power of the Living God.

The question today: Do you really want to be this close?  Do you really want to encounter this much of the Living Spirit of God?  How much can you handle?

You probably haven’t met Gay Reese yet, but you will.  Gay is a member of Broadway, even though she does not live here.  She works and lives elsewhere.  For the past four years Gay has been traveling all over this country doing research on evangelism in mainline churches.  That’s what we are – a mainline church.  It’s a project that’s been funded by the Lily Endowment; the same folks who we help fund something called the Bethany Project.  We’ve talked about that.  It’s very important.  That research has produced this book.  It’s called Unbinding the Gospel.  It’s well titled.  It came out just a couple of months ago.  It’s already in its second printing.  Gay’s going to be here in a couple of months to tell us more about it.  I’m going to tell you a little bit about it today.

It’s about the “E” word.  You know what the “E” word is.  Don’t you?  The “E” word is “evangelism.”  The “E” word scares us mainline people half to death.  Folks, evangelism is something Christians do.  It is anything you do, I do, that we do together to help another person move closer and closer into a possible relationship with God and into the community of Christ.  It’s the “E” word. 

The problem with us mainliners is that it’s an “E” word, because we’re just not very good at it.  We’re not very comfortable with it.  Just the word “evangelism”…  I said it.  I could see the cringes.  It causes the majority of us to get queasy.  It conjures up all kinds of bad images.  You know: tent revivals, and saw dust, and crusades, and Bible thumpers, and Tammy Faye Baker (Oh, my gosh!), and that family dressed up on Saturday, like they should be there on Sunday, walking up your sidewalk to your door with a pamphlet in one hand and a Bible in the other.  It’s ugly.  It’s queasy.  It causes a little vomit in your throat.  It’s scary!

But Reese has discovered a very important thing about something for us mainliners.  She has discovered that all this garbage that has collected itself and attached itself to the “E” word can actually be washed off.  Isn’t that interesting?  She says it can be washed off if you and I as mainliners are willing, first, to spend some time thinking about why it matters if you are a Christian.   Does it matter?  Why does it matter that you’re a part of the Body of Jesus Christ?  Why does it matter that you are connected with and are a significant part of this community of faith at Broadway?  What difference does it make to you?  And if – now, I’m not sure that it’s true for everybody – but if it does, in matter, if it does in fact make a difference to you, have you any idea?  Do you have any grasp?  Do you have any notion about how that could actually make a difference for some other man, woman, or child?  How would it affect, positively, their life to become a follower of Jesus and part of the community of faith?

You see… The key issue is not that we need more people.  We don’t really need more people.  We don’t need more children.  We don’t need more youth.  That’s not the issue.  The issue is what difference does being a Christian – does being a follower of Jesus and part of his community of faith – make in your life?  What does being a part of this community of faith mean to you and to your family?

We have to understand.  We have to be able to articulate.  We have to be able to know why it matters to be a Christ follower.  That’s first.  That’s foremost.  That’s number one.  When we know why then we can talk about how.  Then we can talk about how we can help other folks enter, meet, find, know, come in, welcome.  We have some things.  We have some very exciting, thrilling things to learn about fishing for men and women, boys and girls.  That’s our number one priority.  That’s our job description.  That’s what we do.

Now, I hear some of you say, “You know… Gosh, gee.  Thank you.  I’ve got other gifts.  I’m sorry.  I just can’t do that.”  And you know what?  You’re right.  I know you can’t do that.  I can’t do that, but here’s the good news today.  The good news today is that God has made a promise that says God can do it through you if you’re to allow it, for God can do things for us that we simply cannot do for ourselves.

Didn’t Jesus tell his disciples that they were going to fish for men and women, boys and girls?  Didn’t he tell his disciples that after he left, the Spirit would come, and they would do greater things than he had done himself?  Didn’t he say that?  “What you agree together in prayer, God will do for you.” 

Folks, things change.  Things happen when people surrender time, and decisions, and choices to the Spirit of the Living God.  That’s what we have to learn.  You and I get to decide whether we are willing to do that, whether we are going to let God work through me, work through us together to do some amazing things that simply will not, cannot, be done on our own.  When that happens, according to the witness of the Church, the Church no longer becomes just a place where we meet on Sundays.  It isn’t the ticket you punch to meet new clients or to make some new contacts.  It’s no longer the place you go weekly just to get a little encouragement so you can get practical help to get you through this next five or six days of your week.  That’s not what we’re to do here.

No!  It’s about a relationship.  It’s about a spiritual relationship with the Living God.  The Church has taught us that relationship ignites some things.  It ignites faith, and it ignites hope and love.  It instigates growth in things like joy, and peace, and patience, and kindness, and goodness, and gentleness, and self-control – those wonderful fruits of the Spirit.  It gets you thinking extraordinary thoughts, new thoughts, thoughts you don’t think about elsewhere about self-surrender, and the healing of your bodies, and your minds, and your souls, and your addictions, and our marriages, and our families, and our communities, indeed, our nations.  It gets us thinking about things like health, and wholeness, and compassion, and caring, and serving others – things that you and I do not do simply because we cannot do them on our own.

It’s about life.  It’s about real life.  It’s not about stuff that’s not life.  It’s about stuff you and I deal with everyday.  Folks, if your faith and your church have made a difference in your life… If it’s changed anything in your life… If it has made your life any better… Don’t you just want to share what you’ve experienced and discovered with others?  You want!  You don’t have to.  You want everyone to know, if you know this, that God really loves us extravagantly, and not just us, but all.  You want people to know.  You want people to know that God will overwhelm any person’s soul with amazing grace to wash away the dirt, the grime, the stuff that gets in people’s lives.  You just want people to know that.  Now, that is, if you know that.

You want people to understand there’s no resentment, there’s no bitterness, there’s no act, there’s no fear, there’s no wound, there’s no illness, there is no loneliness that Christ cannot forgive, dissolve, heal, cure, fill. 

Here’s one I deal with all the time.  You want everybody that you know to know that God – the God of us all – is right there, right here, right now, absolutely ready to lead anyone faced with the end of this life into the life that lasts forever.  He will lead you and take you by your hand through that experience.  You don’t have to do that by yourself or with just your friends, or with just your family.

Folks, there is nothing I know of that is more beautiful, nothing that I know of more potent, nothing more meaningful than that good news.  That’s what we have to unleash.  We’ve sort of been managing it, and controlling it, and keeping it down.  You can’t do it by yourself.  I can’t.  I don’t think we can, but God has made a promise.  God has promised.  God can do it through us if we will allow him to do it.

How many of you were raised in the church?  Hands, please.  You see.  That’s the problem.  You didn’t know there was a problem.  Did you?  One of the wonderful things about being raised in the church is that it has so many good things to offer.  It just comes naturally to us.  It’s just what we do.  It’s like breathing.  It’s no big decision.  It’s not hard.  We just do it.  We’ve been doing it since we can remember. 

One of the things Gay discovered about us mainliners is that most of us were raised in the church.  We were raised with Jesus.  We were raised with the biblical stories, and that’s wonderful.  That’s got all kinds of wonderful plusses.  But you know, there’s a downside.

The downside to that is way, way too many of us have never experienced a change.  We haven’t felt the need to be transformed.  We don’t know what it’s like to really be filthy.  You let me say that?  Yeah, you do.  You know.  I know.  I ran that by the eight o’clock service just to see what would happen.  They laughed.  We’ve sinned plenty.  Haven’t we?

What the “E” word is about is sharing with those who were not raised in the church, those who were not brought up with the biblical story, those who have not encountered the Spirit of the Living God.  They are out there by the millions.  Part of our job description is to share, just simply share.

Do you have anything that is worth sharing?  Has anything happened in your life that matters?  Is there anything about being a part of this community of faith that makes a difference to you and to your family?  We need to share it.  We need to go fishin’, and we do it with Jesus.

And we all say together… “Amen.”  

Benediction

Almighty God, we do want to be up-close and personal with you.  Make our hearts not fear the possibilities, rather, encourage them to embrace the probability that with you, we can complete more than we hope or imagine.     Amen.