February 9, 2025 – Fifth Sunday After the Epiphany
Jack Belsom
Why is it that we are seldom struck by wonder? Small children come by wonder naturally. They are caught by the beauty of a flower (adults call them weeds) and want to give it to their mothers. Something happens as we grow; we lose that expectancy. We learn we can do things, andthat certain things are demanded of us. Even more than that, we get up and set about the daily grind with little expectation that anything new will confront us. We come to worship expecting thesame ole same ole, and we are in good company. Isaiah had been
to the temple many times and had seen it all. Those fishers on the Sea of Galilee went about washing their nets after a fruitless night of labor and expected to go home empty. Same ole same ole!
Isaiah had access to the royalty of Israel. He was no stranger to Temple Worship: the singing,the clouds of smoke from incense and offerings, the beauty of the sanctuary. Maybe it was the death of a beloved ruler that broke through Isaiah’s sophistication and allowed him to be awed by God’s presence. Isaiah might have had access to kings and queens, but nothing prepared him to discover God healing and calling him. Without a sense of wonder, Isaiah could not recognize God at work in the worship that had become routine for him.
Things were different for Simon. He was one of the poor—one of the people who fished for a living. He didn’t have the proper clothes to appear before rulers.
Yes, he clearly knew Jesus because Jesus had healed his mother-in-law. Sure, Simon was willing tolend Jesus his boat during downtime so Jesus could speak to the crowd on the shore—perhaps payingJesus back for healing his mother-in-law.
After a long night of fishing with no results, a morning of washing the heavy nets that hauled up dirt and nothing to eat, that seasoned fishing captain was not anxious to go out to the deep and letdown the nets they had just cleaned. What did a carpenter—okay…a carpenter who could heal and teach powerfully—know about fishing? I have no idea what came over Simon that he agreed to go out and put down the nets, but whatever it was opened him to wonder.
The catch was so large that Simon’s crew could not handle it alone. They had to call James andJohn to help with the catch. Those experienced fishers went from no catch…to nets about to break…toboats about to sink from the size of the catch. That’s when wonder broke through. There was no time to start bailing the boats or lightening the load. Luke puts it this way: 8 But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’s knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” (Lk. 5:8)
There, in the middle of nets and fish, exhaustion and fear of sinking, Simon recognizes God’s presence and activity that has been there all along, and he falls
down at Jesus’ knees. He finally understands that Jesus is showing all of them a God of abundance—ke Akua manaloa. Theirs is a God who gives not just what they need to get by but enough to share. That is the source of their wonder:
9 For he and all who were with him were astounded at the catch of fish that they had taken,
10 and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. (Lk. 5:9–10)
So many times the Gospels tell us that amazement and wonder are the response to Jesus. That was certainly Isaiah’s response to recognizing God’s presence and movement in the temple worship.
Why do we perceive so little wonder among us? If God can break through to us in something as ordinary as sitting in worship or fishing for food, who knows what God might do to us? Who knowswhat God might do for us? And who knows what God might do with us? Like God, truly great people have an open and welcoming quality about them. They don’t need to make us over in their image.
They don’t even need to have us measure up to some standard. They take us as we are. Their greatness is reflected in their compassion—literally “feeling with.” We find that compassion in response to both Isaiah and Simon. With Isaiah, God removes his “sin” by purifying his lips which will proclaim God’s love and compassion. With Jesus it occurs with a frequent response of angels and God’s messengers to those lost in wonder: “Fear not”—“Don’t be afraid.”
Too often with our systems and formulas, we want people to get to what we often call a confession of sin so they can be forgiven and “saved.” God and Jesus don’t seem to be as bothered about the sin of others as we are, and they don’t wait to act in people’s lives. What happens in both Isaiah’s and Luke’s stories is that first they are struck with wonder at the compassion and abundance of God’s love, then they are commissioned—given a task to do. Isaiah’s call will be to confront thepeople and the rulers with what God expects of them, and God expects rulers to show the same compassion and abundance of love that they have received from God to all the people. God’s call is less a call to honor and power as it is a call to ministry for a larger group.
Jesus wants Simon, Andrew, James and John—and us—to “catch people.”
I never liked that because it brings up an image of dead fish. In the Feasting on the Word Commentary [Year C, Vol. 1] Peter Eaton explains:
The NRSV rendering “catching people” masks a dynamism in the Greek that is lost intranslation. Jesus is saying to Peter that he will be “taking” or “saving men and women alive” for the kingdom. “To take men and women alive” is a very different image fromsimply catching them as though they are food.
We don’t trap followers; we offer them love. There is always more than enough love andcompassion to go around. In fact, love is the only resource which is not diminished but increased by giving it away.
There is always a future dimension to God’s rule. Walter Brueggemann, Bible scholar, speaks of that in terms of hope:
… Hope is subversive, for it limits the grandiose pretension of the present, daring to announce that the present to which we have made all commitments is now called intoquestion… The language of hope and the ethos of amazement have been partly forfeited because they are an embarrassment… they are a threat. (The Prophetic Imagination, p. 67)
We set up rules, regulations, and boundaries, and believe that God will follow them. Somehow God’slove and compassion calls us in our lowest of times despite our little systems of how things work and sends us to break those barriers by welcoming people into life in God’s rule.
We believe God is still at work among us and in the world. It’s time to practice being open to wonder. We can come to worship listening for what God is saying and looking for what God is doingamong us. We can go to work, school, or stay at home and look for ways to share surprising acts of love and compassion.
Jesus said to Simon, those others in the boat, those on the shore, and those who have followed forcenturies: “ ‘Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.’ 11 When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.” (Lk 5:10–11). They may have been lost in wonder, but they pulled for shore and followed Jesus into an uncertain but amazing future. Amen.