LET DOWN YOUR NETS!

A meditation by the Rev. Dr. James G. Kirk

Harundale Presbyterian Church

Glen Burnie, Maryland

February 4, 2001

Text: "Let down your nets for a catch." (Luke 5:4)

Marcie stood at the door to my office. You could tell she was not used to this. It was one of the times when I had left the door to the office open and she just sort of appeared. Her story was like those that we’ve heard before. She was on her way from Boston to Virginia Beach, where she’d been for the holidays. She’d decided to take the bridge to the Eastern Shore and head south, so was on 97, when she’d taken the Ferndale exit to get a cup of coffee. At the Wendy’s by Cromwell she’d taken some money out of her purse, put her purse on the floor behind the driver’s seat and gone in, used the rest room, bought her coffee and gone back to her car. When she got in she noticed that her purse was gone. In that short period of time someone had taken it. She was not used to asking anyone for money, yet she had no choice. Everything she’d had to get her home to Virginia Beach was gone. She’d taken a chance on going to a church for help and Harundale was the first church she’d come to.

I’d been working on the meditation for today and had just finished reading Luke’s text. As Marcie told her story I suddenly realized that’s how Peter must have felt. Here he was a fisherman and had nothing to show for it. "Jesus, you tell me to let down my nets, yet I’ve fished all night and have nothing to show for it." Marcie, "all I wanted to do was get a cup of coffee and continue my drive to Virginia Beach. Now, my purse is gone and I have no means to buy gas." A woman’s purse, Peter’s net, both sort of defined who they were. Without her purse Marcie was at the beck and call of a complete stranger sitting in his office at Harundale Presbyterian Church. Her means of identification were gone, her driver’s license was gone, her money was gone, everything she had to rely on to give her some means of status were gone. The same with Peter, he was a fisherman, yet when confronted by Jesus he had nothing to show for it.

"Let down your nets for a catch." Just prior to Marcie’s visit I’d opened the mail to find a check for $100, with the note attached, "use the enclosed as you see fit." It didn’t take long for me to realize how fit it would be to give Marcie the money. It’s happened before. Someone sends us money for the pastor’s discretion fund. Not long after we get it in walks somebody who needs it. Peter did as Jesus told him and soon there were more fish in the nets than they could manage. Somehow Jesus has a way even today of bringing needs together with the means to meet those needs.

"Do not be afraid; henceforth you will be catching all people." Marcie assured me that as soon as she got home she’d put a check in the mail. Well I’ve yet to see the check, but that’s not the point. The point is Marcie entered my office shorn of her identity. Her purse was gone and with it all the usual means by which she identified herself as a person. When she left my office she had a new lease on life, at least until she got home to Virginia Beach. She’d been touched by the saving work of the living Christ. There’s no way of knowing what she’ll do with the gift the church gave her. It’s not our business to worry about it. What is our business is to spread abroad as far as possible the new life in Christ. In her case it was $100 to get home on. In Peter’s case it was Jesus’ call to make disciples of all people.

No one of us knows when a Marcie may enter our lives, or in what ways Christ will call us to become fishers of all people. We do know, however, that when the time comes for us to respond, Christ will supply the means just as he did when Peter let down his nets. We, too, will be astonished at the catch of fish filling our nets!

Thanks be to God,

Amen