Last summer, I was in a fishing boat off the north west coast of Scotland with one of my kids. The boat had a neat bit of technology that scanned the water looking for fish, so that you could cast your line in the right direction (although, unlike the disciples that we heard about this morning, I didn’t get a single bite). The bit of kit also had a depth sounder – so it not only told you if there were any fish below but also how much water there was between you and the sea bed.
As we chugged across the sea loch, it was more than a little alarming to see the sea bed suddenly fall away below you from 20 to 100 ft at an alarming rate. The surface didn’t change of course – still wavy and grey – but the electronic equipment showed unseen that there were at times over 100 feet of cold dark water beneath our feet. And I clung on to my child just a little tighter.
It is evocative isn’t it, that phrase from the gospel reading this morning – Jesus command to his disciples – ‘put out into deep water and let down your nets for a catch’
In the biblical tradition ‘the deep waters’ is a place of danger, of sea monsters and chaos. It is a place of darkness and mystery.
And it was into this place (darkness, chaos, monsters) that the disciples cast their nets, caught a miraculous load of fish. And Jesus explained that this was an image for the ministry that they were to face – to fish for people and to grow his church. They were to catch people for Christ.
So, (my topic this morning) how do we do this today? How do we catch people for Jesus.
Cause it sounds a bit threatening, doesn’t it – to catch people – like we have to cojol and convince, drag off the streets, entreat, trick…and certainly this has been in the past, and for some today, the modus operandi….
How does this sound to you? Are you comfortable with the idea of catching people? Or does it make you feel a little uncomfortable…
It is strange that for many of us it feels difficult – Cause the message is great, it should be an easy sell, a very attractive idea – the Good News of Jesus Christ. And Paul summarised it there in our other reading this morning: that Christ died for our sins in accordance, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day – and because of this we should have no fear of suffering in this life and no anxiety about death ..USP – unique selling point of all the world faiths. Hope, healing, resurrection, no fear in death, eternal life.
So – if the message is good – why can it sometimes feel like a hard sell? Why can it make us feel uncomfortable to invite more people along, inviting all our friends and colleagues, to this place – grow the church.
Problem is folks – we do have to do this. And we are mandated to do this, by Jesus, in all four gospels – we cannot get out of growing the church if we are to call ourselves Christian – Go and make disciples – in all four gospels – go and make disciples…
But each time Jesus says it, he also says ‘and heal’….’go and make disciples and heal’…
Too often the church, us christians, now and in the past, has focussed on the first phrase of that command – Go and make disciples – and ignored or at least downplayed the second bit – heal. Somehow they have become separated – mission all the time, healing once a month on a sunday evening!
But – I want to make the case – that if we offer the healing bit well… the growing the church bit, happens by itself. Because if we show we care, if we proclaim that coming here, being faithful, is healing, creates health, helps us lead flourishing lives of hope, then we will show that the Christian faith is deeply attractive and without doubt the foundation of lives well lived.
Urgency – the church is declining at an enormous rate accelerated by the pandemic – but this is not why I think that the task of missional growth through healing is urgent.
There is an urgent need to grow the church, because right now the healing needs of our world are so great, our communities are traumatised, there is so much unexpressed grief, loss, loneliness, uncertainty – that there is an urgent need for each of us to go out in the community and show people that this cathedral is a place of healing.
The healing and hope we offer in this building (eucharist, prayers, music, beauty, sanctuary), in lives of faith, can and should meet the vast needs of our world right now. I run an organisation that resources, trainings, equips and networks the church and people of faith to find healing and health, to flourish in mind, body and spirit. And there are so many ways to do it – Pastoral ministry, prayers for healing…partnering with GP, social prescribing – however we want to offer the healing in the name of God, people will come. The response of the church (and other FBOs) during the pandemic is now widely recognised by local and national government. So we have an opportunity to build on that. So the question is – how to do it well, each of us here this morning, and do it in a way that is true to the good news and the faith.
Paul opens up a way, leaves a few clues, for us to explore this further. After outlining the mission, our USP, he got personal…
He wrote – But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace towards me has not been in vain.
I am what I am…
I do what I do because of who I am – god uses me, say Paul, the whole of me, to deliver the message.
What Paul is saying is not some self focused, individualised idea about self fulfilment – the statement is more than the sentiment we find in Gloris Gaynor disco pop sensation – I am what I am, my own special creation.
The faith is that we are all God’s special creation – even the bits of ourselves we don’t like much, perhaps parts of our past, or bits of our body, or our mental health – because we are a work in progress and the faith offers healing and so despite the bits that need healed, God will use us to grow the church.
Out of who he was God empowered Paul to spread the word and attract people to the faith (remember he had persecuted the Christians, and lived with a thorn in his side). Out of his own story, his own pain and suffering. His own darkness, his own depths, and the healing that he experienced – he attracted people of faith. Just like the disciples who found an abundance in the depths, Paul has found his own healing and salvation by being who he was, I am what I am, and through him, God was able to do extraordinary things.
Why inviting people sometimes feels hard, I think, is that sometimes, in church, we like to pretend we are perfect and nothing is wrong. We are christians, so there is somehow this expectation that we should have sorted lives. And yet, if we are able to show our true selves, warts and all, thorns and all suffering and all, pain and all, all the depths – if we are honest about all of that and yet also show that we have a relationship with the God of the universe who loves us as we are now, in our own life, we are powerfullly displaying the nature of God – we will attract people to the faith and grow the church. Because God can and does heal – sometimes instantly, sometimes it takes a while, and sometimes healing looks different from what we expected.
But by the grace of God I am what I am – healed, a work in progress, muddling through but aware of Gods love – as long as we are honest about what that looks like, we cannot go far wrong.
There is another clue in that statement. What does this I am mean and where does it come from? Paul, in making this statement, is connecting his mission in with the source of the church.
Jesus says:
- I am the Good Shepherd (John 10:11,14)
- I am the Resurrection and the Life (John 11:25)
- I am the Way and the Truth and the Life (John 14:6)
- I am the Vine (John 15:1,5)
These statements all show that Jesus wasn’t a very very very very special man. He was God, the great I Am.
Let’s quickly jump back into the hebrew bible and remember where the great ‘I am’ comes from, out of the burning bush when Moses was afraid to go on God’s mission, felt physically, spiritually and psychologically unable to do the task god was sending him to do – God spoke out of the burning bush –
14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am.”[a]
“I am who I am”? in this God was saying – “Moses, I know you’re worried. I know you’re fearful. I know you’ve failed before. You want to know who is sending you? I’m telling you who is sending you. I am who I am. The God who will be with you is the God who is sending you. I am with you.”
So, when Paul says that he is able to do this mission despite it all, it is because he links himself with Jesus, who is God, and God is with us. And he does it, not because he is perfect, but because he has failings and God works through him anyway.
The church has such a great opportunity right now to be hubs for healing for the whole community, places of healing and reconciliation, beacons of light and hope. Our job isn’t to be perfect, drag people in off the street…our job is to remember how much we are loved, ask for healing for the bits that went wrong, and live lives so full of the love of God that people can’t help to be attracted. Our job is to invite people into the light and love and healing power of this place. Our job is to pray and ask God to be with us. Even when the water is deep and there are storms approaching. God is with us, and all shall be well.
Amen