5th Sunday after Trinity + Luke 5:1-11
Grace
and peace be unto you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Have
you ever had one of those days where you work and don’t see a single result,
where you toil and don’t seem to get anywhere? It doesn’t even necessarily have
to be with a job. It could be with your children, your non-profit, your
studies, your marriage. It happens from time to time in all our vocations. We
ply the task assigned us and often have nothing to show for it. That’s the sort
of day Peter had the night before Jesus asked to get into his boat. Peter and
his crew out of their boats, washing their nets, doing the menial work of the
trade, when Jesus approaches. The crowd had been slowly pressing Jesus closer
and closer to the Lake of Gennesaret so that He had nowhere to go. But they
wanted to hear the Word of God. So He gets into Peter’s boat and asks the
fisherman to put out a little from land. At this point Peter already believed
in Christ. He had already heard Christ’s preaching and Jesus had already healed
Peter’s mother-in-law of a severe fever. So Peter lets Jesus use his boat as
His pulpit. Then Jesus does something most preachers would never dare to do. He
tells Peter how to do his job. “Launch
out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.”
Peter
then says those words which we so often feel in our hearts after a long,
tiring, fruitless day. “Master, we have
toiled all night and caught nothing.” Peter has every reason in the world
to turn the boat around and go back to shore. He’s a seasoned fishermen. He
knows this lake. He knows the fish. And he’s tired after a hard night’s toil.
But he has one reason to launch out into the deep and let his nets down for a
catch and that one reason is enough: Jesus has told him to do it. “Master, we have toiled all night and caught
nothing. Nevertheless at your Word I will let down the net.” Jesus sends
Peter back to his vocation and blesses his labor with His Word. “And when they had done this, they caught a
great number of fish, and their net was breaking. So they signaled to their
partners in the other boat to come help them. And they came and filled both
boats, so that they began to sink.” This shouldn’t have happened, not in
the middle of the day under the heat of the sun. But it happened because the
one who gave Peter the command is the one created those swimming creatures on
the fifth day of the world. He shows Peter His almighty power and His great
might over all creation. But Christ shows Peter, and us, something else.
He
shows us that He wants to bless our work and provide us our daily bread through
our labor. This is the doctrine of vocation. Vocation simply means “calling” so
that your vocations are more than your job. Your vocations are the different
stations you occupy in life. Are you a husband or wife? A father or mother? A
son or daughter? A citizen? An employee? All of these are vocations instituted
by God and given to you so that you might labor in them. It’s in these
vocations, and whatever other vocations God has given you, that you serve the
Lord and love your neighbor. Peter was a fisherman so Christ directed him back
to his nets. He didn’t want Peter to give up and abandon his calling. Neither
does your Lord want you to give up, or slacken in your assigned duties. Look at
what He does what for Peter. He gives him the work but He doesn’t give Peter
the outcome. The outcome is God’s business, not yours. This means you’re not to
worry about how ends will meet at the end of the month. The Lord will provide.
You’re not to fret about whether your children will turn out good or not. The
Lord will take care of that. You just do the work of raising them in the fear
of the Lord. In all your vocations God gives you the work but not the worry
about how it’ll all turn out. He tells Peter to launch out into the deep and
let down his nets for a catch. So he says to you each day in your vocations.
Launch out into the deep. Let down your nets for a catch and let God fill your
nets with whatever He thinks best for you today. This is what He teaches us by
granting Peter such blessing in His vocation as fisherman.
In
response to this great blessing Peter realizes who it is that’s in his boat.
This is no mere teacher of righteousness. It’s God Himself! Peter falls down at
Jesus knees and cries out, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!” Confronted with God in human flesh sitting in his boat,
Peter can only confess his sinfulness. When the prophet Isaiah saw the Lord in
a vision He said, “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” (Isaiah 6:5). How
much more terrified should Peter be, who sees God face to face in the person of
Christ? But Christ did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them.
Peter has confessed so Jesus forgives. “Do
not be afraid,” He says. “You have nothing to fear from God, Peter. I
forgive your sins.” The prophet Micah said, “You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea” (Micah
7:19). Jesus, who had moments ago brought a multitude to fish from this sea now
takes Peter’s sins and drowns them the sea of His mercy where God remembers
those sins no more.
Then
Jesus gives Peter a new vocation. “From
now on you will catch men.” This is the preaching office. From this point
on Peter will let down the net to catch men for the kingdom of God. The net he
will use is the gospel which He has just heard from Christ, that God forgives
the sins of all who repent and seek mercy from God. Christ calls him to labor
in this vocation and it will be remarkably similar to catching fish. He’s not
to use bait. Nor is He to lure the fish into the net. He’s simply to cast the
net of the gospel into sea of the world and catch those who hear and believe. There
will be days, months, and seasons, when he will have toiled and caught nothing.
There will be times when Peter experiences danger, persecution, and harm on
account of his vocation. He will even suffer for the sake of Christ. But none
of this is to be his concern. Christ has given Him the work but not the worry.
He’s given Peter the task of preaching repentance to all men. He’s not to worry
when men reject his preaching. He’s not to worry and fret about how many men
the gospel net has caught. He’s only given the work. The Lord Jesus will fill
the net when and where it pleases it.
This
is true for all vocations. In the church there are seasons when we do not see
the Gospel catching men and bringing them into the kingdom of God. In our jobs
there are times when we feel as if we are spinning our wheels and getting
nowhere. There are times in all of vocations in which we feel as if we’ve
toiled all night and caught nothing. But we are not to lose heart. We’re to
trust that God has put us in our vocations, that they are truly holy callings
from Him by which He gives us and others their daily bread. He calls us to do
the work. He doesn’t call us to worry about the outcome. Whatever it is God has
given you to do, as a husband, wife, as a father or mother, as a citizen, and
as a Christian, put your hand to the plow and don’t do look back. Put out into
the deep and let your nets down for a catch. And “whatever you do, do it heartily, as
to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the
reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ” (Colossians
3:23-24) in your vocations. Amen.
May the peace of
God which passes all human understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ
Jesus our Lord. Amen.