Trinity 5
Beloved. The events of today’s Gospel takes place shortly after Jesus begins His public ministry. In it He calls four fishermen to be His disciples. He did so after they had worked hard all night fishing but caught nothing. When the best fishing time was done, when they were calling it quits, when they were washing their nets and hoping for a better day the next time, Jesus comes along and tells them to do the exact opposite of every good fishing practice—to go out in the day and to the deep part of the lake. And in great faith in Jesus and His word, St. Peter says: “Master, we worked hard all through the night and caught nothing. But at your word I will let down the nets.” Of course we then read: they caught a great number of fish, and their nets were about to tear apart. By this Jesus showed them that He is the almighty God—the Creator of heaven and earth, Whom even the fish must obey. And then Jesus calls them to be His disciples “full time”; and gives them a foreshadowing of what their lives would be like as His apostles when through them He establishes His Church: “Have no fear. From now on you will be catching people.” The great catch of fish that they got when they let down the net at Jesus’ word was an object lesson of what would happen a few years later when they would go into all the world to preach the Gospel—the Lord would bless them with a rich harvest of souls for the Church.
A few years later, after Jesus’ resurrection, Jesus repeats this miracle. After showing Himself alive to the disciples, St. Peter and six other disciples decide to go fishing. But [John 20.3, 6] that night they caught nothing. But then Jesus calls to them from the shore, Cast the net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.” So they cast, and now they were not able to draw it in because of the multitude of fish. St. John realizes that this miracle was a repeat and that it was Jesus who was on the shore and so says to St. Peter: It is the Lord. This miracle of the great catch of fish when Jesus first called these men to be His disciples was repeated now after Jesus rose from the dead to remind the disciples of and to strengthen them for the work of apostleship He had called them into.
In today’s Gospel we hear Jesus’ call to them: From now on you will be catching people, or as some translations put it: fishers of men. That is a very beautiful and fitting image for mission work—both of the apostles as through them Jesus was establishing His NT Church and also of us and our own personal mission work as we tell others the Good News about Jesus. From now on you will be catching people. But there is a huge difference—a fish being caught means its death; it ends up on a dinner plate or mounted on a wall; but for the ones that are caught by the net of the Gospel, that the apostles, you, me and all Christians let down as we tell the Good News about Jesus, it means life! Instead of a net bringing a fish out of water to its death, the net of the Gospel does the opposite: it brings people out of sin and death to life. And the glorious thing is that we ourselves have been caught in the net of the Gospel: by Jesus’ word you and I were drawn from the waters of the font of holy Baptism alive—reborn and forgiven—and brought into the boat/ the ark of the holy Christian Church. Now, we have the privilege of letting down the net of the Gospel, telling the Good News about Jesus, and being fishers of men—catching them for life.
As we clearly see, just as He did that day with the fish, Jesus gathered us with His Gospel net for life and brought us into His Church. Why? For what purpose? To show us mercy! That He might bless us! That’s what St. Peter writes in our text: because you were called for the purpose of inheriting a blessing. The Lord, in mercy, called us so that He could bless us with every heavenly and spiritual blessing.
Mercy is the foundation of our lives as Christians. Mercy is what we show to others—both or fellow Christians and even to our enemies. And mercy— the Lord’s mercy toward us—is something that we continually make use of.
Again, what does St. Peter write in our text: you were called. Dear Christian, we were called by God. We didn’t call Him; He called us. When did God call us? He called us in time, when He let down the net of the Gospel and gathered us into His Church. For most of us that was at the waters of Holy Baptism. You must look at your baptism as that specific/ concrete moment when God called you to faith, rescued you from sin and death, brought you into His holy family. Your baptism is that specific/ concrete moment that you can always point to when the floodgates of God’s mercy opened up upon you. Treasure your baptism. Remember and celebrate the anniversary of that date.
Although Baptism is that specific moment that God called us, it’s not as if on a whim He just happened to decide to call you; it’s not as if He looked and saw you do something good or thought you were worthy of being called. Instead, He decided from all eternity to call you and bring you to faith at that specific moment and time—and He worked all the events to bring it about. St. Paul [Eph. 1.4] puts it this way: [God] chose us in [Jesus] before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. Before the world was even created, God chose you to be His dear Christian. What is this, but His pure grace and mercy! He didn’t choose us because we were so good and worthy—we weren’t even/ the world wasn’t even in existence. There was nothing in us. But purely out of His grace and mercy He chose us to be His own and at a certain point of time He called us. Our text: you were called for the purpose of inheriting a blessing. In His eternal grace and mercy God called us at a certain time to bless us now and forever.
God called us. We have and continue to experience His mercy. When we remember that God called us, let us remember that He called us out of this world; that is, although we now as Christians still live in the world, God by virtue of our Baptism, by virtue of His letting down the net of the Gospel to give us the fullness of grace and blessings in Jesus, also called us away from/ out of the sins of the world. This means that as ones called by God in Jesus, our lives should be marked as more and more free of sin. God did not call us to continue to live a life of sin but that, as St. Paul writes [Ti 2.14]: [Our great God and Savior Jesus Christ] gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.
In other words, the mercy of God that we have personally experienced as He has called us to inherit a blessing now leads us to live lives of mercy. God’s calling us, His mercy that He has shown us, that we have experienced, is the source and fountain of us living lives of mercy in our world. This is the point of St. Peter’s words of our text: Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another. Show sympathy, brotherly love, compassion, and humility. Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. Instead, speak a blessing. And why? Because you were called for the purpose of inheriting a blessing. We show mercy toward our fellow Christians—those who have received the mercy and blessing we have. That’s because from our common faith, united in doctrine and holiness of life, we are like minded and so live in harmony with one another. We all have weaknesses and need the help of our fellow Christians as we help each other bear the burdens of the struggle against sin and being a Christian in the world; we show sympathy. Through faith we are all children of the same heavenly Father and therefore can and do have brotherly love for one another. And having the mind of Christ we show compassion, and humility. We were called to this!
But not just to our fellow Christians are we called to show mercy—but also to our enemies. Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. Instead, speak a blessing. In our relation toward the world, even/ especially those hostile to us we show mercy, speaking a blessing. Will it be easy? Hardly! But when it is difficult for us to follow Christ and to show mercy/ when every fiber of our body wants to repay evil with evil or insult with insult, we remember our calling—God in mercy calling us out of the world and its sin to give us the fullness of grace and blessing in Jesus: you were called for the purpose of inheriting a blessing.
Here we remember that we are in constant need of God’s mercy as we live out our Christian callings, lives of holiness and mercy to which God has called us, because by honestly looking at our hearts and lives with God’s holy Law we see our sin and how greatly and often we sin. Our text: Let the one who wants to love life and to see good days keep his tongue from evil and his lips from saying anything deceitful. Let him turn from evil and do what is good. Let him seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their requests. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil. Here St. Peter quotes St. David in the psalm. What he here describes is a life of repentance—that dying to sin/ striving to fight against sin and temptation and trying to live a life of good works/ living to righteousness. In sorrow over sin, we go to the Lord seeking His mercy that He not turn away from us because of our sin but that He would forgive us our sin; we seek His mercy to strengthen us to live a holy life; and we seek His mercy that He would lead us to be merciful to all—both our fellow Christians and our enemies. We are blessed by God in His mercy so that we may live a life of mercy.
You were called for the purpose of inheriting a blessing. Here we receive a great comfort. In His mercy, God called us—in time. And why did He call us? For the purpose of inheriting a blessing. What does that mean? It means that God won’t abandon the one He called. He is faithful to the promise He made to us in holy Baptism. That’s why we can and must daily return to our baptism by daily confessing our sins and reclaiming the blessings God gave us in baptism of forgiveness of sin, life, salvation. When God called us, it’s not that He called us to faith and now leaves us to fend for ourselves. Instead, what does St. David write in the psalm quoted in our text? For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their requests. The point? That means that the Lord is always acting in our interest. His eyes are on us, working all things for our spiritual good—even those things that we think are bad. He is always listening to our prayers and answering them in the right and best way for us. God’s purpose, His intent is that we inherit the blessing that He has given to us when He called us and wants to bring to completion in us—as St. Paul writes [Ph 1.6]: [Be] confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.
Even our sufferings the Lord uses for our blessing. Our text: Who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good? But even if you should happen to suffer because of righteousness, you are blessed. Do not be afraid of what they fear, and do not be troubled. No enemy can take away our blessing from the Lord. The only thing that will hurt us is disobedience to the Lord’s word, the turning away/ rejection of Him, His mercy and His blessing. Because we have been called out of the world, the Church lives as a small flock in the midst of a world of unbelief and disobedience, exposed to mockery, defamation and persecution that slanders our righteous life in Jesus as His Christians. Our blessing from the Lord is an inheritance kept safe for us in heaven. Let us only remain steadfast in faith, in fear and love of God—enjoying His mercy and living in His mercy. You were called for the purpose of inheriting a blessing.INJ