Trinity 5

Luke 5:1-11

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus,

You can imagine the feeling of failure that Simon Peter and the others are experiencing as they clean their nets in the Gospel this morning. After another night out on the waters with nothing to show for their effort, these men are exhausted; without fish, there is no money, and without money, their families will struggle to pay bills and even eat.  

Peter, James, and John undoubtedly have difficult jobs.  

Maybe you can relate to these men.

Have you ever had a job where your earnings depend directly on your sales performance? What if you’ve been unemployed? You have skills and a strong work ethic, but your abilities are not being used or exercised properly.

Or perhaps you’re a farmer, where your livelihood, much like a fisherman’s, depends on how well your crops grow. There are challenges here, aren’t there? You can’t control the weather or whether it will rain too little or too much. Still, your machinery and tools need care just as Peter's nets do. 

Like Peter and the others, your families rely on the success of your vocations.

But what is a vocation anyway?

We often view vocation narrowly, as what we do for a living or our career. This is a rather limited understanding, as vocation is actually much broader than that. 

As one writer noted, Martin Luther saw vocation as how God acts through people in everyday roles to fulfill their calling to care for God’s creation. 

Are you a husband or wife? A mother or father? A daughter or son? What about a grandfather or grandmother? A brother or sister? Are you a soldier or airman? A student or teacher? A doctor or nurse? A farmer or clerk? 

In all these ways and more, lie your many vocations. Or as Luther says, “The masks of God.”

And why are these called the masks of God? Because God should be within them as you go about your day.

When a mother changes her newborn's diaper, she demonstrates God’s love to her child. When a child cares for their aging parent, God’s love is active through the child for their parent. 

Likewise, when a teacher strives to teach their students well and the students read and study as they should, they all demonstrate love and respect as God would want them to.

When farmers or fishermen have a good harvest, it’s not just their families who are cared for, but ours as well, since food can be brought to our tables. 

You see, the purpose of vocation or the mask of God is to love and serve your neighbor.

However, using this lens shows that our vocations also change over time. You adults were all students at one point, but that's no longer true. You have graduated. So, it would be incorrect to call you students in the formal sense. (I, however, have returned to being a student)

Maybe you were once a farm hand, but now you’re running the farm – your role changed because you must now give directions and care for others.

Maybe you were in the Army and served as a soldier, but you’ve since retired. While you can’t report for duty in your uniform on Monday morning, you can support soldiers and their families in other ways who continue to serve. 

However, the challenge with all these changes throughout life is knowing where to place our trust through the ups, downs, and twists and turns.

Sometimes, okay, often, we tend to be more like Peter in our vocations. We tell God we know what we’re doing. When we do this, we demonstrate a lack of trust in God to work through us to care for those neighbors He brings into our presence.

You see, while we don’t know everything about Simon Peter, we do know from the Scriptures that he had a mother-in-law, which means he had a wife, and for that reason, he was wearing more than one mask – he had more than one vocation as a husband and son-in-law. These women, along with the others fishing with him, depended on him and his ability to catch fish and provide for them.

And thanks be to God for Peter’s example for us. He listened to Jesus’ Word, lowered his nets, and found fulfillment where he least expected—in the deep, dark waters of the mornings rising sun.   

But Peter does not revel in the success of his catch; instead, he drops to his knees and says to Jesus, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!”

Peter confesses two things here: his own sin and that Jesus is Lord.

That is where your life as a Christian begins by confessing your sin and that Jesus is Lord.

This is the pattern of the Divine Service each Sunday: we confess our sins, our lack of trust and faith in Jesus, then we hear about Jesus, our Lord, and confess Him. And then we carry this confession into our daily lives as husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, soldiers and airmen, students and teachers, doctors and nurses, farmers and clerks.

You see, the presence and word of Jesus changed Peter, and it’s for this reason the Gospel concludes by saying, “And when they had brought their boats to land, ‘they left everything and followed [Jesus].’”

Peter, James, and John received new masks to wear and new vocations as students and followers of Jesus Christ. 

They were still fishermen, but the boat they fished from and the fish they sought had changed because they became fishers of men.

However, this translation is not entirely accurate; the Greek states, “from now on you will be catching men alive.”

This subtle difference changes things: “Catching men alive!”

The net they would now use was Jesus’ word, a word that gives life to those who have not heard the voice of Jesus or those of us who have turned away. And the boat is nothing other than His kingdom—a kingdom of grace, mercy, and forgiveness.

You see, you have also been brought into this kingdom through the font of Holy Baptism, where you were pulled out of the water by the net of Jesus’ life-giving word and brought into this boat of His Church. You are also fed and nourished at this rail with His flesh and blood for the forgiveness of your sins. And through these means, you are anchored in the love of Christ Jesus.

This is extremely important because it reminds you that your identity isn’t based on what you do for a living, but on who you are as God’s children. When you are in Christ, your station or job in life doesn’t matter; it can change many times, and then some. What matters most is that Christ is living in you and you in Him. 

Because when this happens, you get to use your many vocations throughout life, even as they may change, to serve your neighbor, love them, teach them, and most importantly, forgive them. Because where there is forgiveness, there is life and salvation with Jesus; a people being led safely to everlasting life in the ark of Christ’s church. +INJ+