"With Baited Breath", OR "Rock the Boat, Baby!"
Isaiah 6: 1-8; Luke 5: 1-11
February 4, 2007

Simon and his friends were tired, hungry, cold from a long night of fishing and catching nothing! Simon’s rent is due and so is his VISA bill. Now he doesn’t have any fish to sell at the market this morning. He doesn’t have any to take home either. People come to the shore looking to buy fish. He has to say he doesn’t have any for sale. And it isn’t the first time. Boy, some days are just like that, aren’t they?!

When Jesus finishes speaking, he asks Simon to put out into the deep water and let down the nets. What Simon really wants to do is go home for breakfast and crawl into bed. Know this feeling? "Master, we’ve worked out all night and caught nothing, but because you say so, I will let down the nets." Been there, done that before, didn’t work…please don’t rock the boat….but I guess if you say so….

Nothing could have prepared Simon for what happened next. In the years he has fished, he has never caught so many fish so fast. As their boat begins to sink, they call their partners to come and help. The catch of fish almost sinks the second boat. Talk about a tippe-canoe! Talk about excitement…as on baited breath!

In a boat full of fish, Simon Peter falls down at Jesus’ feet and says, "Get away from me, Lord, for I am a sinner."

What happened in that moment? What did Peter experience? Why did he react the way he did?

Did he really want Jesus to get away from him? …or was he passive aggressive…really wanting him closer than ever but more afraid than ever about what it might mean to have Jesus part of his life.

Perhaps he felt small or unworthy more so than afraid. Perhaps he saw how negative and small he was becoming….and he hated to have anyone see his shortcomings or faulty assumptions….anyone, let alone Jesus.

After all, get away? Where did he think Jesus would go? Where else would Jesus choose to be than in the nitty gritty of people’s real lives, on the bad fishing days, not just the good. The reason God comes to live amongst us as Jesus is to show us, up close and personal, different waters into which we can cast the nets of our lives and get the catch we so long for in our lives…fulfillment, joy, peace. You don’t have to do things the way you’ve always done them. You don’t have to get the results you’ve always gotten.

How do you sense Jesus…God…on the shoreline of your life this morning? Into which deep waters is God calling you to cast your net? After all, not too many fish worth catching come close to shore…they stay in the deep waters of life…it is the deep (and sometimes dark) waters where there is much bounty even as there is much unknown and risk. Have you been fishing in all the shallow, familiar but wrong places?

Jesus’ words of assurance to Simon…and to you and me….are "Don’t be afraid. From now on you’ll be catching people." …not prizes, accolades, a list of accomplishments, comfort, security, a bigger salary. Your worshipful work in your everyday life, no matter what your job is…is to catch people and bring them up out of the waters and have them join you in the …tippe-canoe overflowing with true, joyful bounty. You are being called toward catching people and called away from what it is that no longer floats your boat!

However, like Simon and like Isaiah, the choice is yours. Whether in a vision-like dream-prayer or within the touch of another person, the Holy One comes to you and offers you the peace and opportunity which comes through forgiveness and release from guilt and shame. God offers a different expectation for your life. Your lips are touched by the holy coals from the altar, your boat floats. But only you as an individual, given free will by our God, can choose to turn your life around (repent or not), live into deep waters of newness, or not, rock the boat or not, live with baited breath or hold your breath another whole day. You have the personal power to go out into the rest of your life called to a new work and mission and happiness…no excuses, no hedging, a choice you make.

Whom shall I send?

Listen to this:

God did not stop calling people in the year 100 when the final books of the Bible were written. God does not only call men, or people in the prime of life, or people who have a regular prayer life or perfect attendance at church. God calls people, human people, fallible people, delightful people, frightened people, impatient people, sinful people, unhappy people, old people, young people, irritating people, articulate people, tongue-tied people, female people, male people, people of all life-styles and faith traditions, people in all their many sizes and shapes and types and skills and degrees of maturity.

God calls us through letters from friends, newspaper articles, magazines, billboards, and public radio programs. God calls us through unusual job offers and the loss of employment; through our weakness in pain or illness, our anger at life’s upheavals, our healthy pride at a hard won accomplishment. God calls us in many ways.

I know a woman who heard God’s call when she picked up the wrong bag leaving a bookstore and didn’t realize it until she was on her train ride home with nothing else to read but a book she didn’t choose. And I know a man who heard God’s call when his doctor came into his hospital room to tell him that he did not have cancer…and one who heard the call when told he did. But…called….

No one can say yes for you…no one can say…send Sheri, Ken, Barb, Karen…no one can speak for you, cast your net for you. And it’s not a matter of simply saying yes to a set of beliefs or ideas or good intentions. It’s not a matter of what you think or believe…it is a matter of what you are really willing to do with what you say you think and believe.

Life is swimming by. We go fishing for many things in the course of a day…compliments, support, companionship, security. And yet, we still come up empty so much of the time. Isn’t it time you got hooked on the holy? …that you rock the boat, live with baited breath, that you cast your nets in deep waters and say….send me!?