22 April 2007

John 21:1-19

We can imagine the scene. Some of the disciples, after fishing all night with no success, are in the boat at daybreak. They’ve been casting their nets to no avail; tossing them overboard, time after time, and coming up empty. (It can sound a little too familiar, huh?) It’s frustrating, but that can be the life of those who fish, both for a living and as a pastime.

But then they get instructions from the shore: cast your nets to the other side. We can imagine the response from the boat: why bother? What’s the use? What difference is a boat’s width going to make? Grumbling and disbelief would naturally follow such a suggestion. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that some of the disciples at least, were wondering why they should even try such a preposterous idea.

But they did follow the instructions of this stranger on the shore. They threw their nets over the other side of the boat and of course we know what happened: they had a huge catch of fish. That’s when they figured out that Jesus was this stranger on the shore. They had a shocking amount of fish in their nets; big fish, fish for food and nourishment. The nets didn’t even break after they caught these fish on the other side of the boat.

Cast your nets to the other side, says Jesus. Do things differently. What you’ve been doing hasn’t been working, so you might as well try the other side of the boat.



Our church is in the midst of transition. We realize that things must change for our continued viability. We have a couple of committees at least that are working on this very thing: the Get Out the Word Committee and the Visioning Committee. We are in the midst of transformation. We are seeking out what we can do to keep our congregation alive and a living, breathing part of the Body of Christ.

We seek out new ways of being and doing. But we have to do things differently. We need to have the bravery to try new things, to be new people of God. We must seek out Jesus’ voice guiding us to try a new way of being.

I can’t tell you what those new ways of being might be. The options are out there though and we as a congregation must seek them out. It’s not just one person’s job; it is the work of all of us in this boat. It is a community effort to work to bring in the catch.

Cast your nets to the other side, says Jesus. Do things differently. What you’ve been doing hasn’t been working, so you might as well try the other side of the boat.



Today is Earth Day. This is a day in which we stop to reflect on what we do and how we do it affects our home, the earth. Everything we do has an effect. Sometimes it’s a big effect; sometimes it’s a small effect. Sometimes it’s small effects that lead to a big effect.

This is a day to reflect on what those effects might be; a time to stop and consider how we treat our home, our earth. We must consider what our use of fossil fuels means and how it affects not only our earth but also others. We must consider what leaving on a light that’s not being used means; what running unused and unneeded water means; what driving means. It’s all those little things that we need to consider because we do have an effect. We make a difference on this earth.

As an individual, you may not be a major polluter or pump tons of carbon dioxide into the air on a daily basis. But we need to worry about those who do. Earth Day reminds us that we need to be an active part of the decision-making in our country; we need to be vigorous guardians of our environment.

The way we’re doing it doesn’t work right now. According to the Sierra Club: “The United States, with only 5% of the world’s population, emits one quarter of the world’s global warming gases.” In other words, we, as a country, leave a larger footprint on the earth than anyone else. And that’s not just. Something must change. We must hear the voices of those who call us away from the way that things are into new ways of being and doing.

Cast your nets to the other side, says Jesus. Do things differently. What you’ve been doing hasn’t been working, so you might as well try the other side of the boat.



The violence that burst forth on the quiet campus of Virginia Tech this week has left us all shocked and stunned. When a deranged student killed 32 people and then himself, our world was changed forever, in a way that our world changed following Columbine and the destruction of September 11th.

We have allowed violence to seep into our culture in a major way. In many ways, we encourage and reward it. Though Cho Seung-Hui was clearly in need of help for mental illness, he was a product of a culture, since he was at least 8 years old, that glorifies violence. Thus, through his mental illness, he turned to the language of violence that he had learned to express it.

I’m not going to enter the gun control debate in this sermon, but I will wade into the waters of changing the veneration of guns and violence that we have in our current culture. The way we have isn’t working. Violence begets violence. We have state-sponsored killings and video games that train and educate our youth in violent ways. We war and we battle and we fight and we shoot without blinking an eye. Popular movies use violence as a selling point and many enjoy a shoot-‘em-up, vengeance-filled flick that splatters blood all around.

As evidenced in Blacksburg this week, violence only leaves broken lives, aching hearts and tear-stained eyes. We need to find a way out of this. We need to find someone who will call us forth from the violence into peace. We need to seek out the voices that call us to sanity.

Cast your nets to the other side, says Jesus. Do things differently. What you’ve been doing hasn’t been working, so you might as well try the other side of the boat.