All four of the New Testament gospels include an account of Jesus’ anointing, though they differ in details. John tells us that the anointing incident took place six days before Passover, and that the atmosphere was charged with tension: according to John’s gospel, Jesus’ opponents were already plotting to kill him, and pilgrims in Jerusalem were speculating with one another about whether Jesus would come to the city for the festival.
Mark’s accounts of events in Jesus’ life have the authority of having been, chronologically, the earliest recorded, though this isn’t a guarantee of accuracy. In his anointing story, an unnamed woman anoints Jesus’ head with a costly perfume and the disciples, collectively, object to the gesture as wasteful. Jesus silences them, stating that “she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial.” He then goes on to observe that “what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.” Matthew’s account (Matt 26:6-13) is virtually identical to Mark’s. Luke’s gospel includes an anointing story (Lk 7:36-50) but the details are strikingly different. For one thing, Luke doesn’t locate the episode in proximity to Jesus’ death, but rather, cites it as happening earlier in Jesus’ ministry. The most dramatic difference between Mark and Matthew’s version and Luke’s is that the anointer is described as “a woman in the city, who was a sinner.” Instead of anointing Jesus’ head, she abases herself, anointing his feet after bathing them with her tears and drying them with her hair. When the homeowner in Luke’s version criticizes Jesus for allowing himself to be touched by a sinner, Jesus responds by justifying her action as one of gratitude for the forgiveness of her sins. Elizabeth Schussler-Fiorenza, Harvard Professor of Divinity, has written about this transformation in what seems to be a single memory from Jesus’ life: her analysis is pretty compelling. She observes that the anointing of the head is a gesture that has distinct and important symbolic meaning in Jesus’ culture. Noting that in the tradition of the Hebrew scriptures the prophet designates the king by anointing his head, as Samuel did with David, she interprets the anointing in Mark as representing the woman’s prophetic identification of Jesus as the Messiah. Just as Peter had SPOKEN his recognition that “You are the Messiah” (Mt 16:6, Mk 8:29), the anointing woman expressed the same recognition IN ACTION, actually taking on the role of the prophet. Further, Schussler-Fiorenza observes, in pairing the action with oil used at the time of burial, the woman is alone among the disciples in understanding Jesus’ messiahship to be one of suffering and death. “It was a politically dangerous story” for a patriarchal Greco-Roman audience, Schussler-Fiorenza contends, having the woman disciple in the role of prophet and having Jesus specifically lift her up for remembrance. Is it any surprise that her name is lost to us? The memory as told in Mark and Matthew was thus transformed by Luke, Schussler-Fiorenza suggests, into the more acceptable narrative of the woman as sinner.1 When John tells the story of the anointing decades after Mark, Matthew and Luke, as we have heard this morning, he seems to offer the compromise version. John agrees with the tradition that the anointing represents the woman’s preparation of Jesus body for burial, but tells the less controversial story that it is Jesus’ feet that are anointed. He also places the event at the home of Jesus’ friends Mary, Martha and Lazarus, and identifies Mary as the anointing woman, making her attention is a gesture of support: during a week of tension and foreboding, she offers comfort. Some undoubtedly conclude that the differing stories of Jesus’ anointing represent entirely different incidents. Some will choose to conclude that Luke’s version - the woman as forgiven sinner – is the true story. We’ll never know. I hope we don’t dismiss issue, however, as it raises the profoundly important question I began with, that of whose story we choose to hear. Last Fall we selected as an “all-parish read” Ibram Kendi’s Stamped from the Beginning. Similarly, a number of us joined in Sacred Ground “listening circles” in a curriculum prepared by the Episcopal Church. Both opportunities provided me with information about the complex realities of race and racism in the American Story that I did not encounter in my time spent in mainstream white American educational institutions. For the record, I do not accept every word Kendi wrote as “gospel”: there are points on which I reach different conclusions than he did. Kendi, however, and the Sacred Ground material and other resources I have sought out have certainly lifted a curtain that the culture we live in prefers for me not to peek behind. It’s been said that “history is written by the victors”. I don’t think we can ignore the fact that those who hold the power and authority in a community shape the flow of information. We will always do well to seek out multiple sources so that we can make our own choices about what to believe and what to be shaped by. *** But I want to return to John’s account of the anointing, because it also lifts up for us the hard question of the limitations of our seeing and hearing. In all of the gospels, Jesus repeatedly informs the disciples traveling with him of what awaits him in Jerusalem. He is often very specific. Here’s one of many of Jesus’ predictions, from Luke: Then he took the twelve aside and said to them, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. For he will be handed over to the Gentiles; and he will be mocked and insulted and spat upon. After they have flogged him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise again.” (Lk 18:31-33) Repeatedly, as we know, the disciples could not hear it. Luke goes on in the passage I just read to tell us that “they understood nothing about all these things.” Peter, in fact, was vehement in criticizing Jesus for making such disturbing predictions, and was in turn rebuked by Jesus for doing so. How often and how easily do we reject what others tell us about their realities, often enough because we don’t want to face the uncomfortable feelings their situations stir up in us? I have a childhood friend whose husband died a couple of weeks ago and this week she posted on social media a piece, versions of which I’m sure we’ve all seen, about what is helpful and what is not helpful to say to someone who is grieving. Her post spoke to the impulse we all have ask others not to feel bad, or at least, not to make us feel bad. In the case of “the twelve”, it’s pretty easy to see that in their hope for a messiah who would be triumphant in conquering the powers that produced suffering for their people, they were blinded and deafened to the truth that Jesus was trying to teach them, that sacrificial love is the way to peace. When we read and remember the accounts of Jesus’ Passion, I am always thinking about how lonely it must have been for him. But one of the disciples, whether it was Mary of Bethany or someone else, was able to hear what the others could not. She had heard and she believed that Jesus’ death and burial were approaching. She managed to get beyond “what not to say” when another is grieving, and she offered touch, and silent solace. I am not inviting us to feel guilty for all of the times and ways in which we haven’t heard what we ought to hear, the times when we insist on imposing our version of reality over what we are told about another person’s more difficult reality. I do invite us to work at being honest about our capacity to do these things, however. I invite us to examine our negative reactions when those resistant thoughts and feelings rise up in us in response to another’s sharing of “their truth”. Let us move forward doing our best to walk in love. 1 Elizabeth Schussler-Fiorenza, In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins, Crossroads; Introduction.
So I want to take a look at the underlying roots and historical development of the Eucharist and at the basic meanings of the elements of the liturgy as we practice it today.
All four of the canonical gospels tell us that Jesus shared a last supper with his closest circle of disciples before his arrest and crucifixion. (Matthew, Mark, and Luke indicate that it was a Passover meal, while John locates it before the Passover.) The chronologically earliest testimony we actually have to what we now consider Jesus’ institution of the Eucharist comes in Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth, written about twenty years after Jesus’ death. In the letter, he gives us the words we repeat each time we celebrate the Eucharist: 23 For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. (I Cor. 11:23-26) The meal Jesus shared with his friends – whether a Passover meal or not – followed established patterns rooted deep in Jewish tradition. They are the same patterns we repeat today. The Jewish sabbath meal took place after the liturgy of the word in the synagogue (in which the family would have listened to scripture, shared in prayer, and likely heard a sermon). After ritual ablutions, assembling at the table, participants in the sabbath meal thanked God for bread, broke it and shared it along with the common dishes making up the meal.1 After the meal the diners shared a cup of wine that was first blessed by the father, who called the group to stand in thanking God: “Lift up your hearts. Let us give thanks to the Lord our God,” after which an extended recitation of remembrance and gratitude would follow.2 The fact that several of the resurrection appearances took place in the context of a meal reinforced the breaking and sharing of bread becoming a crucial way for the disciples to remember Jesus and his presence with them. Within the New Testament period the meal moved from the Jewish Sabbath to “the Lord’s Day”, the first day of the week, and the ritual of sharing the bread and wine became separated from the meal as numbers grew and accommodating crowds with a full meal became impractical.3 Numerous other elements of today’s eucharistic liturgy developed during the period of the early church: the presider began with the salutation “God be with you”; readings, a psalm, hymns, and a sermon often followed; the deacon led prayers “of the faithful”; and the service of the word concluded with “the kiss of peace”. As the liturgy of the table began, a table covered in a white cloth was brought forward and offerings presented from the people in attendance. The celebrant (and any other priests present) laid their hands on the bread and wine, and then offered a Great Thanksgiving to God with arms raised, entreating the descent of the Spirit. At the close of the eucharistic prayer the bread and wine were distributed to members of the congregation present, and after the service, deacons left to take the bread and wine to community members who had not been present.4 In the following centuries a variety of developments took place as aspects of the liturgy were formalized. Sacramentaries, or collections of eucharistic prayers and prefaces specific to particular occasions and seasons appeared; processions were added; excess consecrated bread and wine were kept in reserve for communion for the sick.5 In the 9th century and after, major shifts began to take place. The mass began to become less participatory for the people. It continued to be spoken and sung in Latin, which was less and less understood by the faithful. Screens or veils separating the congregation from the altar were erected in some churches, and portions of the Great Thanksgiving were said inaudibly by the celebrant while the choir sang elaborate settings of the Sanctus. The Eucharist moved from something celebrated by the people to something done for the people.6 These developments contributed to a sense of fear and awe associated with the Mass. The use of wafers replaced real bread to ensure that stray crumbs of sanctified bread could not be dropped and overlooked. The priest began placing the consecrated wafer in the communicant’s mouth for the same protective reason. The receiving of wine was discontinued. During this period the practices of kneeling and genuflection during the key parts of the service came into practice. Altars were moved against the wall and seeing the elevation of the bread and wine became more important than receiving it. By the end of the 15th century churches began having to enact legislation requiring members to receive communion once a year.7 And then came the Protestant Reformation, which we spoke about a couple of months ago. Luther, Zwingli and their colleagues sought to “purify” the service of the Eucharist, returning it to what they believed to be a more authentic form by removing what they considered to have been add-ons and restoring such elements as the Prayers of the People, as well as the receiving of both bread and wine. The service was to be spoken in the language of the people.8 As you might expect, if you recall what we said earlier about the Reformation in England, there were controversies. It has been said that virtually no one other than its compiler, Thomas Cranmer, was satisfied with the 1549 first edition of the English Book of Common Prayer. Too conservative for some, too liberal for others: what else is new? The faithful were to receive the elements kneeling, with the bread placed in their hands, and they received from the common cup, as well. The fierce controversy over what Christ’s presence in the elements of communion meant – more about that later - was reflected in a rubric, in that first book. The posture of kneeling to receive was a gesture of thanksgiving, it instructed, and not intended to imply “adoration of the sacramental bread or wine” or “any real or essential presence there being of Christ’s natural flesh and blood”.9 Our first American Episcopal Book of Common Prayer was published in 1786 and closely reflected the Anglican Prayer Book of that time; it was revised in 1892 and 1928, the version of the Prayer Book that many of us grew up with, although none of the revisions to the practice of the Eucharist in those books was substantial. The period of lively liturgical reform in the Episcopal Church began in the 1970s: again, probably many of us can remember the almost hysterical outrage stirred up by the trial “Zebra Book” (because of its striped cover) that appeared in 1973. For a liturgy whose language and practices changed only incrementally in four hundred years, we have come a long way since the 1970s. The last General Convention of the Episcopal Church in 2018 passed a resolution encouraging experimentation with diverse liturgical language to be “more inclusive and expansive” and better reflect “the continual movement of the Holy Spirit among us and the growing insights of our Church.” (Resolution 2018-AO63) As you know, here at James and Andrew we rotate through the four eucharistic prayers from the 1979 Prayer Book along with six additional prayers from American, British, Canadian, and New Zealand Anglican sources. So that’s the historical background. It seems important to observe that in our modern post-Reformation world, Christians observe a considerable variety of practices in the service of the Communion. While we Episcopalians celebrate Eucharist weekly (so long as we have a priest available to preside and consecrate the elements), some denominations share communion less frequently. Some churches use grape juice or water, rather than wine, and some administer the wine in individual cups, rather than sharing a common cup as we do (at least in the pre-pandemic world.) Who can receive the sacrament is also a point of divergence and disagreement, including in our Episcopal Church. Many denominations require that worshippers be baptized (or complete instruction or another initiation such as Confirmation) before receiving communion. It is still the official policy of The Episcopal Church that only baptized persons receive the bread and wine at the Eucharist. As you know, however, in this parish we declare each week that “This is God’s table, and all are welcome, no exceptions.” We are not alone in our practice of “open communion,” but we do so only because our Bishop permits it. Some Dioceses and congregations in the Episcopal Church are resolute in allowing the sacrament only for those who have committed themselves to Christ through Baptism. Proposals relating to the practice of open communion have come before the Church in recent General Conventions, and Convention has repeatedly opted NOT to take on discussion of policy change. The service of the Eucharist follows a set form rooted, as I have said, in both Jewish tradition and the apostolic church. I don’t know whether you’ve had the wonderful experience of attending eucharist in another country or culture. Many years ago I went to a Lutheran service while visiting with a friend in Helsinki, Finland. I couldn’t understand a word, and I knew exactly what they were saying and singing. Despite the complete language barrier, I felt totally at home. It gave me a new awareness of what it means to be part of the universal Body of Christ. The word “eucharist” itself, from the Greek eucharistia, means “thanksgiving”: in the gathering for Eucharist, God’s people both express our gratitude to God and are blessed, strengthened, and renewed by encountering God in the hearing of God’s Word, in receiving the bread and wine, and through experiencing being part of the gathered community. Let me say it again: in the Eucharist we are blessed, strengthened, and renewed by encountering God in at least three ways
Let’s talk a little bit about what is probably the trickiest and most mysterious part of it all. What is essentially going on in our remembering and re-enacting Jesus’ Last Supper, and in our consuming the elements of bread and wine? Very early in the Church’s history Christian leaders began to refer to the bread of the Eucharist as “the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ”10, and for much of its history before the Reformation, the Church taught that when the Eucharist is properly celebrated, the elements of bread and wine literally become the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ at the time of the fraction (or breaking of the bread), even though in physical appearance they appear to remain unchanged. This change in substance is referred to as “transubstantiation”, and remains the official teaching of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches. At the other end of the spectrum, some Reformed churches see the Eucharist as a purely symbolic memorial re-enactment, a way of remembering, as Jesus commanded, his self-sacrifice, just as a family might ritually remember a departed member by using her favorite tablecloth each Thanksgiving. Somewhere in the middle, other churches believe that Christ is “spiritually present” in the elements of the sacrament even though the substance of the bread and wine remain physically unchanged. “Consubstantiation”, a doctrine which Martin Luther espoused, holds that the bread and wine, at consecration, BOTH take on the “real presence” of Christ while also retaining their original form as bread and wine. Episcopalians and other Anglicans hold most closely to this Lutheran theology (though we do not use the term “consubstantiation”), asserting that Christ is “really and truly present”11 in the bread and wine of the Eucharist. Anglicans have quite steadfastly declined to attempt explanation of what this means or how it occurs: we remain happy to celebrate the mystery. In the Eucharist God gives us God’s self. In a way that our words cannot articulate or our brains fully grasp, the God who took on flesh in the life of Jesus is again offered to us, becoming part of us, nurturing our spirit as the physical grain and fruit of the bread and wine nurture our bodies. Richard Norris, 20th century Episcopal theologian, talks about it this way: “Jesus took the ceremonial actions which were customarily performed [at the sabbath meal] and explained them as signifying his forthcoming death. His body was to be broken, like the bread, and his blood was to be poured out, like the wine. What was about to happen would not just be another unhappy dying. It would be a death through which God would create a New Covenant with his people….. People who take bread and wine and give thanks over them for the New Covenant which God has made with humanity in Christ, perform an action through which they enter into Jesus’ dying and the new life which came through it… The bread and wine, given to God in thanksgiving, is God’s way of speaking Christ to us…. In being joined to Christ, they enter into Christ’s life.”12 The Eucharist IS, at its heart, mystery. It is gift and blessing to us. It signifies our unity with God and one another despite our doubts and confusions and differences. It expresses our hope that through the receiving of Christ in the sacrament we may ever more fully enter into the life of the resurrected Christ and be God’s love in the world. Amen.
By Rev. Dr. Molly Scherm In Lent, we are challenged to face our own mortality and to live with discomfort. These are not easy things for us. We live in a society that largely keeps death at a distance, and that provides us lots of ways to ensure that we stay comfortable. We choose to confront our mortality and to live with discomfort, in Lent, because Jesus did. In Lent we remember that Jesus experienced discomfort when he chose to spend an extended period alone in the wilderness after his baptism, preparing for the work of ministry. During that time he confronted and denied himself the temptations of taking the easy path. I suspect that he may have been wrestling with recognizing the difficulties that lay ahead for him, wondering whether he was up to his calling. Jesus also suffered discomfort during the long road that he traveled after he turned toward Jerusalem, preparing to face the final confrontation with the powers and principalities of the world, and to die on the cross. We’ll hear stories of those day on the road in our Sunday readings during Lent, how Jesus was informed that Herod wanted to kill him, and how another group was executed by Pilate. We’ll hear him teach about fruitless trees cut down by gardeners, and listen to the story of how he was anointed in preparation for burial. Jesus chose these hard paths in order that we might know that sacrificial love is the way, and that God can be trusted. And so we begin, today, the journey of confronting our mortality and living with discomfort. We do it by marking our faces with ashes. Ashes are, of course, the burned remains of what was once alive. Throughout the biblical narrative ashes are associated with repentance, and with mourning. Ashes are a reminder of our finitude, a reminder not only that we will die, but that we are limited, despite the many ways in which the world loves to indulge our fantasies that we can have it all, that we can overcome anything. It just isn’t so. Ashes remind us that we are frail and transitory – that so much of what is important to us in life - including our life itself – can and will end. “You are dust, and to dust you shall return”. The sentence we will say as we mark our faces with ashes are the words God said to Adam and Eve as they were expelled from the Garden, a mythical moment that acknowledges the reality that humans live lives of toil, struggle, pain, and mortality. Today’s gospel is really about the same thing. In it, Jesus is teaching about not practicing religion like “the hypocrites” who show off their religiousness in order to be admired by others. Jesus is concerned that we distinguish between what is real and not real, what is important and what is not. The superficial gratifications of the world are transitory: they pass away. The real “treasure” that we should seek is relationship with God. Jesus contrasts “earth” and “heaven” when he’s teaching about what treasure is real – don’t store up treasure on earth, but rather, store for yourself treasure in heaven. He’s NOT talking about life on earth versus a life with God after we die. Jesus is NOT rejecting or devaluing human experience because it is “earthly”. He is warning about the seductiveness of many of the things the world values, but which are not the values of God’s realm - those experiences that are about power, rather than love, about receiving rather than giving, about things rather than people. Relationship with God is the treasure we build through serving others, through letting go of our need to win, through accepting and embracing others as they are. And relationship with God is what does not end when our bodies return to dust. Part of the discipline of Lent is that of forgoing some of the creature comforts with which we soothe ourselves: probably many of us did our best, as children, to abstain from chocolate or perhaps, as adults, from alcohol. One of the ways in which Christians have traditionally sought to walk with Jesus through Lent is by practicing penitence – being honest and naming for ourselves the ways in which we HAVE invested in earthly treasures, the places where we have chosen the easy paths. You have, hopefully, read about the focus that Heather and I are inviting all of us to for this Lent – centering our penitential reflections on our collective brokenness in relation to the systemic racial injustice embedded in our culture, and on our responsibilities in relation to the climate crisis. Our mortality involves not only in the fact that we will pass away. Part of our brokenness – the old theological word is “sinfulness” – is our willingness to look away from those things that we don’t want to see, the things that are hard to look at, hard to listen to, perhaps especially those places where our comfort is tied to others’ suffering. These are the comforts we can work at putting aside, work at abstaining from. This Lent we can work at not protecting ourselves from seeing the structures and practices and ideologies that benefit us at high costs to others who share our world. Around the perimeter of our sanctuary, this Lenten season, we have mounted a series of icons that we can use to help us do the work of looking deeper into, in the words of one of our confessions, “the evils we have done and the evils done on our behalf.” They show us some of those things we’d rather look away from:
We invite you to sit with them, to feel with them, and to pray with them. It is our hope that developing increased honesty about our part in evils that enslave all of us is a small way of rejecting the treasures of the world. This Lent, let us again do our best to walk with Jesus. May our reflections and our prayers, with the help of the Spirit, lead us into the wisdom and the will to shape a world that is more just, more compassionate, more open, and more loving. AMEN.
First, it’s not entirely clear what the nature of the story is. Is it a Call Story, of which there are lots in the Bible? The biblical storytellers frequently offer us tales of those whom God has called, so that we might be ready to hear the call ourselves. In some Bibles this morning’s story is designated “the calling of the first disciples”. The fact that it is paired with also-quite-interesting Call of Isaiah, our first lesson today, would back this assumption.
But maybe it’s a miracle story? Other Bibles introduce it as “The Miraculous Catch”, and it IS that. Let’s agree that Luke has done a clever job of combining both a call, and a miracle. The next important thing, in my mind, is how different Luke’s chronology is from the other three New Testament gospels, and I think it’s interesting to think about why. Matthew, Mark, and John all begin with Jesus’ baptism, Mark and Matthew describe Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness and describe him introducing his ministry by declaring that “the realm of God has come near”, but after that, in all three, Jesus begins his ministry of outreach by explicitly inviting (“calling”) disciples to join him. Not Luke. In the third gospel, after Jesus’ baptism and temptation, Jesus begins his ministry on his own by teaching in the synagogues, and he immediately begins to acquire a following. In the last two weeks we’ve heard the story of the dramatic incident at the synagogue in Nazareth that starts out well but soon has Jesus’ boyhood neighbors running him out of town. In Luke’s story, Jesus then proceeds to cleanse a man with an unclean spirit, heal Simon Peter’s mother-in-law (though there is no mention of any particular relationship between Jesus and Simon Peter,) and to travel out of Galilee and into Judea, teaching and healing bodies and spirits and increasingly, drawing crowds. AND IT IS ONLY THEN that today’s incident occurs, ultimately resulting in Jesus’ invitation to Simon Peter, James, and John to come with him with the opportunity of “catching people”. We assume that as the gospel writers began producing their accounts of the “good news story” of Jesus Christ during the years of the developing early church, decades after Jesus’ death and resurrection, there was lots of material in circulation about Jesus. We assume that each of them drew from that material and made choices to construct a narrative that conveyed what they felt was important. Why did Luke present Jesus as initiating his ministry on his own, and then inviting a community of followers, friends, and (as Luke describes them in chapter 6) apostles almost as an afterthought? You may have other ideas about this, but I think Jesus recognized, weeks into a solo ministry tour, that he couldn’t do it on his own. I think that he not only discovered that crowd management was becoming an issue, but I suspect that Jesus discovered a need for companionship and community in the work of preaching the Realm of God and of caring for the needs of God’s children. Later on, as he sent the disciples out to minister on their own, he sent them in pairs. And the lesson of the importance of sharing the work of ministry is equally true for us. The third interesting thing I want to observe about this story is the way in which Luke shapes this introduction of Simon Peter, who was the undoubtedly the most important leader in the very early church. Throughout all of the gospels we come to know Peter as not only the first-called, but as a complex, passionate, and yet really fallible human being. He was at times the most faithful of Jesus’ community, being the first to openly name Jesus as the Messiah, but the strength of his own certainties caused Peter to get it wrong as often as he got it right. You can imagine that members in the early church must have been eager and fascinated to hear about the origins of Simon Peter’s relationship with Jesus, and this morning’s story is the way Luke filled in those gaps for them. What’s intriguing to me is that Luke, rather than depicting Simon Peter as eager and decisive, showed his vulnerable side. The fishing business of Simon Peter and his colleagues served multiple purposes: it not only fed their families, but provided their livelihood, feeding the community who purchased their catch. It was hard, physical work, and times (such as the night preceding this morning’s story) when there was little or no catch would have been distressing as well as disheartening. But despite what must have been his fatigue and discouragement, when the new teacher (who Simon would have known to have helped his mother-in-law) asked his assistance in being transported out onto the lake to get some space from the crowds, Simon was willing to be helpful. After the teaching was done, however, Jesus’ instruction to the fishers to head further out to drop their nets was more than Simon wanted to take on. “We’ve already tried, and they’re just not biting. Besides, we’ve washed the nets. There’s no point in trying again.” But Jesus insisted, and so Simon complied. Was he hopeful, do you think, or just too tired to argue? As Luke tells us, the catch was just crazy. There were enough fish to break the nets and threaten that the boats would sink. (I like to imagine that all of those fish were magnetically drawn to Jesus, just as the crowds on the lakeshore were, and were practically jumping into the boat to be close to the power Jesus radiated.) And the situation frightened Simon Peter. He had been impressed by the new rabbi earlier, but he was not comfortable with what he had just witnessed. He wanted some distance. His anxiety suddenly made him aware of his own unworthiness. Probably he felt that he’d be better off with the unpredictability of the fishing business than he was with this guy who seemed to cause such unnatural things to happen. He exclaimed “Go away from me, for I am a sinful man.” Jesus understood Simon Peter’s fear, and offered not only reassurance, but the opportunity to be part of something bigger: “From now on, you will be catching people.” So, finally, we come down to the place we always come down to. What does this story have to say to us? It’s not too hard to see some obvious connections. Like Simon Peter, we’re tired out by things that are hard and uncertain. For Simon Peter the strain was largely physical; for us, in the last couple of years, it’s more emotional and spiritual. When you think about not only the pandemic, but also the increasing cultural divide in not only our nation, but the world, as well as the frowing environmental environmental crisis, we are in a hard place. A lot of the things we’ve been doing don’t seem to be getting us anywhere. We feel like we’re going through the motions, maybe, and repeating familiar pattern because we don’t have a better idea. I’m grateful for an observation I read about today’s gospel in a commentary by New Testament scholar Ronald Allen that has rung a chord for me. Allen points out that bathos, the Greek word for depth that’s used when Jesus instructs Simon Peter to “Put out into deep waters”, is associated. Where it’s used elsewhere in Hebrew scriptures, in Hebrew scriptures with the danger and chaos of the primordial seas.* Jesus encourages Simon Peter to dip the nets into the deeper, more dangerous and perhaps more unpredictable waters of the Sea of Galilee – the better-known name for Lake Gennesaret - rather than steering away from them. And it is when they did so that Simon and his companions experienced God’s unexpected abundance – a catch that was more than they were ready for or knew how to handle. Might this be a useful metaphor for us to apply to the challenges of our own lives? How often do we keep doing things in the same safe way we’ve been doing them but which is no longer providing what we are looking for? How frequently do we avoid the depths because there’s too much unknown there - they are too frightening, too unpredictable? We can listen to Jesus’ words to Simon Peter: “Do not be afraid.” As we’ve observed in relation to another sea-going tale in the gospels, we can afford to risk because we’ve got Jesus in the boat with us. Our God provides a world of abundant (if unpredictable) riches. Ours is the opportunity to dig in, and who knows what we’ll pull up. *Ronald J Allen, Commentary on Luke 5:1-11, February 10 2019, workingpreacher.org |
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