Homily for Trinity 5

Through Isaiah, the Lord said: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Is 55:8,9) But not only are the Lord’s thoughts different from ours, but to us they appear nonsense. “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God” and why not? “For they are folly to him and he is not able to understand them.” (1 Cor. 2:14)

So when Jesus, after having absconded with Peter’s boat and turning it into a pulpit, tells the weary fishermen that it’s time to head back and do some fishing, you can almost hear what’s running through Peter’s mind.

“Number one. You may not have noticed this, rabbi, since you were so busy teaching, but while you’ve been talking, we’ve been working. We just finished cleaning our nets. We just finished folding them and packing them away. Number two. You are a rabbi, and by trade a carpenter. I’ll allow you know a thing or two about the Scriptures. I’ve never heard anyone open them up like you. But would you allow that I am a fisherman? That I know a thing or two about fishing? And you know what? You don’t fish out in the deep, because the fish like the shallows and you don’t fish nearly so well in the daytime as at night. Fish have eyes. They see the net and swim away, you see? Number three. We’ve been up all night working. We got nothing. And then you delayed us by using our boat. We just want to go home and go to sleep. Do you understand?”

So run the thoughts of men. Luther, in his blunt way, put it like this: “It’s natural for us to think we’re smarter than our Lord God.” But notice that though Peter would surely have been thinking along these lines, as he indicates when he says: “Master, we have toiled all night and taken nothing,” there follows a great big fat old “nevertheless.” “Nevertheless, at Your Word I will let down the nets.”

Luther again, describing Peter’s approach: “I’ll kiss my own opinion good-bye and stick to your Word.” Now there you have it. It sounded stupid, foolish, hopeless. But since the Master said it, they did it. There’s a lesson for us all.

How much faith do you think they had when they dropped those nets? I suspect they were just humoring the Lord. Maybe even nursing the thought that they’d be able to say: “See, we told you so.” But what happened?

Fish. The Lord of the sea commanded the fish. And the fish obey when he speaks. Into the nets they swim. School after school, till the nets are ready to break. When the Lord gives gifts, he’s not stingy. Like at Cana, an abundance of wine. So here, an abundance of fish. As the collect for day said it: “exceeding all that we can desire.” He does never does anything by halfs. With Him it’s the lot and them some more. Everything and then some.

But now Peter is really freaking. Fish. Fish. Fish. And as they glisten and flop around in the boat and the boats start to sink under the heaviness of the Lord’s gifts, Peter sinks too. Down to his knees. Fish everywhere. And he says to Jesus: “Go away. Leave me. I am a sinful man, O Lord.”

But God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, His ways are not our ways. He didn’t come into the flesh to scare sinners off, but to draw them into communion with Himself. So: “Don’t be afraid.” As though He said: “Yeah, I know it freaks you out to have the Lord of all creation sitting here in your boat and blessing you with an abundance you never looked for, but Peter, you haven’t seen anything yet. I haven’t come among you to merely supply you with an abundance of earthly goods – I would never have had to come down from heaven to do that. I’ve come among you to do something else. Something so that sinners would never have to be afraid of my company ever again. Come on, Peter – come on, James and John. I’ll show you what I’ve come to do. And then you won’t be catching fish anymore. You’ll be catching men.”

And off they went. They left everything behind and followed Jesus. We’re impressed by that, but they’d look at us strangely and say: “Look, if you’ve got the Lord of earth and sea with you, what have you really left behind? He’s everything!” And so they watch Him do what He came to do. They see first-hand how the thoughts of God are not our thoughts. God come in the flesh not to wipe out sinners, but to wipe out sin. God come in the flesh, not to judge and condemn, but to be judged and condemned, to suffer and to die. Nailed to a piece of wood. Whew. Not our thoughts at all. God the Son becoming all that we are by nature in order to make us all that He is by grace. He the Sinner; we the children. He the damned, we the blessed. He in our hell; we in His heaven. Who would ever have dreamed it up? Folly to those who are perishing, but to those who are being saved, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Risen from the dead, He sends forth His disciples to fish for men with a Gospel net.

So, it’s not just back then that his thoughts and ours are headed in opposite directions. It goes on still today. He has His way of doing things, and it seems pretty silly to us. He says take some water and throw on a person with the Name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and sins are forgiven, the Holy Spirit bestowed, a new birth takes place, heaven is opened, people are adopted into the family of God and eternal life is imparted to all who believe it. We want to say: “What? We don’t have to do anything?” “Right,” he says. Or He says: “take bread and wine and speak over them at my command these words of mine and what you then have is My Body and My Blood given for you for the forgiveness of sins, and that way I’ll live in you and you will live in me forever.” We look at it and say: “It sure looks just like bread and wine.” He says: “It is what I say it is.” He says: “Go out and tell my story! Tell people about the God who loved them so much that He took on flesh and blood to suffer and die for them, because He loves them and wants them to share eternity with Him.” We say: “Well, you’ve got to have more than that to make it work.” He says: “No you don’t. Anything you add only detracts.” He says: “Do it my way. You just heed my word and let me take care of filling the boat.”

“My thoughts are not your thoughts and my ways are not your ways.” True, indeed, from His birth of the Immaculate Virgin to His death on the Tree of shame; from His rising in a body incorruptible to the means He uses to impart a share in His endless life - communion with the Father. From start to finish, it’s all different from anything we’d ever have dreamt up, and for that all glory and honor be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.