Many are called but few are chosen (Mt 22:14).  Is this an ad for the Marines?  It’s not a really encouraging doctrine, at first glance.  How about everyone called and all chosen?  No decisions need be made, then.  No changes or choices.  No hopeful, prayerful, faithful obedience.  Nothing we ought to be doing that might seem hard.  Everyone called, all chosen.  Our own experience tells us it just isn’t so.  Our own experience tells us not everyone is called.  So how do we know whether we’re chosen?  Can we?

Many were gathered around Jesus, “listening to the word of God” (5:1).  He’s drawing huge crowds.  Jesus did that, if you can believe it.  We don’t seem to see the Word of God drawing crowds, in our day, but our perspective is limited.  God has arranged everything.  It wasn’t that Peter and Andrew, James and John just happened to be near the spot where Jesus stopped—what a lucky coincidence!  The four were there, along with the hundreds, because God had arranged it to be so.  Your faith, your response, your Yes, Amen! is by the arrangement of God.  Never doubt that He wants you among His own; never doubt that you belong among the chosen, even if do we seem a little frozen, from time to time.  The Spirit is always warming us!  Thank God for the fire!

It’s sort of staggering that all these crowds are gathered around Jesus, considering the epic rejection Jesus just met at the hands of his own townspeople: they were going to throw him off a cliff (4:29).  Rejection is never far away when Jesus is around.  Isn’t that our big fear?  Why bother talking about Jesus, sharing Jesus?  They’ll just reject him and be irritated with us.  I’m no good at that kind of thing!  Acceptance is never far away when Jesus is around—hold onto that!  You of all people know it’s true!  If it’s proved true for you, might it still prove true for others still out there?

Jesus gets into one of the two boats there.  The fishermen were a little further off, out in the water, washing their nets (5:2).  That sounds like fun work!  It wasn’t especially rewarding, didn’t feel that way; none of them thought about it that way, but it was necessary work.  Their nets were their livelihood.  In taking care of the nets, they were taking care of themselves, their families, and many others—all those who ate because of them.

There they were, then, doing necessary work, when Jesus came and called them, particularly, to necessary work, work that would take care of themselves, their families, and many others.  Jesus asks Peter to take his boat out a little distance onto the lake (5:4).  Rather than tell him to go jump in the lake, which Peter certainly could have done—he’s tired! he’s worked all night! he doesn’t have much to show for it!  Instead, Peter obliges Jesus, gives Jesus a chance.  Peter takes a chance, and listens.  Many of the parables tell of people getting a living.  I imagine that’s what Jesus was talking about that day, too.  Our time and attention are occupied with getting a living, yet Jesus would draw our attention to getting life.

All those people, a large crowd, crowding the shore to hear what?  To see what?  Wanting what?  Are they just curious?  Jesus puts on quite a show, when he wants to, as they’ve heard.  Entertainment seems too shallow a reason to come and hear Jesus, to come and see, yet even worship services can become concerned with production values.  No one is going to say outright, hey! we’ve got the most entertaining worship around! but word gets around.  Lightshows, smoke machines, sound engineers, guitar solos, preachers just like the smiley, shiny guys on TV . . . well, different people are looking for different things in worship; they want different things out of their worship experience.  And God reaches different people differently.  But let us come wanting to be reached more than to be pleased; let us be fed for life, rather than distracted from life.

Jesus has come with a message of abundance.  Abundance sounds good, but can Jesus deliver?  At the end of that day, it seems the only ones who have received this message were the four: Peter and Andrew, James and John.  Why them?  That Jesus message was what they had most deeply wanted, maybe without necessarily even knowing it or having the words to describe or name what they most deeply needed.  Many were called.  Jesus called out to each and all of those there that day.  Who responded of all those crowding crowds?

What did they want?  Little as we want to ponder it, even now, we must try to understand that there are people for whom Jesus holds no attraction.  He isn’t the answer and has nothing they want.  They can name several things they want; they won’t name Jesus.  Shall we, in that case, make Jesus attractive, more attractive?  If we just work harder at it?  Rework and remodel him to make him acceptable?  Red-blooded Jesus?  True blue Jesus?  Buddy Christ?  We just need to get him in the right light!  Yet isn’t he the light?

Beloved, we cannot make Jesus attractive.  Only God can.  We call that grace.  We call that salvation.  We hope.  We pray.  We practice our faith together, to bless one another and to bless our neighbors, neighbors we have from God.  We cannot make Jesus attractive to them.  We can live and serve in such a way that others soon figure out that we find Jesus attractive, that we find our deepest needs met in him.  “I’m glad you have your faith,” some may politely say to us.  Every person has deepest needs, and people are unhappy when these needs are not fulfilled, we know.  The problem is, people don’t know where to find true fulfillment, until Jesus comes, calls, speaks, works in our lives.  Then, we can’t imagine how we lived without him; we now know we didn’t live, without him.

“When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, ‘Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch’” (5:4).  He said what he wanted to say to the crowds.  There is what Jesus says to everyone, knowing some may hear, and there is what he says to those he knows are near, and listening, like Peter.  The message of Jesus Christ is out there, beloved: everyone, with very little effort, can find out just what Jesus said, the core beliefs of Christianity—the internet is brilliant that way.  The problem we face is the same problem God faces: not that people do not know but that they do not want to know.  They know what they want to know.  All too many don’t want to learn about Jesus: there is much more of much greater interest and attraction for them out there than Jesus.  But we are here, in the boat, in the ark, with Jesus, the Word of God, living and active.  And Jesus has something to say particularly to us as to Peter.

Jesus asks what, to Peter, seems pointless.  In a world where anyone can find out about Jesus, it seems pointless for us to go around talking about him: so many other sources already do it, probably much better, more knowledgably, more confidently!  Yet Jesus asks.  Jesus is more than information, beloved.  He isn’t a system of belief.  He doesn’t make rules, though he gives commandments.  The internet can’t introduce anyone to Jesus.  It takes a personal introduction; it takes a relationship.  Jesus is working on a relationship with Peter, and with you and me.

Peter responds that what Jesus asks doesn’t seem worth it; what’s the use?  Nothing will happen, even if I did.  It’s just no use.  “But because you say so, I will” (5:5).  Do what he says.  We’ve heard that before.  When we do what Jesus says, he surprises us, miracles happen.  When we do what Jesus says, there is abundance beyond belief but never beyond faith.  When we start doing what Jesus calls us to do, we begin to have some confidence that we just may be chosen.  It’s as we grow more and more into this discipleship into which Christ calls us that we grow in faith and the exhilarating conviction that we have been chosen.  This knowledge becomes precious to us, precious as Jesus, as we tend the net of God’s Word, by which we take care of ourselves, our families, and many others.

Peter is the expert at fishing, the authority.  If anyone knows about fishing, it’s Peter.  Deep down, Peter knows what Jesus says makes no sense.  If Jesus would just listen to Peter, they could avoid all the hassle as they sat there with nothing to show for their labor.  People would like Jesus to listen to them: I’ll do what you say if you’ll do what I say.  They’d be glad if God’s Word would just submit to their guidance and wisdom, their experience and knowledge, their familiarity with the ways of the world, the hearts of people.  Fallen hearts don’t crave righteousness, beloved; fallen hearts crave indulgence.

Part of our respect and love for Jesus shows itself in deference to him, obedience to what he says, all that he says, not just what aligns with the values you and I bring with us into church.  Because we do bring that with us, and it doesn’t take long, if we’re spending time with God’s Word, in God’s Word—it doesn’t take long for what we bring in with us to start clashing with what God is saying.

Jesus delights in showing what he can do for us, just as he demonstrated this to Peter and the others there with him in the boat that day.  Abundance?  I can give you abundance you never imagined, couldn’t begin to dream!  And if I can do this for you today, what more do you think I will yet be able to do for you?

Peter, looking around as the others struggle with the nets, at their breaking point, the boats nearly capsizing, at their breaking points—Peter isn’t rubbing his hands and doing the mental math.  Jesus is showing what he can do for Peter and every other Peter out there, and Peter falls on his knees and begs Jesus to go away and forget about him.  “I am a sinful man!” Peter cries out (5:8).  You’re causing me to see myself, and I don’t want it!  I’m reminded of Isaiah, who, beholding the glory of God, the brilliant abundance of grace and love, can think only how terrible it is for him to witness it, to be in the presence of God.  Isn’t that strange?  Yet it isn’t, is it?  Not really.  Perhaps you and I comprehend that terror, that fear.

Peter at this point doesn’t know exactly what it means that Jesus has come into his life, but he witnesses the abundance, the power, and he knows that, whatever else it may mean, for him and everyone, it means change: it means an end as well as a beginning.  And Peter is afraid.  Maybe he wants change, maybe he wants a beginning, but not at the cost of an ending, the end of what he had known, before.  The end of life lived on his terms: his way, his truth, his values, his standard.  Jesus means to use all of us, abundantly, for his abundance.  Believe it or not, you and I hold out, just like the apostles.  None of them gave themselves to Jesus whole-heartedly, not even when they saw how Jesus gave himself for them whole-heartedly.  Only afterwards, the empty tomb demanding an answer, demanding their response.  Even then, it was hard.  But hard doesn’t mean impossible, not where there is faith, hope.  Hard doesn’t mean impossible where there is love: the beginning of love and the end, the fulfillment.  The end of self-love is the beginning of love for God.

Now to the One who by the power at work within us is able to do far more abundantly than all we can ask or imagine, to God be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever.