5th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Isaiah 6:1-2a, 3-8; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11; Luke 5:1-11

In today’s Gospel Jesus is teaching 
the crowds by lake Gennesaret,
but the only words of his that are recorded
are those addressed to Simon Peter,
which are in each case
prefaced with a command:
“Put out into deep water”
and “Do not be afraid.”
These two commands 
pretty much sum up the Gospel.

“Put out into deep water.”

Put out into the deep water 
of seeing the universe 
and your existence in it 
as a sheer gift given out of love
by the all-powerful God,
before whom the angels worship, 
crying “Holy, holy, holy…”

Put out into the deep water 
of looking within your own heart 
and seeing there the crack 
that runs through everything,
the broken self that sin has made,
the self that, confronted by the all-holy God
can only say, like Simon,
“Depart from me, Lord, for I am sinful,”
can only say, like Isaiah,
“Woe is me, I am doomed!
For I am one with unclean lips.”

Put out into the deep water
of believing that though you have toiled 
through long hours of darkness
it just might be worth 
lowering your nets one more time,
giving the depths one more chance,
because this Jesus who commands you
just might be the one
who can heal that crack in everything;
this Jesus just might be the one
who can fill your empty nets
with food that endures to eternal life,
food that strains your nets
and swamps your boats;
this Jesus just might be the one
who is a window in our world 
through which streams a glory
that will shake the doorframes 
of our temples.

“Do not be afraid.”

Do not be afraid 
that your broken self is beyond repair,
that your unclean lips are beyond cleansing,
that your frail humanity with be swept away 
in the deep waters of God’s glory.

Do not be afraid
to say, “Lord I am not worthy,”
to lay before the Lord 
ugly truths about yourself:
how constricted sin has made your heart,
how your lips have been contaminated
by words of spite and discouragement,
criticism and gossip.
For God is a consuming fire 
whose angel comes bearing 
the glowing ember of God’s love,
to cleanse you and make you worthy:
“by the grace of God, 
I am what I am.”

Do not be afraid
to let him fill your nets to the point of breaking,
to let his glory flood the temple of your heart
until it feels as if it might be torn apart,
for this glory is the love of Christ, 
the very force that brought the universe to birth,
the grace of God that will dilate your heart 
so that it might take in more light. 

Do not be afraid
to answer his call,
to say, “Here I am; send me,”
to leave behind everything to follow him.
For Christ died for your sins
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he was buried for you
in the deep waters of death,
and on the third day 
he was raised to life,
trampling down death by death
and bestowing life on you, 
who were held in death’s grasp.
And he appeared 
to Simon Peter and the apostles,
just as he had come to them 
by the waters of Gennesaret,
calling them again to follow him 
and to feed his sheep.
He appeared to Paul as well,
persecutor of the church
and least of the apostles,
calling him to let God’s grace 
toil within him
as he preached God’s word.
And he has appeared even to us, 
as to those born out of time:
appeared in his word 
and in his sacraments,
in the hungry and the thirsty,
the stranger and the naked,
the sick and the imprisoned.
And he says to us 
what he said to Isaiah,
what he said to Simon,
what he said to Paul:
follow me in faith not fear;
follow me into deep waters.

This is the gospel that we have received 
and in which we also stand:
“Put out into deep water.”
“Do not be afraid.”
Let us receive the good news,
and, having received it,
let us believe it;
and, having believed it,
let us hand it on to others
so that God, in his mercy,
might have mercy on us all.

5th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Reading: Isaiah 6:1-2a, 3-8; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11; Luke 5:1-11

Video

I’ve been thinking about celebrities.

I don’t simply mean that I’ve been thinking about 

Kanye West and Kim Kardashian’s spat
over whether their child can have a TikTok account,
or what a Non-Fungible Token is 
and why both Paris Hilton and Jimmy Fallon
paid hundreds of thousands of dollars
for the right to claim exclusive ownership
of a digital image of a bored ape.
In addition to thinking about these things,
I’ve been thinking about why
I have been thinking about these things,
why I let these strangers take up space in my head,
even as I grouchily denounce 
the vapidness and decadence of celebrity culture.
Why do their lives matter to me?

Though the advent of mass media
has certainly increased our access 
to information on celebrities,
the phenomenon of celebrity 
has been with us for millennia.
The lives of the powerful and famous—
whether athletes and popstars today
or kings and queens in the past—
exert a strange fascination for us:
their triumphs and trials,
their marriages and divorces,
their fashions and fetishes
matter to us because they
seem to offer a window 
into a world that we crave,
a world in which life is more colorful,
developments are more dramatic,
choices are fraught with immense significance.
The fact of their celebrity seems to suggest
that they have lives that matter 
in a way that ours don’t,
and theses lives show that human life 
can be more than it is.
And even if our own lives remain 
rather drab and dull and ordinary,
they can gain just a bit 
of color and drama and significance
by our vicarious sharing in the world 
of these glittering, fascinating beings.

But our fascination with celebrities
cannot, of course, really give our lives 
the color, drama, and significance that we yearn for,
because the glitter of celebrity is a kind of optical illusion 
that tricks us into thinking 
that their struggles have a meaning that ours don’t,
that their achievements are somehow immune
to the flow of time that bears all our works away.
But this is false;
the world will one day forget the names
of Kanye and Kim and Paris and Jimmy.
The life we crave for ourselves,
a life that matters,
whose significance is recognized
and whose deeds can endure beyond the veil of death,
cannot be found in our fascination with the famous.
Where then can it be found?

Well, because we’re all sitting together in a church
I suspect you know what I am going to say.

When Jesus steps into the boat of Simon Peter and his friends
and says to them, “put out into deep water,”
he is not simply giving them navigational instructions.
He is inviting them to live lives that matter, 
lives that plunge into the depths of the mystery 
that lies at the heart of human existence.
The fish that fill their nets to the point of breaking,
become a sign of the abundant life to which he calls them,
a life that can be found only in venturing out into the deep,
a life that is something more: 
something brighter and bolder
and soaked with significance,
a life that matters.
This, of course, terrifies them, 
so Peter says, 
“Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.”
I am a man who might look with fascination
on the lives of the great and the glorious,
but who could never live such a life himself.
But Jesus doesn’t care about any of their excuses;
he calls them to join him anyway.
And they leave their nets and their boats 
and follow him into the deep.

Isaiah, praying in the temple, looked into that deep,
as if looking through a window into the life of heaven itself,
where God is eternally enthroned in majesty
and the six-winged seraphs cry out “Holy, holy, holy,”
making the temple shake and fill with smoke.
These angelic creatures, whose name means “to burn,”
live lives that shine with a light given them by God,
a light that God desires to give to us as well.
Isaiah, like Peter, is shaken 
by the abyss that opens before him,
and seeks to use his sinfulness as an excuse,
as if to say, “Who am I?
How could my life matter?”
But again God will have none of it.
In his poem “The Prophet,” 
the poet Alexander Pushkin
captures the dizzying transformation
that God brings about in Isaiah:
“And with his sword he cleaved my breast
Removed my shaking heart,
And then he seized a blazing coal,
And placed it in my gaping breast.
Corpse-like I lay upon the sand
And then God’s voice called out to me:
‘Arise, O Prophet, watch and hark,
Fulfill all my commands:
Go forth now over land and sea,
And with your word ignite men’s hearts.’”

Isaiah, Simon Peter and his friends, and we as well,
are invited to live lives that matter,
for in Baptism we have had 
a blazing coal placed in our breast
and have been sent to ignite human hearts,
to show by word and example
that God is calling all of us out of the shallows—
out of lives that are drab, dull, and ordinary— 
and into the deep waters of the mystery of God.

We may be tempted to say, like Isaiah and Peter,
“Who am I?
How could my life matter?”
But through God’s grace we are what we are,
and what we are is something extraordinary.
In Jesus the realm of God has come to dwell among us, 
and we, who have been incorporated into his body,
bear in our hearts a blazing coal,
so that we shine with a light far exceeding
the superficial glittering of celebrity;
we shine with a light that is nothing less 
than the fire of the Spirit.

So let us live lives that matter:
let us set out with Christ into the deep,
let us join him on the way,
let us burn with angelic light,
and may God have mercy on us all.