A Sermon of The Rev. Dr. David A. Killian, Rector
All Saints Parish
Brookline, Massachusetts
Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany
February 7, 2010
Luke 5:1-11
I
Several summers ago, when our family was vacationing on Block Island, I took my children, Brendan and Meeya, fishing. Instead of ocean fishing, we fished in fresh-water ponds on the island. Meeya and Brendan were young at the time, seven and nine years old. One morning when they had not caught any thing, I could sense that they were getting bored and restless. We were nearly ready to quit, when a man came over to us and asked, "How's the fishing?" I answered that it wasn't too good. The man then suggested that we go to another pond down the road where he said the fish were biting. So we packed up our fishing poles and went to the other pond. Sure enough, soon Brendan and Meeya were pulling up one fish after another.
In today's Gospel passage, Jesus doesn't tell the disciples to go to another pond. Instead, he says, "Put into the deep water and let down your nets for catch." They do and they catch fish in abundance.
II
I was thinking that the today's Gospel passage is very appropriate on this Sunday that we welcome the Rev. Cristina Rathbone as celebrant of the Holy Eucharist – because, Tina, on many, many occasions you heard the invitation from Jesus to "put out into the deep water."
You first came to All Saints Parish about ten years ago to attend a funeral – and, as you described it, "it was there, quite suddenly and entirely without warning that I was converted." The funeral was on a rainy, Saturday afternoon. You returned to All Saints to worship on the following Sunday and the Sunday after that and the Sunday after that. Like Peter, who protested in today's Gospel, you resisted for a while, but then you found yourself drawn to read Christian authors like C.S. Lewis, Kathleen Norris, Thomas Merton, Thomas Keating, Henri Nouwen, Marcus Borg, and Frederick Buechner.
You joined the Explorations in Faith course and then Journeys in Faith, and you were confirmed at the Easter Vigil service here on April 19, 2003. You were active in our parish as a lector, intercessor, teacher of kindergarteners and first graders in our church school, leader of centering prayer, and member of our Welcome and Evangelism Committee.
You felt that Christ might be calling you to go into even deeper waters so you entered the discernment process and began meeting with your discernment committee in January of 2005. You were admitted as a postulant, then a candidate, and then a deacon, and you were ordained a priest a month ago at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul.
Tina, many times you answered the invitation to "put out into the deep water." As a journalist, you spent five years talking to women inmates at Framingham prison, fulfilling Jesus' teaching, "I was in prison and you visited me." Your book, A World Apart: Women, Prisons, and Life Behind Bars, compassionately and passionately advocates for prison reform.
In today's Gospel lesson, after Simon Peter cast his nets into the deep water, he caught so many fish that the nets were beginning to break. "So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats." Tina, as you know, ministry, is best done when we work with others. We can't do it alone. You are part of Ecclesia Ministries that reaches out to the homeless in downtown Boston. You and your colleagues celebrate the Holy Eucharist with homeless people on the Boston Common. Your congregation, the Common Cathedral, is made up of those who have been dealt a tough hand, people who often do not receive respect. Your ministry gives them a sense of their worth and dignity.
III
In today's Gospel, the disciples were "amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken." Tina, I know that you have been amazed and grateful for the way that God has been active in your life – leading you from that funeral service on a Saturday afternoon to take further steps to "go deeper" – steps that have led you to this point today. And, in the coming years, I know that you will continue to hear that invitation to "go deeper." And I know that you will respond.
All of us are invited by Christ to "put out into the deep water." On Tuesday of this week the All Saints Transitions Group for the Unemployed and Underemployed studied this Gospel passage. One person said that she felt that the Gospel was calling her to leave the familiar shoreline where she had been searching for work – and to go out into deeper water to explore other careers. Another person said that he was out of work for months and was getting discouraged, but like the disciples, he was ready to cast out into the deep water and to continue his job search. How are you being called to put out into the deep water? What new dimensions does God want to open in your life?
This weekend, our Vestry and Staff met for a retreat at St. Margaret's Convent in Roxbury. We planned how we could work together as lay and clergy leaders to strengthen our parish community. In a few minutes, we will commission the officers, vestry, and delegates for their leadership roles. We will invite them to cast their nets into deeper water in their ministry in our parish.
Like Simon Peter, we may "have worked all night long but have caught nothing." Even our failures, however, can have a purpose. They can teach us to put our trust in God and not to rely on our own efforts. When we are feeling most defeated, we may be vulnerable enough to learn to do it another way. We may be willing to take the scary step of looking at who we are. With God's grace we can go deeper and emerge transformed. In our discouragement we may say, "Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man." But, God doesn't go away. God doesn't abandon us or give up on us. Instead, God is there, urging us to something new and better – a share in God's own abundance. That is the gift that God wants to give us today.