Crowds had gathered to be healed and they would have held Jesus there in Capernaum forever if he had not pulled away and pressed onward to the lake. "I must tell the Good News of the Kingdom of God to other towns too," he told them,"for that is what I was sent to do."

In each town through which Jesus had passed, people came to hear him; came to be healed. They came to see what all the fuss was about. And then they went out crisscrossing the countryside like the ropes in a net, until all of Galilee was caught up in wondering, "who is this man?".

"Isn't this Joseph's son," they had asked in Nazareth. First they had been amazed, and then outraged when he taught in the synagogue there. Jesus spoke of fulfilling Isaiah's prophecy. Jesus may have spoken eloquently but he was only the son of a carpenter. Wasn't he?

Now this carpenter was sitting in Simon's wooden boat, his feet on a net still damp from last night's fruitless fishing. The two men rocked in the ripples at the edge of the lake. A moment of silence washed through the shallows. Then Jesus turned to the fisherman and spoke. "Put out into deep water and let down your nets for a catch."

Why should a fisherman listen to a carpenter's son? Simon made his living on this lake. Why should he listen to Jesus? Because there is something about this man that draws you in, drives you to considering new ideas and causes you to reach for the vision he proclaims.

Jesus said and did the most amazing things. Simon had seen it in his own household. Simon's mother-in-law was burning with fever one moment and well the next. We don't know how many other townspeople in Capernaum were healed by this carpenter's son, but they were still pressing in when Jesus passed out of town. Jesus chased out demons and spoke the word of God with authority. Simon had seen it with his own eyes, heard it with his own ears. If spirits listened to Jesus maybe fish would too, maybe even fishermen.

So they pushed out of the shallows where you can reach the bottom with your feet. They rowed out where the bottom disappears and anything can happen, and they threw the empty nets into the water. Wasn't this the same water. Weren't these the same fishermen?
Wasn't this the same net that hadn't caught anything all last night?

The difference was the word that sent them.
The difference was the living word that went with them.
In those depths anything can happen; even so much fish that it will tear your nets and fill all your boats to the gunwales.

Such abundance in a place that had been empty is overwhelming. Simon knew he was in the presence of something deeper than the water around them. Simon may have been worried about drowning as his boat took on water but he was more overwhelmed by his growing sense of who was in his boat. This was not just a carpenter's son, or some wandering healer. Who was this man?

Paul tells us. "Now I would remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to you, which you in turn received, in which you also stand, through which also you are being saved." This carpenter's son knows a lot more than where to find fish. He knows how to gather people. He loves us so much that he was willing to die on a cross that we might not drown in sin or death. Christ's resurrection is our safe passage. That boat will carry us well, even in the deepest places; the places of storms and death, of emptiness and abundance; the places of mystery, loss of control and sudden, utter grace.

Yet we wade in the shallows, only up to our knees in faith.
Or stand on the shore not willing to risk getting wet.
It may be safe in the shallows but there are not enough fish there to sustain us.
And looking at fish from the land is not the same as eating them.

We know how to do what we have always done.
We know how to be who we have always been.
It is safe in the shallows where no waves break with enough strength to move us.
But we shall always be in the same place if we do not move deeper.

Jesus urges us to put out into deeper water.
In truth we will find ourselves there whether we want to go or not.
Life pulls us out into the deep like a riptide. We can go willingly with God at our side or simply be sucked into that darker water by events. We cannot control whether we live or die, or when. We are not the masters of our ship, or the captains of our fate. We cannot even control the outcome of our actions.

It is only when we leave the shallows that we come to understand
that we are always sailing on an ocean of grace.
So when the master says "put out for deeper water," it is time to set sail.

If we listen for the word, the time will come,
and we will let down our nets into God's abundance.
It will likely be the same place as our emptiness; the waters we have fished all night.

Do you know this place? It is the corridors of hospitals. It is in living rooms with one light burning in the middle of the night. These deep waters hold bedrooms full of tears and boardrooms awash with anger or avarice. There are children and parents and strangers washing head over heels in these depths.

These are the places we fear and do not want to go.
Here are the waves that swamp our boats
and the depths that threaten to swallow us whole.

But Jesus is here too. He sits in the boat, right next to us.
He is there in the moment of slack net emptiness.
He is there when grace upon grace piles up around us like a boatload of unexpected fish.

And Jesus says:
"Do not be afraid".
"Do not be afraid".
"Do not be afraid".

Wave upon wave of grace washed Simon and James and John up onto the shore.
They left their boats, their nets, and the lives they had known.
"From now on you will be catching people," Jesus said,

And they did. They told the story of this amazing man who said and did such wonderful things that people followed him. And those people told other people. And they told someone else and finally someone told you. This net of the living word reaches across continents and centuries and new strands are being woven in even as we speak. This ever-growing net trolls through the deep and pull up those who are drowning. And the man in the boat reaches out his hand to them and says, "do not be afraid."