“OVERCOMING THE BLESS-LESS ATTITUDE”
LUKE 5:1-11
5:1 Once while Jesus was standing
beside the lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God,
2 he saw two boats there at the shore
of the lake; the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets.
3 He got into one of the boats, the
one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from
the boat.
4 When he had finished speaking, he
said to Simon, "Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch."
5 Simon answered, "Master, we have
worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets."
6 When they had done this, they caught
so many fish that their nets were beginning to break.
7 So they signaled their partners
in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink.
8 But when Simon Peter saw it, he
fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, "Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!"
9 For he and all who were with him
were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken;
10 and so also were James and John,
sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, "Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching
people."
11 When they had brought their boats
to shore, they left everything and followed him.
It’s one of those moments
that you know you’ll always remember. It happened during the 1980 Winter
Olympics in Lake Placid. With five seconds left in the hockey game between the United States and the Soviet Union Al Michael’s asked his famous question. Do you remember what the question was that he asked?
That’s right. He asked, “Do you believe in miracles?” Then he answered his own question with an resounding, “Yes!”
What do you thing? Do you believe in miracles? Here’s another question
for you. Have you ever experienced a miracle yourself? Now I’m not talking about the kind of miracle where you wake up in the morning and find a beautiful
day waiting for you. I’m talking about a genuine hard to believe kind of miracle like the one that Peter experienced
that day beside the Sea of Galilee. I think a lot of people believe in miracles but also
believe that miracles only happen to people who are really important; people who are really good; people who are really holy.
After all God doesn’t have time to do miracles for ordinary people like
you and me. That belief can be seen in a conversation that a mother had one day
with her little girl. The conversation took place while they were on their way
home from church. When the mother asked the little girl what she learned that
day in Sunday School, she proudly announced that they’d learned the words to the Lord’s Prayer. Image how surprised
the mother must have been when the little girl then began the Lord’s Prayer with the words, “Oh Father, who art
in heaven, how’d you know my name?”
I think Peter was like that. He found it hard to believe that the Lord was all that concerned about him. You can see that by looking at what happened that day in his boat. When Jesus showed up that day beside
the Sea of Galilee Peter’s
self-esteem was about as low as it could get. He’d just spent the entire
night fishing and what did he have to show for it? Nothing! Peter was sitting there beside the Sea of Galilee with an empty net and
a hand full of calluses. If that wasn’t bad enough now he was being told
how to fish not by another fisherman, but by a lowly carpenter. Talk about having
your ego deflated.
Now Peter had heard about
this carpenter from Galilee. He’ heard
that this Jesus was a wise and compassionate man. So, when Jesus told him to
go out to the deep water and let down his nets Peter did what he was told to do. This
time it wasn’t long before his nets were full of fish. In fact there were
so many fish that his boat began to sink.
Peter was blessed with an
amazing miracle that day. He was blessed with an amazing miracle that went beyond
anything he could have imagined. All those fish in his nets meant he could put
food on the table and keep a roof over his head. So, after everything was said and done did Peter thank Jesus for that blessing? No, he told Jesus to go away. Peter said,
“Depart from me, for I am a sinful man.” Peter didn’t feel
worthy enough to be blessed by Jesus. I wonder how many people today feel the same way Peter felt that day. I wonder how many of you feel the same way Peter felt that day.
Why should the Lord bless
me like that? I’m not important. I’m
not all that holy. I’m not always a good person. It’s the same
feeling that a teenager expressed one day while talking to one of his friends. The
teenager shrugged his shoulders and said, “My problem is that I’m the kind of kid my mother doesn’t want
me hanging around.”
Peter felt like he didn’t
deserve to be blessed that day, but Jesus blessed him anyway. That just goes
to show you that St. Augustine was right. St. Augustine once said that the Lord “is
more anxious to bestow his blessings on us than we are to receive them.”
He’s right. The Jesus who blessed Peter that day also wants to bless you. If you’re not sure about that then ask yourself this question, why else would he have gone to the
Cross? Jesus didn’t do that for himself.
He did that for you and for me. Now doesn’t it make sense that the
Jesus who went to the Cross so you can receive the blessing of everlasting life would also want to bless you in this life? The answer to that question is absolutely yes.
So this is what I want you
to do. When you wake up tomorrow morning I want you wake up expecting to be blessed. I want you to wake up expecting that somehow, someway the Lord is going to bless you. The Lord is going to bless you the same way Peter was blessed that day beside the
Sea of Galilee.
If that sounds a little presumptuous
just remember two things. The first thing you need to remember is that you won’t
be given that blessing because you deserve it. You won’t be given that blessing because you’re entitled to it. You can’t just snap your fingers and get what you want and when you want it.
A man saw that attitude at
work many years ago when he went to Mexico
for a vacation. While he was there the man went on a tour that took him to some
amazing natural springs. The thing that made these springs so amazing was that
some of them were hot and some of them were cold. Because of that amazing phenomenon
many of the women from the surrounding area went to the springs to do their laundry.
They washed their clothes in the hot water and then rinsed them in the cold water.
The man was impressed and said to his tour guide, “The women must
be very thankful that Mother Nature has provided them with an abundance of hot and cold water right next to each other.” The tour guide shook his head and said, “No senor. There is much grumbling that she doesn’t also provide the soap.”
When you wake up tomorrow
morning I want you to expect to be blessed but to also remember that those blessings won’t be given to you because you
deserve them. They’ll be given to you because you are love. Peter wasn’t
blessed that day because he deserved it. He was blessed that day because he was
loved.
The second thing
to remember is that when it comes to being blessed the Lord is more interested in what you need than what you want. Or to put it another way, the Lord is more interested in spiritual blessings than material blessings. All you have to do is take another look at what happened that day beside the Sea of Galilee. Now it’s true that Jesus blessed
Peter that day with a material blessing. After fishing all night with nothing
to show for it Peter’s nets were suddenly full of fish. As soon as they
got back to the shore though what did Jesus do?
He told Peter to leave that material blessing behind and to follow him. It
was a choice between a material blessing and a spiritual blessing. Which one
would you have chosen that day? Which one is more important to you today?
In their book Small Miracles, Yitta Halberstram and Judith Leventhal share a story about a blessing that was every bit
as amazing as the blessing that Peter received that day beside the Sea of Galilee. The seeds for the blessing were planted when an elderly woman wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper
called the Jewish Press. In
her letter to Arnold Fine, Ida Brown wrote she always read his column in the newspaper and found him to be “a person
who really cares…” That was the reason why she was writing to him
now and asking him to help her find a long lost love. Ida went on to tell him
that when she was a young girl she was madly in love with a young man named Harry. She
was convinced that they were soul mates but her parents didn’t agree. You
see Ida’s family was wealthy and Harry’s family wasn’t. Her
family had come from Germany and had been
living in this country for four generations. His family had just arrived from
Eastern Europe. Well, Ida’s parents did
everything they could to break up the budding romance. They even took her to
Europe for a year. When she came back Harry
was gone. All she had was an old letter from Harry with an address on it. Ida was now 80 years old and had just moved into the Crown Manor Nursing Home. She went on to explain that her husband had just recently died and since then she
now found herself thinking more and more about Harry. Her letter ended with an
appeal to help her find her long lost soul mate. Arnold Fine was touched by the
letter and although he was a busy man with a busy schedule he agreed to see what he could do.
He made the promise realizing that there was a good chance Harry might not be alive.
Several weeks later Arnold Fine went to visit Ida Brown. He brought with
him a dapper looking elderly gentleman who had piercing and walked with a cane. That
man of course was Ida’s long lost soul mate, but the amazing thing is where Arnold Fine found him. It turns out that
Ida had been living on the 3rd floor of the Crown Manor Nursing Home and Harry had been living on the 6th
floor of the Crown. Two months after Harry and Ida were reunited Arnold
fine went back to the Crown Manor Nursing Home. This time he was there to attend
their wedding; a wedding that had been 60 years in the making.
If the Lord can bless an
80 year old woman and sweaty smelly fisherman then why not you? When you wake
up tomorrow morning expect to be blessed. If you don’t then you’re
underestimating yourself and more importantly you’re underestimating the Lord.
Amen.
Rev. Dr. Richard A. Hughes
February 4, 2007
