The Gospel Stories speak on many levels. There is a saying in scriptural theology that “all the Gospel Stories are true, and some of them even happened”. They are not history, giving an exact account of something that happened long ago. They are theology, offering us insight to what the early christian communities believed about Jesus in the years before the stories were written down. There is the “majority report”, what the stories have been understood to tell us over the centuries. And there is the “minority report”, what the stories say to each of us as we read or hear them in the setting of what is going on in our life. This can be very specific and personal. I am looking at the minority report, what the stories are saying to me here and now.
In today’s Gospel Story (Luke 5:1-11) Jesus tells his disciples, “Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch.” “Simon said in reply, ‘Master, we have worked hard all night and have caught nothing, but at your command I will lower the nets’”. They have been fishing all night and have caught nothing, but were willing to do what Jesus asked. And they had a great catch. “Put out into the deep” can mean a lot. Taking a good look at myself and how I’ve been living, going into a situation that is dangerous, unknown, and even frightening, eg a combat infantry patrol. People are being hurt on an unimaginable basis. Persons claiming to be good catholics self-servingly distort and mangle the Gospel and its message. Yet they are reaching great numbers of people who buy their interpretations. There is unprecedented absolute meanness, unbelievable suffering, terrible violence and polarization. Ending of funding that helps people throughout the world, constant gaslighting, destroying trusted government agencies, maltreatment of “undocumented” persons and their families, ripping families apart, unprecedented misery and suffering. And how does a person, whose existence the government and members of the national church management group deny, go through their day? Being created in Abba’s image doesn’t have the impact it used to have, as civil and religious systems are claiming to decide who is or is not a reflection of Abba. Do I want to be a part of all this? Glad I’m playing the back nine. Don’t want to be part of that “we’re right and you’re wrong” judging.
The code of conduct for any of us who would claim to be disciples of Jesus is the Beatitudes. In the public arena it’s hard to find them being lived today, because for many the Gospel is okay for church but not for real life. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been told that after giving a homily that some people, usually “heavy hitters”, don’t like. Yet as we prayerfully read or listen to them, they show us how Jesus lived, and wants his followers, including me, to live. In the words of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: “The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie . . . One word of truth outweighs the world. . . Unlimited power in the hands of limited people always leads to cruelty.” Jimmy Carter used to say, “Prayer is confronting the challenges of life in the presence of God”. I find these words to be hints of Abba speaking to me. I continually ask Abba, “Is there something you are saying to me in all this? Is there something you are asking me with my limitations to do, or some place you want me to go?”, and go where it takes me. Abba’s people are hurting a lot these days, and it’s for Abba’s people to stop the hurting.
“They caught a great number of fish and their nets were tearing; they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come to help them.” I do not want to be a part of the finger pointing and name calling on all sides, or of the pervasive anger. I’ve had too many years of anger in my life, and I don’t ever want to go back there again. If I can call somebody by a pejorative name, then I make them less of a person and I can treat them as I want because they are less than me. Don’t want to go there. I want to go out into the deep and lower my nets, whatever that means. I don’t know what it means. But I want to do it. More wandering and wondering, lots of questions and not many answers.
“Jesus said to Simon, ‘Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men’. When they brought their boats to the shore, they left everything and followed him”. “Do not be afraid.” This is hard to live these days. But Jimmy Carter was right. I believe Abba is somehow in this mess, not causing it, but respecting our free will. Abba is in and loves everyone of us on all sides of the questions. People don’t know this, and so we have the current situation. Can I live in a way that would help others come to recognize Abba loving them in their lives? I’d like to, but I don’t know. My circle is very limited and not as it used to be. “Do not be afraid.” But I am kinda afraid. I don’t know what to do, yet I feel I have to do something. “They left everything and followed him”. What does this mean for me here and now? Am I supposed to leave something and go somewhere? As I am this morning goes back to my heart attack in the car, a wonderfully amazing experience of life and reality, for which I am most thankful.
Lately I’ve been watching Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson preaching at Matt Shepard’s funeral. He spoke to pain, and out of his own pain. Spirit filled and marvelous. There is also the courageous Bishop Mariann Budde speaking the Gospel, the Beatitudes. Perhaps I need to admit that I’m hurting and in pain, even frightened, when I see the suffering all around me, people I know, not only in my country, but in the world, a lot of it caused by my country which I spent a good part of my life serving. Somehow I need to act in love, but I don’t know how to do this. I’ve been at it for a long time, “but at your command I will lower the nets”, whatever this means for me, and go where it takes me. I suspect my old ways, whatever they were, will not work any more. I’m in a different time, place, age, health. Seems Abba is saying, “try again, and keep trying, above all don’t be afraid, you’ll know what to do when you have to do it”. This morning might be that happening. Wandering and wondering is real. As I write this I have a profound and unbelievable sense of peace. Wouldn’t change a thing. Just sayin . . .