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| protestors outside the Otay Mesa Detention Center |
Going Deeper in Love
Sermon by the Rev. John Kirkley
for the 5th Sunday after the Epiphany
Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful people
and enkindle in them the power of your love.
Amen.
“When he had finished speaking, Jesus said to Simon, ‘Put
out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.’”[1]
There is a time for talking.
But once everything thing that needs to be said has been said, it is
time to push out into the deep water; to move outside our comfort zone into the
unknown beyond what we can control; to task some risks for the sake of love. At some
point, we must claim and share love’s power, allow love to have sway in our
lives, and trust love’s invitations. How will we respond to the invitation to go out
into the deep water, deeper in love?
This is the question that Jesus poses to Simon Peter and to
us. It is a question that emerges in the
context of relationship. It is a
question that challenges us take see our lives as intertwined. It is a question that confronts us with our
fears. And nothing less than the meaning
of our life and the good of our community hinges on our response.
Before Christmas, I had the opportunity along with some
other faith leaders in San Francisco to meet with Natalia, a courageous woman
from Honduras who, at that time, was caring for her 11-year old son with
special needs while her husband, Hector, was held in the Adelanto Detention
Center. Natalia came to us in
desperation requesting support for her family in their request for asylum.
Natalia, Hector and their son, Pedrito, fled Honduras after
Hector was nearly killed by gangs in the drug trade. Hector worked as a security guard at a
warehouse, when he was approached by local drug dealers demanding that he store
their drugs for them. He refused, so
they sent gang members to kidnap and murder him. They threw him down a flight of stairs and
left him to die in a pool of his own blood.
Fortunately, Hector was rushed to the hospital and survived, though he
was quickly released from the overburdened health facility.
When the gangs learned that Hector had survived, they
threatened to kill him, Natalia and Pedrito.
Hector sought assistance from a human rights group, which helped him to
file a police report. He bravely agreed
to an interview about his situation on national television, under the condition
that his identity be protected; but the station aired the interview without
masking his face or voice. Realizing the
danger to him and his family, the human rights group arranged for an order of
nuns to smuggle the family out of the country to Mexico. Last June, they presented themselves at the
U.S. border requesting asylum, whereupon Hector was immediately separated from
his family and placed in detention. Natalia
made her way to the Bay Area, trying to find work, a place to live, and
services for her son, pending the outcome of their asylum hearing.
Hector, Natalia, and Pedrito pushed out into the deep water
and let down their nets for a catch, trusting that they would haul up an
abundance of love, powerful enough to save their lives. The faith community was their boat, and they
said “yes” to the invitation to love that Jesus continually offers us.
When Simon Peter pushed out into the deep water with Jesus,
it was a decision fraught with comparable risk that demanded a similar level of
trust as Hector and Natalia’s decision to seek asylum. It was
a life altering choice. But it didn’t
happen all at once. Jesus had been
walking with Simon Peter for a while.
The invitation to claim love’s power emerges in the context of
relationship.
The Roman poet Cicero wrote that “The most shameful
occupations are those which cater to our sensual pleasures, fish-sellers,
butchers, cooks, poultry-raisers and fisherman.” According to an ancient Egyptian papyrus,
“The fisher is more miserable than any other profession.”[2] This was certainly true of first century
fishermen in Galilee. Under Roman
occupation, fishing to feed local communities was restructured to benefit urban
elites throughout the empire. Most of
the fish caught was salted or turned into a fish sauce for export. The cost of licenses to fish, as well as
taxes on the fish product and its processing, and tolls for its transportation,
led to the indebtedness and impoverishment of formerly self-sustaining Galilean
fishing families.
Having probably worked construction as a day laborer
building new docks, warehouses, and fish processing sweat-shops in the port
cities undergoing a development boom around the sea of Galilee, Jesus was
familiar with the hard conditions under which Simon Peter, Andrew, James and
John worked. He knew their struggle
because he had been living in solidarity with them for some time at his home
base in Capernaum. Drawing on the
prophetic tradition of Israel, Jesus invited people to claim and share the
power of God’s love to create a nonviolent revolution: to embody God’s just and peaceable kingdom on
earth.
Simon Peter and his companions were familiar with
Jesus. He had stayed at Simon Peter’s
home previously, and had even healed Simon’s mother-in-law.[3] Jesus spent time listening to them, walking
with them, seeking to understand and sympathize with their struggles for food,
health, security and dignity. I don’t
think it would be too much to say they knew that Jesus loved them. They had a relationship with Jesus and were
attracted to his message, but had not yet made a commitment to his movement.
It is with this background in mind that we must imagine
Jesus sitting in Simon Peter’s boat, finishing up his teaching that morning on
the shore of the Sea of Galilee. Jesus
had patiently developed a relationship with Simon Peter and his companions, but
now it was time to go deeper in love.
Jesus challenged Simon Peter to see their lives as intertwined, to trust
that Jesus would share his power with him, and that together they could make a
difference in their community.
I read the experience of the “miraculous” haul of fish as a
demonstration of the power of God’s love, of its capacity to open us to claim
and receive everything that we need for abundant life. It is like the “miraculous” feeding
stories. Jesus challenges people again
and again to discover that they are enough and that they have enough – if they
are willing to claim and share love’s power.
It can be a little overwhelming to touch into this
power. Simon Peter discovers that he
really is in deep water, maybe over his head, and he freaks out a little
bit. In part, Simon Peter realizes how
small, how unworthy, how inadequate he feels in the presence of love’s power
and love’s demand. In part, he realizes
how risky love can be. Bringing in that
big haul of fish to feed his neighbors violated scores of imperial regulations
and crossed the line between being a fisherman and being a poacher, a thief, and
a rebel. In part, he resists the new level
of awareness and responsibility that the experience of love’s power
brings. Simon Peter can no longer
pretend not to know the power and the promise of love.
Jesus says to Simon Peter, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you
will be catching people.”[4] To claim love’s power we must do two
things: we must move beyond our fear of
love’s demand, and we must share love’s power.
We can’t do it alone, and we shouldn’t try. The invitation to love is an invitation to
relationship, to a recognition that our lives are intertwined with that of
others, and that only as we share love’s power are we able to realize God’s
promises in our lives.
In this context, “catching people” has at least two
meanings. First, it means “putting
people on the hook,” holding those in authority accountable to God’s demand
that power take the form of love implementing the demands of justice. This is the meaning of “catching people” in
the Jewish prophetic tradition.[5] But, secondly, it carries the meaning of
simply inviting others to claim and share the power of God’s love in their own
lives for the sake of justice in our communities.
This is true evangelism:
not saving individual souls from hell, put inviting others into
relationship so that together we can realize the collective power of love
implementing the demands of justice. It
is hell on earth – the kind of hell from which Hector, Natalia and Pedrito fled
– against which love’s power must contend.
It requires us to push out into the deep water, and let down our nets.
Looking back at our meeting with Natalia in the office of
Faith in Action, I realize now that she was inviting us to push out into the
deep water with her, to share love’s power even though we don’t know where it will
lead us. We are learning as we walk
together, just like Jesus walked with Simon Peter. But what it has looked like so far is this: Bethany United Methodist Church in San
Francisco secured housing for Natalie and Pedrito. Faith leaders from across the Bay Area wrote
letters supporting Hector’s release from detention so that he can be reunited
with his family while they await the outcome of the asylum application
process. The family was reunited just
before Christmas. We are continuing to
advocate for them and others like them; working to create a little island of
sanity in the madness that is our current immigration system. We are trying to say “yes” to the invitation
to love.
Jesus continues to invite us to claim and share the power of
God’s love, to move past our fear and start catching people in love’s net –
even if it makes us uncomfortable. So
much hinges on our willingness to go deeper in love. In the words of the great Jesuit leader, Fr.
Pedro Arrupe,
Nothing is more
practical than finding God, than falling in Love in a quite absolute, final
way. What you are in love with, what
seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed
in the morning, what you do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends,
what you read, whom you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with
joy and gratitude. Fall in Love, stay in
love, and it will decide everything.[6]
In the name of God, Father, Son and
Holy Spirit. Amen.
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