Fifth Epiphany: February 4, 2007

    A priest was walking along the cliffs of Dover and happened upon two local fishermen pulling another man ashore on the end of a rope. 

     “That’s what I like to see,” the priest said to the two men, “Men helping their fellow man.”

     As the priest was walking away, one local fisherman said to the other, “Well, the Father doesn’t know the first thing about shark fishing.”

     Or the one about the man phoning home from his office and telling his wife, “Something has come up.  I have a chance to go fishing for a week.  It’s the opportunity of a lifetime.  We leave right away.  So, pack my clothes, my fishing equipment, and especially my blue silk pajamas.  I’ll be home in an hour to pick them up.”

     He went home in a hurry and grabbed everything and rushed out the door.  A week later he returned.  His wife asked, “Did you have a good trip, dear?”

     He said, “Oh, yes it was great.  But you forgot to pack my blue silk pajamas.”

     His wife smiled and said, “Oh, no, I didn’t forget.  I put them in your tackle box!”

     Just two of the millions of fishermen jokes. 

     At our Wednesday service week before last, I shared the story of Phillips Brooks, the nineteenth century’s greatest preacher and Bishop of Massachusetts.  His greatest claim-to-fame of course is being the author of O Little Town of Bethlehem.  He was also the person who spent hours with Helen Keller to teach her about the things of God.  Later, Helen Keller was asked what, in her opinion, the greatest tragedy of humankind might be.  She responded, “To have sight, but no vision.”

     Today’s Gospel from Luke is about sight and vision.  It presents us with a turning point in the earthly ministry of Jesus the Christ.  The last time we heard about him he was preaching in the comfort of the synagogue.  What he said in that first sermon delivered in his hometown and in front of hometown folks, was so uncomfortable for them that they drove him out of the synagogue and out of town.  Jesus needed a new pulpit.  He found a very effective one in Simon Peter’s fishing boat.  We sometimes forget that when Jesus calls a disciple he gets not just the physical person, but everything that person has, everything they might obtain, and a standing invitation to be involved in deciding what to do with it all.  When Peter agreed to drop everything and become a disciple, he also agreed to put what he had at Jesus’ disposal.  It this case it was a fishing boat on the Sea of Galilee.

     The Sea of Galilee is a body of water about thirteen miles long by eight miles wide.  It is about 680 feet below sea level.  In the time of Jesus there were nine towns around the lake, each with close to twenty thousand people.  Fishing was a major industry.  Spreading the gospel of Jesus the Christ was about to become a major industry, but laborers were needed.  Jesus was not able to call any disciples from the synagogue, so he goes to the seashore.

     In order to call fishermen, Jesus became a fisherman.  This story of Peter, James, John, and Andrew gives the condition necessary for a miracle to occur.  The first necessary condition is to have an eye that sees.  There is absolutely no need to think that Jesus created a sea full of fish just for this occasion.  At that time, the Sea of Galilee was teeming with fish.  Very often fish travel in schools.  It is likely that Jesus, standing on the shore and above the boats, could see one of these schools of fish.  In directing Peter and the others to fish in that direction, the keen vision of Jesus seemed like a miracle.  To Peter and the others it was just that. 

     We need the eye that truly sees.  Lighting had been around from the beginning of creation.  It took a man like Benjamin Franklin to see that perhaps its energy could be captured and turned into something positive.  Not many of us would care to live without electricity.  Mold had been forming on spoiled food for just as long.  It took Sir Alexander Fleming to see that perhaps this process could be harnessed to protect living organisms when he observed that mold had cleared away staph germs in a laboratory dish.  Apples had been falling from trees since the Garden of Eden, but it took Sir Isaac Newton to see in that phenomenon the principle of gravity.  Many people were on the hillside that day with Moses.  They were busy picking blackberries, but Moses saw the presence of God in a burning bush.  The world is filled with miracles for the eye that sees.

     The second condition necessary for a miracle to happen is the spirit that will make an effort.  Jesus invited Peter to put out into the deep.  As tired as he was, something about the voice of Jesus and the invitation, made Peter willing to try one more time.  For most of us the disaster is that we give up just one effort too soon.  God in Christ invites us to try again and again.  A reporter once asked Babe Didrikson Zaharias how she was able to hit a golf ball so straight.  She said, “Well, you hit ball after ball, from morning until night.  And you hit ball after ball, day after day.  You hit golf balls until your hands bleed and then you hit some more.  Then maybe the day comes when you hit it straight.”  Persistence is just the art of learning to say, “Just one more time.”  Very often we forget that God does not wish to establish a relationship with us like a puppet on a string, but asks that we make the effort.  God will not do for us what we can, and should, do for ourselves.  It is the truth of that which allows an occasional miracle to happen.

     Finally, the condition necessary for a miracle to happen is the spirit that will attempt what seems hopeless.  The night was over and that was the best time to fish on the Sea of Galilee.  Peter, James, John, and Andrew knew that.  Every fisherman knew that.  All the circumstances were unfavorable, but Peter said, “Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.”  Too often we wait because the time doesn’t seem right.  We wait for the perfect set of circumstances, which never come, and we fail to begin again or to try one more time.  If we want a miracle, we must learn to take Jesus at his word when he bids us attempt what we think is impossible.  Those opportunities come to us time and time again.  Just one more gift to Episcopal Relief and Development might be the one that frees a family from poverty and provides an example for a nation.  Giving to the United Thank Offering just might provide the few dollars to help a family set up a small business that carries into future generations.  A gift to our Diocesan Companions for Mission might help a youngster at the Marc Nickel School in Sudan receive the education that brings peace and stability to a war-torn nation.  Gifts to Bedford Christian Ministry or the Bedford Christian Free Clinic might provide help for the one month a family needs to get back on their feet and avoid the downward spiral into dependency.

     We have many opportunities in this parish to participate in the miraculous.  We have the sight.  Continue to work and pray that God will give us the vision that says things do not have to be such that some have so much while others have little or nothing.

     Combining sight and vision will always lead to a miracle.  That’s not a fish story either.  Just ask Simon Peter.  Amen.