Rector's Sermon - Sunday, February 8, 2004

First Reading	Psalm	Epistle	Gospel
Isaiah 6:1-8	138:1-4, 7-9	1 Corinthians 15:1-11	Luke 5:1-11

    Years ago, summer camps for boys started in June. In Maine, the lake water still had a hint of the late spring frosts, even if air temperatures were moderate. The older, experienced campers, resolutely plunged in the lake the first opportunity they got, embracing the waters like old friends, and their bodies quickly adjusted. Yet every year there would always be a few, usually among the new campers, who sat on the bulkhead or along the dock for what seemed like hours. They swung their legs in and the water was freezing. Holding back, they waited and then tried again and again. The water seemed to get colder each time they tentatively tested it. . Their cabin mates were having so much fun under the bright sun and they were missing it all on the sidelines. But when they tried to enter the water, it seemed as if the cold threatened to stab them and render them senseless. “Come on, once you get in you will be fine,” their friends would yell back. By the end of the first day's swim period most would take the plunge, and find they could adapt quite well. Sometimes there were one or two that took what seemed to be almost a week.

    I understood what it was like, for I was one of those boys once: wanting to go in, but not daring to; feeling the cold seize the nerves of my leg whenever I attempted to go in gradually. It was torture to stand on the edge and seemed it would be even worse torture to go all the way into the unknown.

    This Sunday we have heard the outline of the Gospel story before. Things with Jesus were going well. The crowd staying to hear him was so large that for everyone in the cove to hear him, he taught in a boat a little ways from shore. Afterwards, the disciples likely remarked, “Well Jesus, the crowds were fine for you, but the fishing sure was poor for us. I wonder how we are going to eat.” Jesus turned and pointed out to a shoal they hadn't tried. Soon the nets were bursting.

    Now from a comfortable and superficial vantage point, you would think that the disciples would be very happy. Here was someone who could not only give food for thought, but put food on the table for their stomachs, too. A good preacher and a great fisherman, what a guy! What more could you ask for?

    That isn't what happened. It was similar to the outcome in the synagogue in Nazareth a few months before, where at first the people were very complimentary of Jesus' teaching. They enjoyed listening to him. He was so much more engaging, exciting, and stimulating than all the regular rabbis of the town. Then it hit them. Jesus was different, really different. He was calling them to change their old way of life and in some, but profound way, to take a plunge into water way over their head. They became so frightened they drove Jesus out of town. Peter named the fear in all the disciples when he said, “Jesus, please leave us; go away, we can't bear this. Our lives may be miserable, but what you are asking us to do is so scary and beyond all our predictions, expectations and control.”

    Jesus wasn't talking about how to strengthen membership in the local synagogue. Jesus wasn't seeking to increase membership in his own group of followers. Jesus was inviting people to become disciples, plainly telling them that he expected them to grow, not to stay the same and on the sidelines without commitment.

    I have remarked to many of you over this past week that St. John's has been put in Ithaca not to be in the membership business, but in the disciple making and disciple strengthening business. That is a lot like taking a plunge into the unknown cold waters of our culture; not knowing if we will sink to the bottom, not knowing if we are able to adjust and not knowing if we might fail.

    I think I understand how Peter felt standing in the shallow waters of a cove of the lake of Galilee many years ago, for I remember an early summer's day long ago in Maine standing on the edge of a similar cove. I also remember shouts of my cabin mates urging me, “Come on in, get wet all over, it will be OK.,” as I hear in today’s Gospel, Jesus tell Peter, “Do not fear, but follow me.”

    And I offer this to you in the name of the Living God, Amen.