“Out into the Deep”
Fifth Sunday after Epiphany
Luke 5:1-11
February 9, 2025
Rev. Amy P. McCullough, PhD
Early church historians record Peter’s death, at the order of the Roman emperor Nero, during the 6th decade of the first century. For more than thirty years he had followed the Word made flesh. His faithfulness landed him in prison, with an execution date looming. During his life as a Jesus-follower Peter learned the high stakes of his calling. He warmed his hands by the soldiers’ fire on the night of Jesus’s arrest, after all. But it is a different thing, a heart-pounding, world-swirling thing, when the hostile walls descend upon you, too. If we exercise our homiletical imaginations this morning, perhaps we can we see Peter, older, grayer, wiser, willing to die for his faith, trapped in solitary confinement and reviewing his life. What brought him down Jesus’s path?
Peter surely thought back to his first encounter with Christ, that day on the Galilean seashore, when his boat was put into use by a stranger, one who had already performed wonders for his mother-in-law, who had been drawing crowds, and was now speaking right beside him. It was his voice, Peter might have said. I could hear in his voice the echoes of the Spirit that called the world into being. I could feel in his voice the power that calms the chaos. I trust his voice when it said “Peace be upon you.” And when the voice called me by name, I knew Christ held every prayer I had ever prayed, knew every hurt carried in my heart, and held out to me all the life I could desire to live.
Have you heard that voice? Because this is how God’s call begins, speaking to us along the shorelines of our lives. Calling to us across the chaos, assuring us that his peace still exists, his power of life cannot be defeated and asking us to step into the courageously compassionate life only he brings. Maybe you were walking the dog, watching the sun’s first rays brighten the sky, wishing this day might be one when you make a difference in the lives of fellow travelers along the day. Or maybe you were in yet another endless meeting, wondering where the you that is truly you has a place to exist and the voice said, “I call you my child. I call you into life.” Or perhaps the voice came as you waited in line at the grocery store, exhausted from the day and yet not finished, assuring you that grace is available for each labor of love still ahead of you. Jesus was teaching around Capernaum, a small fishing town and so many flocked to hear him, because his voice is truth, love and the promise of God. Here is what is truly real. You and I have the sacred task of living in that love, truth, and promise.
Jesus was addressing the crowd, but then suddenly he is speaking directly to Peter. “Put out into the deep water.” Peter has fished all night. He has come up empty. He has gone back into the sea as a favor to this teacher. And what does Jesus say when done teaching? Not let’s go home. Let’s get some breakfast. Instead, dig deeper. It was not just his voice, recalled Peter. It was his insistence to go deeper.
Now, Jesus’s use of the word “deep” could reference the chaotic waters, the fathomless seas where monsters roam and evil reigns. Go out there, Jesus says, because that is where life is most threatened and redemption most needed. Or the image of casting one’s net into the deep might mean into the unknown, the unsee-able, the risky places God’s path can take us. Go out there, Peter, says Jesus, to people you don’t know, to do things you’ve never done before, to act with courage you didn’t know you had within you. Discipleship is about following Jesus into places we won’t otherwise go. But I hear “put out into the deep” and I think, Go into the depths of human experience. Go way down, into the heart of all things. Don’t be afraid to really meet people and to be known yourself. Go deep.
We live much of life on the surface. Rushing from one place to another. Binge watching TV shows. Scrolling our phones, settling for quick contacts or quick judgments of a person, rather than the time-consuming, heart-requiring work of being fully alive. Have you heard the invitation to go deep? Have you experienced a moment when you had nothing in your net and no energy to try again, and yet Jesus pushed you forward, out into the deep?
The first call I experienced was a call to be closer to Jesus, to learn something of the Word, God’s speech and Spirit alive in my midst. It happened at the end of an ordinary worship service on a Sunday morning, when I had served as an acolyte and watched up close the distribution of communion, the nourishment of Jesus’s love. The second call I had to was into set-apart ministry, which emerged as a young adolescent. It felt scary at first because I didn’t know many female ministers, and I couldn’t quite imagine the pastor’s life. At the same time, I knew in my gut this is what I’m supposed to do, even if I can’t see all the details right now.
The third clear sense of call came as I neared seminary graduation, unsure of my next step. I agreed to an overseas placement, landing in pain-filled, hope-filled, post-apartheid South Africa. I remember getting on the plane from New York City to Johannesburg, a 19-hour flight and thinking “What am I doing?” And yet it was there that I met Jesus in ways I had never experienced him before; in the faces of orphaned children, in the courage to rebuild a country, in way pain and love comingled into new life. A fourth sense of call happened when a District Superintendent called and said, the bishop and cabinet want to appoint you to Grace Church in Baltimore, a church I had never seen. It was an unexpected call, a surprise shift in my placement and my family’s home and yet, in the afternoon after the conversation, sitting in the sanctuary of another church, I sensed the call. This is what you are supposed to do.
A fifth call, a little different than these others happened several years ago, when the Reconciling Committee welcomed T.C. Morrow, a person who was at the time a candidate for ordination but whose path had been halted because of her sexual orientation. T. C. spoke to that afternoon gathering, and as she did, tears formed in my eyes. I am done, I thought, with restriction and justifications that tell anyone they are barred from the fullness of acceptance, from the fullness of life. This was not a new position for me. Grace was a Reconciling church. I had supported other candidates in similar situations. But it was a moment of clarity and renewed purpose. It was a call to act with greater determination, intentionality, and advocacy. And like a net overflowing with fish, sharing in that work of opening doors with others brought an abundance of blessings. It was a step into a river of grace and the joy of knowing a more deeply interconnected, mutual life. The call of Christ, is hard, yes, but it is so much more. It is holy, joyous, life of grace upon grace.
There is not just one, single call on our lives. God does not call us once, and then sit back and stop speaking. God calls, and calls again, and guides, and moves, and encourages, and clarifies, and makes a path. For a season, Peter’s call was to follow Jesus; to learn from his teachings, healings, and witness to God. In another season, the mantle fell upon Peter to preach, to baptize, and risk taking the gospel moving into new spaces in the world. With every turn, Peter was in conversation with Jesus, just as Peter and Jesus spoke to one another on the boat. Put into the deep? Are you sure? Do not be afraid. I will give you what you need. At his life’s end, Peter might well have said, “That day I heard his voice, Jesus became real to me; became for me truth, love, grace and power. I had to follow, for only this is life.”
How is God calling to us now? I don’t believe it is an exaggeration to say life is on the line right now. Real lives are threatened by the loss of aid to vulnerable communities. Lives are being harmed by language calling some less-than, others, or not worthy of welcome. So much is being dismantled in front of us. How does a real God, a put-out-into-the deep God ask us to act today?
First, God is calling us to be truthful; to be committed to truth. To name what is happening; to say what you see, feel, and what is keeping you up at night. Surface living will not hold us right now; we are being pushed into the deep. The realness of God can hold the truth of our times and can answer the truth of these days.
Second, God has always called us to be relational, to know our essential connection to God and to one another. Jesus’s relationship to Peter – the dialogue that happens between them – is key to this story. There is space for Jesus to speak. Peter listens. There is space for Peter to question, and then for Jesus to offer reassurance. Jesus says “Do not be afraid.” As people of faith we are equipped to build relationships. We hold the urgent call to listen, to question, to be assured, and to love. These graces are ours to put to use for the sake of God’s life in the world. In the end, confessed Peter, it was to Christ I belonged. It is Christ whom I follow. Can you hear Christ’s voice? Can you sense the call? Amen.