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Sermon for Trinity 5
1 Peter 3:8-15 + Luke 5:1-11
These Sundays in the Trinity season give us a little taste of different aspects of the Christian life. Two weeks ago, we saw how zealously God seeks the lost, brings them to repentance, and forgives them their sins. Last week, we saw how He instructs the forgiven to walk in the ways of His mercy. Today, we see the Lord giving certain tasks to the forgiven, so that, through us, He might build up His beloved Church, the precious body of Christ. The Gospel emphasizes one task that is given to some within the Church, for building up the Church, while the Epistle focuses on other tasks that are given to all Christians, also for the building up of the Church.
Let’s start with the Gospel, the account of how Jesus’ first disciples were called, there by the shores of the Sea of Galilee.
This wasn’t their first encounter with Jesus. John’s Gospel helps us to understand that. John the Baptist had introduced them to Jesus some time before this, and they had followed Him up to Cana, where He had performed His first miracle. After that, it seems that they went back to their regular jobs as fishermen for a little while, because Jesus hadn’t yet called them to full-time following. But that would change after today.
There they were, Peter and Andrew by their boat, mending their nets after catching nothing at all the night before. James and John were doing the same thing by their boat, a little way down the beach. Jesus stepped into Peter’s boat and used it as a makeshift pulpit so that He could preach to the large crowds. But preaching wasn’t His only reason for being there that day. He was about to do something momentous. He was about to call the first four of the men whom we now know as the twelve apostles. And the way He did it was a real teaching moment, for them and for the Church throughout the ages.
Jesus asked Peter to put out toward the deep water and to let down their nets for a catch. Peter was skeptical. They had worked all night and had caught nothing. The fish just weren’t there. But he had already heard and seen enough from Jesus to know that he shouldn’t refuse, so he said, Master, we have toiled throughout the night and have caught nothing. But at your word, I will let down the nets. And as soon as he did, such a great number of fish flooded into those nets that they began to tear. James and John came over with their boat and, even with the two boats, they could barely bring the fish to the shore. This was no ordinary catch. They all knew it. They were amazed. So much so that Peter got down on his knees in utter fear in the presence of this powerful Man, this holy Man who had divine power over the sea and the creatures that live in it. Depart from me, Lord, he said, for I am a sinful man!
If only all people had that kind of genuine humility and fear in the presence of the holy God! Today, it seems that most people want to joke around or play around in the presence of God, but Peter knew better, like the prophet Isaiah did, who, when confronted with God’s presence, cried out, Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts. That’s the right initial response of all men in the presence of the holy God. But God didn’t destroy Isaiah. Instead, He called him to be a prophet. In the same way, Jesus didn’t depart from Peter, much less destroy him. Instead, He called him, along with Andrew, James and John: Follow Me, and I will make you into fishers of men.
We learn several things from this account. First, the apostles didn’t go seeking to become apostles. Jesus came to them, and called them, selecting them out of all His other followers to work together with Him—to work together, not in bearing the sins of the world, not in redeeming mankind—only Jesus could do that. But to work together with Him in building His Church, in reconciling the world to God, in bringing sinners to repentance, and to faith in Christ Jesus, the world’s Redeemer, thereby bringing them out of the vast ocean of those who are perishing into the safety, into the peace, into the everlasting joy of His holy Christian Church. That’s what it means to be “fishers of men,” or, as we often call them, ministers of the Gospel.
And the means of bringing people into the boat? It isn’t a hook. It isn’t a lure. It’s just nets. It’s the means of grace. It’s the preaching of the Gospel, which is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. No gimmicks. No deceit. No false promises. Just the powerful promise of the forgiveness of sins for the sake of Christ and the atonement He made for sins on the cross. Just the promise of the forgiveness of sins through the Baptism that Christ instituted, where He promises to wash away a person’s sins and adopt him or her into God’s family. Just the continual promise of the forgiveness of sins through the Sacrament of the Altar, where Christ hands out His body and blood, the price He paid for our atonement. These are the nets that God calls some men to let down, so that many people, both men and women, may call upon the name of Jesus, so that many may be brought into His boat, so that the Church of Christ may be built up.
But, as Paul points out to the Romans in chapter 10, How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? Who does that sending? It’s always Jesus. He did it directly with Peter, Andrew, James, and John in today’s Gospel, as He did with the rest of the apostles, including St. Paul. But He isn’t done sending men to be fishers of men.
After He ascended into heaven, Christ continued to send, but no longer directly (except for St. Paul). As we’ve been studying in Ephesians, Christ gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors & teachers. These are examples of job descriptions within what we call the office of the holy ministry, the ministry of preaching the Word and administering the Sacraments, the ministry of letting down the Gospel nets for a catch. “Christ gave” and continues to give men to His Church for this ministry. But He now shares that task of sending with the whole Church. This is why we say that the divine call into the office of the ministry is Christ’s call, through the Holy Spirit, through the Holy Church.
That means that Christ has assigned the task to all of you, as Christians, of calling, of sending and supporting the men who carry out the fishing expedition of preaching the Gospel in the world, even as this congregation called me many years ago and continues to support the ministry I carry out among you in Jesus’ name. In a similar way, it’s the God-given task of all Christians, once they’ve received Baptism, to hear and adhere to the teaching that Christ provides, through His ministers, to gather, whenever possible, to sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to one another, to encourage one another as we ride together in this boat, in this ship of the Christian Church, now that we’ve been “caught” and brought into it by the Gospel nets. It’s the God-given task of all Christians to hold one another accountable in this Christian faith, and to show genuine love for one another as we ride toward the heavenly shores.
Peter spoke about this in today’s Epistle as well. All of you, he says, be of one mind. Be sympathetic. Show brotherly love. Be compassionate. Be friendly. Do not repay evil with evil or insults with insults, but on the contrary, pronounce a blessing, knowing that you were called to this. In other words, you were called to be imitators of God, imitators of Jesus, called to walk according to God’s commandments, called to live a life of love, as God defines love in His Word. And when you carry out that calling, in the various vocations to which God has called you, you not only bring glory to the name of our Father in heaven. You do your part in building up the Church. When you show kindness and compassion to those outside the Church, when you suffer wrong without wronging others in return, when you give an answer to those who ask you for an explanation of the hope that is in you, with gentleness and respect, you’re making the Church look good, like a place they might want to be, with a message they might just want to hear. (Of course, the opposite is also true, if you fail to behave like an imitator of God.) Likewise, when you show kindness and compassion to those inside the Church, showing patience and love toward your brothers and sisters in Christ, that goes a long way to building up your fellow Christians and to preserving the unity and the peace we have in the Church of Christ.
And that’s what we have to understand. Everything Jesus does is for the sake of building up His beloved bride, His holy Church, whether it’s sending ministers of the Word to preach and teach and administer the Sacraments, or whether it’s working in the lives of His sons and daughters as each one carries out his or her God-given tasks in the world, both to bring new people into the Church and to preserve and encourage those whom He has already brought in. Everything God does—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—is for the building up of His beloved Church. And thanks be to God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—that He has both brought us into it, and has given you and me these blessed tasks to carry out within it, granting us the grace of sharing in this all-important work of building up the Church of Christ, a work in which God Himself delights. Amen.
