Luke
5:1-11
Crisis
I am going to ask you to make a
decision this morning. I want you to weigh
the crisis associated with having too little against the crisis of having too
much. Crises of both types occur in the
short story which serves as today’s Gospel reading. There is a crisis of too little, and there is
a crisis of too much. And I am going to
ask you to decide which is the most threatening.
The first crisis is upon the fishermen. When Jesus enters the picture, they are
washing their nets. We learn later in
the story that Simon, James and John are washing their nets because they have
no fish to sell. They tell Jesus, “we
worked all night and caught nothing.” We
can’t say for sure whether these fishermen lived paycheck to paycheck, but we
could be reasonably sure that it wasn’t a good thing to report “we worked all
night and caught nothing.”
We can’t say for sure whether these
fishermen were willing to let Jesus hop into their boat and row a little away
from the shore because they were hoping for a few coins for their efforts. But this is a possibility. Their inability to sell fish and thus earn
their wage may have been more than an inconvenience. Certainly, they can’t endure endless days of
work and nothing to show for it.
It was not a good thing – this
crisis of having nothing to show for ones labors. It is in the midst of this crisis that Jesus
shows up.
Jesus starts to talk. The crowd seems to listen. When Jesus is finished he tells Simon to put
out into the deep and let down his nets.
Simon’s response was the biblical era equivalent of “stay in your own
lane, bro.” What could this traveling
preacher tell Simon about fishing?
Whether Jesus was insistent, or whether Peter thought “I’ll show you”,
the nets are let down. And then another
crisis develops. This time the crisis is
of abundance. There are too many fish! The nets are beginning to break! A second boat is summoned – and then both
boats start to sink! There is a crisis
at hand! A crisis of abundance.
Now. This is where you get to make a
decision. Here is where I would like to
get your opinion. Which is worse? The crisis of sacristy? Or the crisis of abundance?
Not catching any fish was not a
good thing. And if that happened for a
number of days in a row, these fishermen might be faced with the thought of
selling their nets, and/or their boats, and looking for another like of
work. It is a crisis, to experience
sacristy.
But when the abundance came, it is
not as if they are no longer in danger.
What if the nets did break? And fall
to the bottom of the sea? Or what would
they do were their boats to sink? What
would happen to them then?
Let’s think about our earlier
voting. Which is the greater
crisis? Too little? Or too much?
For the most part, those of us
gathered here this morning face the latter of these crisis. We have so much. We live in the crisis of how to handle
abundance. I do not wish to minimize the
struggles and stresses of those who suffer from a crisis of sacristy. If I were preaching in their midst, I am sure
God would have put a different message in my mouth. But today I am talking to y’all – and to
myself – and we are those who live in a crisis of abundance. And it is a crisis. No less than the fishermen in our story this
abundance it a threat. Our nets can rip
and fall to the bottom of the sea, and our boats could sink.
A campus pastor at a different
university spoke this week about the crisis of abundance seen in the lives of
the involved students. These students
are bright and gifted and talented and capable of so many things. If they were not so bright and gifted and
talented and capable they would face fewer options as they looked to their
future. But being all those things means
they can choose, it means they have to choose – and the enormity of options
becomes overwhelming.
What if I choose the wrong
major? Work in the wrong lab? Take the lesser internship? Accept a job which won’t bring me happiness? -
- The weight of abundance can rip and sink.
A weird and destructive aspect of
abundance is the way it fools us into looking for the one place where abundance
is not as apparent. We have plenty of
most things, but we perceive ourselves as lacking in this other thing. Forgetting huge piles and vast resources, we
start to fixate on that which we worry might run short.
Not always, but often this is
money. My grandmother used to say, “If
money can fix your problems, you don’t have real problems.” She said that from a certain level of
abundance – she owned an 80-acre farm, and had five healthy children. But her point is good to take to heart.
We live in abundance. And our very abundance too often becomes our
crisis.
In order to protect what we have
amassed we develop elaborate protections.
We seek ways to safeguard what is ours.
Added to the monthly expenses is a security system or remote cameras. When we fill up our houses we rent storage
units. When we can’t keep our huge house
clean we hire a cleaning service - but of course keep an eye on the workers
that they don’t pocket our pretty, expensive trinkets.
We live in abundance. And our very abundance too often becomes our
crisis.
We sometimes refer to our abundance
as “our way of life,” and it is. The way
of life most commonly lived by us and our peers is one of plenty and obesity
and excess.
This crisis of abundance is
threatening. This crisis of excess is
oppressive. We are so fearful of a
crisis of scarcity that we have failed to see the crisis of having too much.
The pivot point in this story,
between the two crisis, is when Jesus shows up.
It is the presence of Jesus which moves the disciples from one end of
the spectrum to the other. There is – of
course – something theological to be said about this. When Jesus comes, abundance is sure to
follow. In this story, that abundance
even includes fish. In other stories, it
might include restoring of sight, or the ability to walk. Sometimes the abundance which Jesus brings is
the ability to see ourselves as loved and lovable – as is the case of the woman
at the well or wee little Zachaeus who climbs up into a tree.
Where Jesus is, there is
abundance. We can feed and house and
provide medical care for every man, woman, and child – if only we were to stop
wars and building weapons of war and engaging in disputes about who should be
in control.
We should not miss the point in
this story when Simon and James and John walk away from their huge haul of
fish. Their crisis of abundance is
solved by just leaving their earthly loot behind.
Remember your vote this
morning. And muse throughout the week
about the crisis which abundance brings.
Pray for those experiencing sacristy, and do something to address their
crisis. Doing so might even begin to
reorder your life so as to ease the stress of having too much.
Amen.
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