I heard a joke years ago about a fisherman who walked past a game warden with an overflowing line of fish over his back.  The game warden said, “Wow, that’s a lot of fish.  Where'd you get them?"  The fisherman said, "Come with me, and I'll show you." 

He took the game warden out in his boat, took a stick of dynamite out of his pack, lit it, and threw it in the water.  After a big shuddering blast, dozens of fish floated up to the surface. 

Appalled, the game warden said, "That's the most illegal way of catching fish I’ve ever seen! You're coming with me." 

The fisherman fired up another stick of dynamite, tossed it to the game warden and said, “Look buddy, ya gonna talk or you gonna fish?” (Bass Mitchell, Found at Lindy Black’s sermon nuggets web site http://home.twcny.rr.com/lyndale/EPIPHANY%205C.htm).

I don’t know about you, but I feel a bit like that game warden right now. My faith and this moment feel as volatile and dangerous as a lit fuse. No matter what I do or don’t do, I’m afraid we’re heading for destruction. I’m not really sure how to use the power I’ve been given.

And all the fear and anxiety in the air and in my mind is slowing me down. It’s inhibiting my ability to think straight. Apparently I’m not a fight or flight or fawn kind of person. In times of extreme stress, I think I freeze.

So honestly, all I really want to do right now is let God know that this reality we are living in is not the one I signed up for. I just want to get the heck out of this boat we’re all in, go home, and pull the covers up over my head. Anyone with me on that? Yeah. I get it, I do. Unfortunately, I don’t think Jesus is going to let us off the hook that easily.  (Wink. See what I did there?)

So I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling especially empathetic toward Peter this morning.

I may be projecting here, but I think it is safe to assume that Peter is tired too. After all, he’s been out in his boat all night putting in the work and yet has nothing to show for it.

He has already given up, at least for the time being. He’s cleaned his nets and docked his craft. All he really wants to do now is call it a day, go home, and hit the hay, when Jesus, overwhelmed by the crowd that has gathered to hear him preach, asks if he can borrow Peter’s boat. Peter consents and agrees to sit there for a little while longer and at least listen to whatever it is Jesus has to say.

But Jesus never leaves it at that, does he? No he does not.

Jesus finishes his sermon and then asks Peter to push off into deep water.

And Peter pushes back: “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing.”

Peter is happy to keep talking. But not Jesus. Jesus wants to fish.

“(Alright,) if you say so, I will let down the nets,” says Peter. And that, my friends, that is when all heaven breaks loose.  Peter heads back out, lets down his net, and is immediately overwhelmed by more fish than he can handle. James and John come out to help and they barely make it back to shore with the haul.

At which point Peter falls on his knees before Jesus and says:

“Wow that was awesome. Let’s do that again!” ?

No.

Peter falls on his knees before Jesus and says: “Get away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!”

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but that’s kind of a weird response for a fisherman, wouldn’t you say?

You’d think a large catch would have Peter dancing for joy, praising God, or at the very least ditching James and John and offering Jesus a 50% share in the business. But no. Peter’s response to this miraculous catch is nothing but STONE. COLD. FEAR.

Peter is scared because it is clear from this miracle that Jesus is a holy man of God, and Peter has been to synagogue enough to know that whenever God goes fishing it is not to save people but to judge them (thanks to saltproject.org for this info). And in the Hebrew Bible, God goes fishing….a lot!

Friends, to truly understand this passage you need to know that Hebrew prophets like Jeremiah, Amos, Ezekiel, and Habakkuk all make references to God sending out fisherman to catch the wayward - hook, line, and sinker - and haul them away to be punished for their sins. (See Jeremiah 16:16-18, Amos 4:1-2, Ezekiel 29:3, , Habakkuk 1:18-20).

“But now, I will send for many fishermen" says God to Jeremiah, ”…and they will catch (all those Israelites who have disobeyed me)…. My eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from me, nor is their sin concealed from my (sight) (16:16-17).

The time is surely coming upon you,” warns Amos,“when they shall take you away with hooks, even the last of you with fishhooks.

Peter would have been raised with that warning from Habakkuk (1:14-20) ringing in his ears. You know, that one about the enemy bringing you up with a hook, dragging you out with his net, and rejoicing over your poor sad carcass? No. Well in all fairness it down’t really fit on a mug or look that great on the cover of a prayer journal.

Which really just reinforces my point. Peter would not have had warm fuzzy feelings associated with the idea of God as a fisherman.

With God as a shepherd, sure. With God as a nursing mother, an eagle, a rock: absolutely. But God with access to nets and hooks? No. Not so much.

Because, you see, Peter knows he is a sinful man. The last thing he wants is for God to know it too. But here is the first piece of good news in this story - God already does. God knows that Peter is anything but worthy, which means that Jesus does too. And yet Jesus invites Peter and James and John to let go of their fear, drop their nets, and join him in fishing for people.

Now if you’ve been raised in the church, this idea of becoming “fishers of men” or “catching people” sounds like straight up evangelism, doesn’t it? You know, sharing the good news with people so they can believe in Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior and go to heaven when they die. But that’s not really what’s going on here.

Nor, for those of you keeping score at home, is that the gospel that Jesus preached. But I’ll come back to that. For now, I just want to say that if you look more carefully at any one of those passages from the prophets, you’ll notice that the people being caught and judged are not on the hook for failing to believe the right thing but for failing to do the right thing.

The prophets are calling the Israelites out for enriching themselves at the expense of the poor, abusing their power, perpetrating violence, and distorting the truth. Just listen to the cry of Habakkuk (1:1-4) that led God to go fishing when he was prophet over Israel:

How long, O Lord, must I call for help,    but you do not listen?Or cry out to you, “Violence!”    but you do not save?

Why do you make me look at injustice?    Why do you tolerate wrongdoing?Destruction and violence are before me;    there is strife, and conflict abounds.

Therefore the law is paralyzed,    and justice never prevails.The wicked hem in the righteous,    so that justice is perverted.

Sound Familiar? Yeah, it sounds an awful lot like what we see happening all around us right now, and you need to know that Peter and his friends would have felt as frustrated as Habakkuk by the abuse of power they were laboring under as well.

As provincial Jewish fisherman under the thumb of the Roman empire, Peter, James, and John were part of an underclass of working poor who could not get ahead no matter how hard they tried because of ever increasing taxes, tolls, and tariffs applied by the rich to make themselves richer.

These fisherman were subjects, not even citizens, and yet they still had to fork over a huge percentage of their profits; much of which went to fund the very armed forces that would crush them with impunity if they dared to resist. They lived in a world of grotesque income inequality under the ever present threat of those whose wealth, power, and privilege knew no bounds.

Jesus, then, is not so much inviting these fisherman to join him in saving souls for heaven, but inviting them to join him in catching the attention of the people as a whole, the better to call out the unjust and oppressive system in which they were all caught up in here on earth.

But, and this is important, Jesus is calling people to account while also proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favor, the Jubilee: a time when all debts are forgiven, everyone holds everything in common, and the fields are left unharvested by any one owner so everyone can take and eat freely.

Remember all those fish left on the beach? Like all of Jesus’ miracles, those fish were a sign of God’s grace and abundance, God’s love and provision.

Between those fish and Jesus’ earnest appeal to Peter to not be afraid, Jesus is letting them all know that he has not come to catch people in their sin in order to punish them, but catch people  up in order change them - which is what repentance is all about - change them for the better.

In Jesus, justice and mercy meet. Jesus wants to set everyone free from a way of life that benefits a few at the cost of the many in order to get them all hooked on a new vision of how we can live and love in this world.

That’s what Jesus was most likely preaching about in Peter’s boat, because that’s what Jesus was always preaching about: “repent, for the kingdom of God has drawn near!” That is the gospel! I have no doubt that he was casting a vision of God’s will being done here on earth as it is in heaven while he floated a little way off shore.

Preaching the good news that we don’t have to live this way for one moment longer. We can change. We can build a new kind of kingdom where we love and forgive and care for one another in the here and now the way we imagine we will all love, forgive, and care for one another in the hereafter.

Jesus is essentially taking the old fishing trope of judgment and turning it upside down and inside out, turning an idea that was once a threat - God’s going to catch you if you don’t do what is right - into a glorious invitation - God’s going to catch and release you into a whole new way of life so we can all do what is right.

And Jesus wants Peter, James, and John - 3 worn down and world weary fisherman - to help him get the word out! Not because they are worthy, but because they know what it is to suffer at the bottom of an exploitative system.

Not for their eloquence, but for their compassion. Not for their boundless energy or expertise - because frankly they are probably as exhausted and clueless about how to change the world as we are - but for their faith in Jesus; a faith that simply believes that a better world is not only possible, but as close as our willingness to live it into being.

And friends, I believe that same faith in a better world is alive and well here among us. I know our hearts are breaking just like Habakkuk’s at all the callous, careless, and cruel ways power is being wielded all around us.

And I know that speaking truth to those in power, defying those in power, and resisting every abuse of their power, could become dangerous. About as dangerous as fishing with dynamite.

In the days ahead, it will be a whole lot easier to sit in the boat and listen to what Jesus has to say or get out of the boat entirely and run home to bed, than it will be to sail with him out into deep water.

It will be a whole lot easier to come up with reasons why we are not ready or worthy to follow in his way, than it will be to set those reasons aside and follow anyway. 

The truth is, we are wise to be cautious. But friends, if Jesus calls, I also believe we would be fools to remain behind.

So heads up. Backs straight. Ground yourself like we did at the beginning of worship and do not be afraid. For I believe our time is coming.

I don’t think it’s a question of if anymore. I really think it’s only a matter of when.

In the days ahead, I believe Jesus, in one way or another, will be stepping into our boats and asking us to push off into deep water too.

When he does, are you gonna talk or are you gonna fish?