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God's
Net is Wide Pastor
Peg's Sermon on Mark 1:14-20
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God's
Net is Wide Pastor
Peg's Sermon on Mark 1:14-20
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But Bonhoeffer comes to
mind even this morning as today’s Gospel is the call stories of Simon and
Andrew, James and John who Jesus called to follow him.
Bonhoeffer understood himself, and all Christians, as under this same
call. And it is no light thing.
The Gospel speaks of
something big happening and calls us to think big ourselves.
Bonhoeffer thought big – not in terms of taking life on his own
shoulders, but in terms of the largeness of God’s vision for the world and
what he dared hope God might be able to accomplish in the world and in our work
together. The terminology Jesus uses
in these call stories assumes it is about working together.
Jesus says, “Follow me and I will make you
fish for people.” The call is to team work. There’s
nothing isolating about the call.
And fishing terminology
lives on into our day. Galilean
fishermen didn’t fish with poles and worms based on the hope that fish will
like what you put on the end of your line. Simon
and Andrew, James and John fished with nets – a type of fishing common today
that catches fish by surprise, whether they’re looking for bait or not.
Now net fishing can be a
negative image, as with the net fishing of tuna that has killed so many dolphins
that there are now regulations about how tuna can be caught.
And I always look for that “dolphin safe” label whenever I buy canned
tuna.
I read an article
recently about a humpback whale that had gotten caught in a mess of crab net.
The nets were so heavy with the crab cages attached to them that the
whale was struggling to get its blow hole close enough to the water’s surface
to breathe. Three divers wanted to
help the whale and worked for hours to cut it free from the net.
When they got it free they had the most incredible experience of their
lives when the whale swam up to each of them and gently nuzzled them like a
puppy dog. So it ended well, but
nets are not always good.
But when Jesus calls the
disciples to fish for people Jesus has something very good and very wide in
mind. I experienced some of the
goodness and breadth of God’s net of mercy a week ago.
The greater Chico-area was confronted with the tremendous tragedy
of a beloved teenager taking her own life. The
family is not a part of our congregation, but some among us know them well.
A service was planned to celebrate her life and it brought together
atheists and agnostics, two Catholic schools, a Baptist pastor, a Calvary Chapel
pastor, some very close Lutheran friends, and many others, young and old.
What I experienced at the
service was a wide net of gracious loving in the midst of shared sorrow and
struggle to understand. It was as if
a cloud of comfort hovered over the room and penetrated through all the
differences. The gathered community
was woven together not only by sorrow, but also by love and hopefulness that
life will go on and joy will again be possible some day.
I left the service in tears and profoundly grateful for the privilege of
sitting with mostly strangers knowing that even I, an outsider, was caught in
the web of grace as we shared together in their deep sorrow and their enduring
love.
No one is left out of
God’s amazing grace. It stretches
across every imaginable chasm and every deeply held conviction.
Bonhoeffer knew this. He
lived at a time of blindness regarding the belovedness of the Jewish people.
Jews were seen by some as less than human, as not worthy of dignity or
life.
Bonhoeffer was a
Christian who saw through that blindness. He
saw in his Jewish neighbors, brothers and sisters with different convictions,
but equally beloved by God. His
sister’s husband was a Jew and so he had personally come face to face with the
impact of prejudice, but he took his concern beyond the personal to the
communal.
Bonhoeffer was not one to
point the finger at others or to demand that someone else do something about it.
He believed he was called as a Christian to reach out to others in need
not by proselytizing, but by protecting and loving even ones different than
himself.
And this is the task
before us – to keep out eyes so widely open that we see God’s all embracing
net and help to spread its good news over all the world.
And this net includes not only people, but all creation – even humpback
whales and old growth trees and the sky that needs our best minds to be called
to task to discover how to protect the ozone layer so important to the well-being
of all creation. Because God’s net
is wide, God’s call is wide for us to participate in the work of God in the
world.
If God want our
partnership and help, Jesus would not have come to call disciples to follow him.
But Jesus came and still comes to people like you and me.
And not even the sky is the limit in how we might respond.
Some of you have accepted
the role of helping our Junior High Confirmation program be all it can be.
Junior High kids often are labeled with the reputation of being the most
difficult age group to work with, but we had no problem securing enough adults
to help with the program. And some
are back for a second and third year, recognizing these kids as beloved brothers
and sisters in the body of Christ.
Others have taken on the
task of leadership in our congregation, not always an easy task, but we are
growing together as leaders and finding fellowship as we do so. Others
have taken on acts of service, keeping the kitchen organized so it can be used
to cook for the homeless shelter and for meetings among us. Others
keep our property in good order and Sunday School going and outreach efforts of
sharing and caring, globally and locally, supporting those in need in our
community and in places of need around the world.
In closing, I want to
give thanks for one ministry in particular that was born of a person who
recognized in her own grief a need for support in our community for others
facing the kind of grief she bears. One
within our own membership here at Faith took it upon herself with the
partnership of a Catholic woman and a Mormon woman to begin a Bereaved Parents
Group for parents of children who have died in any way.
The group has been
meeting here at Faith on a Thursday evening once a month since August.
I see this group as a net of understanding love standing ready to catch
others with mercy born of their own experience of losing a child and I am moved
by this compassionate outreach.
May each of us listen
deeply to where mercy is needed in our own lives!
That yearning within us may give us a clue as to how we might creatively
participate in embodying God’s net of mercy for others!
Thankfully we are not called to create this divine net!
From the beginning God has woven it into the fabric of creation.
That is good news indeed! But
God has no arms but ours to cast this net out into the human corners of life.
Amen.
+Pastor Peg Schultz-Akerson,
to the glory of God
Faith