Year C
 Isaiah 6:1-8
 Psalm 138
 1 Corinthians 15:1-11
 Luke 5:1-11

May the words of my mouth O God…  speak your truth…

Albert Einstein was known…  aside from being a theoretical physicist…  for being a kind of theological philosopher…  and he occasionally offered up some clever…  memorable…  one liners…  he once said…  there are only two ways to live your life…  one is as though nothing is a miracle…  the other is as though everything is a miracle…  he also said that…  insanity is doing the same thing over and over…  and expecting different results…  but when it comes to quantum theory…  what Einstein describes as insanity…  is the way the quantum mechanical world actually works…  because you can do the same thing over and over again…  and get different results…  and that’s exactly the premise with The Large Hadron Collider…  which is the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator…  inside the accelerator…   two high-energy particle beams travel in opposite directions…  at close to the speed of light…   before they are made to collide… and doing the same thing over and over again nets a catch of very different results…  but Einstein also believed in an underlying order to creation…  and once said…  God does not play dice…  yet when we play dice…  we act out the very premise of Einstein’s insanity…  we do the same thing over and over…  that is we roll the dice…  and with every roll…  we quite reasonably expect different results…  and where this gets legitimately wonky…  is that in science… if you want to prove that your hypothesis is true…  you need to be able to demonstrate over and over again that the same process will yield the same result…  but then there are exceptions…  we can’t cry wolf over and over again…  and expect to be believed when real danger is at the door…  we can’t expect to solve many of the world’s problems using the same solutions that have been used for hundreds…  even thousands of years…  because then…  we will reach an impasse…  and by impasse…  I mean that we reach a point where there’s no way out of…  no way around…  no rational escape from…  what catches or imprisons us…  to summarize what Dorothy FitzGerald wrote…  in a true impasse…  everything we’d typically do fails…  is brought to a standstill…  and we may feel squeezed into a confined space…  and risk giving in to cynicism and despair…  in fact…  the message of all the people in our scriptures today is…  I’m not very good at this…  I don’t think this is working… woe is me! I am lost…  for I am a man of unclean lips…  and I live among a people of unclean lips…  yet my eyes have seen the King…  the Lord of hosts…  I am the least of the apostles…  Paul says… unfit to be called an apostle…  because I persecuted the church of God…  Master… we have worked all night long but have caught nothing…  I’m not very good at this…  I don’t think this is working… 

The fishermen have given up…  experienced fishermen have given up…  they’d been fishing all night long…  and caught nothing…  and at this point…  they must have been tired…  they must have felt disappointed…  maybe even felt some confusion and despair…  but even still…  they were being good stewards of their tools…  they were washing their nets…  and repairing them…  after all…  this was their livelihood…  how they ate and cared for their families…

Jesus was there…  but he was interested…  at least at first…  in teaching the crowd which was pressing in on him…  because they wanted to hear the Word of God…  and Jesus sees two boats…  he gets into the one that belonged to Simon…  maybe a bit presumptuously…  and asks him to put out a little ways so those on the shoreline could better hear him…  John Shea writes…  the crowds had already heard Jesus speak…  their first encounter acquainted them with Jesus’ teaching…  and prepared them for further exploration…  this second deeper encounter brings them a greater realization of what the teaching means…

And so when Jesus finishes teaching the crowds…  he tells Simon to put out into deep water…  and to put down his nets…  and I think this may have been a moment of impasse for Simon…  for Simon…  doing the same thing over and over again has always produced the same results…  nets go in the lake…  fish come out…  but now…  Simon may have said…  or at least have thought to himself…  have you looked in the nets…  have you looked in the boat…  we have caught NOTHING…  YET if you say so…

And I think it’s worth reflecting on…  I think there’s a nugget worth taking…  between…  we’ve been at this all night…  and YET if you say so…  you see… . in Capernaum…  Jesus drives an unclean spirit out of a man in the synagogue…  Jesus has also just healed Simon’s mother-in-law…  so Simon’s experience is increasingly to trust Jesus…

And here’s what else is interesting…  as its owner…  Simon is the captain of his boat…  but the word he speaks to Jesus…  the word that’s translated as Master…  more accurately means Commander…  the one who stands in front…  so perhaps…  in the moment just before Simon said…  YET if you say so…  he turns control not only of his boat…  but of his life…  to Jesus…  and now…  by trying something unprecedented…  by going deeper…  by doing the same thing in a new way…  the impasse he faces is resolved…  and they caught so many fish that the nets were beginning to break…

Episcopal priest The Rev. Canon Whitney Rice…  writes…  perhaps futility is a feeling we can all identify with…  as we’re about to enter the third year of this pandemic…  with ever-growing cultural conflicts… many of us are perilously close to giving up on ourselves and those with whom we disagree… and so Jesus asks us to fish beneath the same assumptions and habits and patterns that we have used before…  to ask ourselves harder questions…  and to give ourselves and others more time and more commitment…

And here’s another distinction our current translation doesn’t reveal…  in v. 4…  when Jesus tells Simon to put out into deeper water and let down the nets for a catch…  the word that’s translated as catch also means hunt…  restrain…  with its implication to kill…  but in v. 10…  when Jesus says…  from now on you will be catching people…  the Greek word that’s translated as catching also means captivating…  alluring…  to take alive…  and give life… 

And again…  to put this all into some further context…  the nets in Simon’s boat were so full they were beginning to break…  and they called to the men on shore to come and help…  and both boats became so full of fish they began to sink…  and as the epiphany of Jesus sinks the boat…  Simon sinks to his knees…  and his response…  as John Shea writes…  reflects the proper attitude for all who happen upon the immensity of God…  the fullness and abundance of divine reality dwarfs him…  and the greatness of the Creator…  and the smallness of the creature go hand in hand…  and so these men…  these fishermen…  leave everything…  and follow Jesus…

Pastor Martin Billmeier writes that in William James’ book…  The Varieties of Religious Experience…  James notes that the primary reason for belief in God among us mortals is the experience of God…  it’s not just about doctrines and correct belief…  it’s also about knowing that God is there for us…  so here is Isaiah with his experience of God in the Temple…  here is the psalmist who has experienced God as helping in a time of trouble…  here is St. Paul on the road to Damascus experiencing and seeing Jesus…  and here is Peter experiencing his smallness in Jesus’ presence…

And after their experiences…  Isaiah knows he is called to preach to the people… following hers…  the psalmist can compose an ode to God’s greatness for helping those who are down and out…  Paul’s life turns on a dime as he feels called to become one of those he had persecuted…  and Peter…  Simon Peter…  after his experience of overflowing abundance…  follows Jesus…  and his life will never be the same…

So I wonder…  by what things…  or assumptions…  or habits…  or patterns of thought or behavior…  are we caught…  in a way which restrains us and keeps the abundance we desire beyond our reach…  and by what kind of self-emptying vulnerability can we be caught by the Word of God…  how do we put Jesus in the front of our boats…  so that we too can find abundance in our own depths…  so that we too can follow Jesus…  and so that we experience everything…  as miracle…