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In the Deep Water
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| 2/4/2007 |
In this gospel, Jesus climbed into Simon Peter’s boat along the edge of the lake. Simon Peter is not far off washing his net that, as we will see, did not catch any fish the night before.
When there is a boat involved in a gospel story—like when Jesus gets into, or out of, or sleeps in, or walks to—we know to listen for an allegory about the church. There is a good reason that the insides of church buildings are called naves. It comes from the Latin word for boat, navis. In 1501, the nave was actually called the navy, so the connection between church and boat seems clear. In the clever allegories of scripture, when Jesus is in a boat, he’s teaching us how the church should be. When someone like Simon Peter complains about what Jesus wants to do in the boat, well, that shows us our human resistance to what God has in store for the church with Jesus as its captain and rudder.
So what is Jesus teaching us about our church today, and how might we resist that teaching like Simon Peter resists Jesus’ instructions?
First, the boat is near the shore which we might reasonably interpret that to mean, the church is in a safe harbor, close to home, among its own people, not in the far off seas. It is not a place of risk. Being in a fishing boat at the shore means the fish have to swim to you. You are taking the boat out looking for fish to join the catch. Do you see where I am going?
Churches like ours, though open, inclusive and expansive, are likely to be “close to shore” economically, racially, and culturally. Christ Church for instance has stood here for 312 years, and people have to find there way here. The church cannot pick up and go looking for people like a boat goes looking for fish. A teaching in this passage is for the church to not be like a boat along the shore unwilling to pull up anchor. But, the question to grapple with is how does a church like ours—historic, a landmark, quite traditional—act like a boat leaving shore?
I love it when Jesus says to Simon Peter, “Put out into the deep water. . . .” In other words, let’s leave this safe harbor, and go out to the regions beyond, where we don’t know what’s what, and where, if the wind comes up, we’ll wonder if we’re going to make it home. I think Jesus is saying to Peter, Let’s leave this spot where all is familiar, where our feet can touch the ground, and see what is out where we are least familiar and comfortable.
And Jesus instructs that once out there in the uncharted waters to let down the nets (which Simon Peter has just finished cleaning) to make a catch.
So, our allegory here is that Jesus wants the boat to go away from its home, like a missionary travels to a far-off land, and brings new and different fish into the boat, like a missionary brings a new culture into the Christian Church.
Simon Peter’s boat is in familiar territory, and Jesus is teaching those who are eager to hear. In other words, along the shore are people who already agree. They are probably very much the same type of people. When Jesus asks Peter to go into the deep water, he is asking us and our church to leave the safe and familiar, where the people are the same, and go where the people are different.
Since we can’t move from this place, I think we leave the shore by being a church that is willing to change. Since we can’t go look for the different, let’s be about welcoming the different. The trick, the hard part, is being willing to be different for their sake, not our sake.
Peter, representing every church voice that says, “it won’t work if the church tries to change,” and “why do we have to change our church to be more welcoming to others when they should just adapt to whom we are” complains that there are no fish to catch. But Simon Peter is only talking about the lakeside, not out in the deep water.
In the deep water, Jesus wants to let down the nets. Now, a net is indiscriminate. It gathers in every fish regardless if the fish is worthy to be caught. The net doesn’t care if a certain fish “understands who we are and how we do things around here.” Indiscriminately, Jesus wants any fish the net catches in the boat. I like it in the story when the catch is so big, they call another boat to take half, and they both still might sink. Rather than empty boats along the shore, there are full boats in the deep unknown waters. Empty churches with too much history and tradition and not enough future and creativity should take note.
Which is why I am always surprised, if we take this passage seriously as we should, that our church, the Episcopal Church and the whole Anglican Communion, spend time wondering who is worthy to be in the church, and who should be out. As the net gathers all the fish regardless of what type of fish it is, does not God’s love include us all regardless of what type of fragile human we may be?
Simon Peter, when the nets are full, falls down before Jesus, saying, “I am a sinful man!” What he means is, “I wanted what I wanted, not what you wanted.” He doesn’t suffer from sin as much as limited vision of God’s vision. His admission of this limitation allows Jesus to say, Don’t worry, if you have faith in my vision, we’ll turn this boat into the church, and fill it with people from the deep waters, who will be transformed, as you have been, by God’s inclusive love.
I think our Church—local, national and global--goes disastrously astray when the people “along the shore” try to figure out how to include the people who live “out in the deep water.” We, who are already in the church, forget that we are there because we have already been included and saved by God’s love. We fail when we already inside think it is our job to include those outside, and forget, that like us, they have already been included and save by God’s love, but haven’t found a home to learn of God’s love for them. As Simon Peter thinks it would be far easier and less hassle for the fish in the deep water to swim to shore, and jump up into the boat by themselves so as to avoid having to get his net dirty again, we think it would be far easier to stay in our church as we are and let those we unconsciously discriminate against as different swim up to our doors and jump into our boat, on our terms.
The fish net of Jesus, reluctantly let down by the human hands from the human boat named The Church, teaches that God’s love includes us all; the same do not include the different. In a net, we’re all different one to the other, but we’re all the same—one body of caught fish made up of different members.
Now this is all hard work, and not to be completed in our lifetimes, probably. But here are signposts along the way:
• When we agree that the church’s concern should be what the next person through the door needs and wants from a church and less about making those already here happier with their church, then we pushing off for the deep water.
• When we say things like, we want new people to come to church and enjoy our music, just the way it is now, and our beautiful prayers, just the way they are now, we, like Simon Peter, want to stay close to shore.
• When the person you’re chatting with over a doughnut at coffee, who is so different from you culturally and politically, makes you really uncomfortable as they tell you how much they love your church, but you keep smiling and saying you hope they’ll be back, and when they do come back, you sit with them, rather than just wave awkwardly across the aisle, you’ve headed into the deep water pretty good.
• Naturally, we all call Christ Church “our church,” but once we think its ours, and not God’s, we are close to the shore. Though natural expressions, we must be aware of what’s behind saying, “I hope you come to my church this Sunday,” and the like.
If we can’t get to the deep water, we have to let the deep water in here, and not put up the dams of tradition, history and custom keep out the fish that comes with the deep water.
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