January 27, 2013 | 4:00 p.m.

“Jazz at Four” Sermon

Adam H. Fronczek
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Luke 5:1–11

When Sayid was about six years old, he walked out into the back part of the family compound to find his older brother staring blankly at the chicken coop. “Father says I have to kill one for dinner,” said his brother. “He says it will make a man of me.” Their father was always harsh with his older brother, the firstborn son of the family. Sayid wanted to help. So, hearing his father coming from inside the house, little Sayid quickly grabbed the nearest chicken, broke its neck, and handed it to his brother. It was too late. Their father had rounded the corner a moment too soon. Smiling wryly at Sayid but frowning at his brother, their father said, “Sayid, you have the killer instinct that will make you a man, but your brother is weak.”

That was how it all started for Sayid, the life that he didn’t want. That was the story he remembered at the end of the Iraq war when he found himself, a defected member of the Imperial Guard, on the run, desperately trying to hide the identity his killer instinct had earned him, the identity of being an interrogator, a torturer, a killer—all the things his father told him he would be.

The problem was that, going all the way back to that day in the yard with the chickens, all Sayid had ever wanted to do was help other people. He wanted to help his brother. He wanted to help his country. He struggled with the idea of duty. And he believed deep within himself that he was a good person. But he had done horrible things. He had done irreparable harm to other people. And in the process, he had nearly ruined his own life as well. He decided to disappear, to keep a low profile. He lived without family or friends, without companionship, running away from the woman he had fallen in love with as a young man, feeling he was not worthy of her. He lived in solitude and unhappiness in an effort to “pay” for the things he had done. Perhaps his father had been right after all. He had that killer instinct and would never be a good person. He would never escape the life he had led. And he deserved nothing good out of life.

Sayid is a character on a TV show (Lost). His is an extreme example drawn from a fictitious life, but it’s not unrealistic nor is it impossible to relate to, for who among us has not, at some point, felt stuck in a definition of who we are and who we have become? Often it is a definition that is not even our own; someone else has given it to us. Fill in the blank: “You are . . . weak, disloyal, unpopular, ugly, undatable, unemployable, arrogant, not smart enough . . .” The list goes on. Is there anything someone else has ever told you that you are and that you’re always going to be, something that, once long ago, you wouldn’t have believed or accepted but you heard it enough that one day it stuck? Have you ever felt trapped in a job, a relationship, a lifestyle or habit or addiction? Have you ever felt like you could not escape? Today’s scripture is about such a story.

It was a day like any other day. It was morning, actually quite early. Peter and his partners James and John had come in from a night of fishing. No one was talking. It had been another night when the fish weren’t biting. The men were getting concerned about how they would feed their families if things didn’t start to turn around soon.

They cleaned their supplies and mended their nets. As the town started to wake up, the wharf grew crowded and noisy—more so than usual—and suddenly they realized why. It was him—the rabbi everyone had been talking about who had been making his way through the countryside, teaching and helping people and gathering followers. He had become so popular that the people were practically chasing him, crowding around him as he made his way down the wharf, reaching out for him, stretching out their hands to touch him. Backing up to the edge of the fishing boat, he bumped, seemingly by accident, into Peter, and that was when he turned and said, “Would you do something for me? Could I climb into the boat and maybe we could go out just a bit into the shallow water so that I can speak to these people from a place where they can see me?”

Intrigued for reasons that were unclear to him, Peter agreed, and he and James and John pushed the boat out, and the man began to speak. If you asked him afterwards, Peter wouldn’t have been able to tell you any of the quotes, the exact words, but it was a message about forgiveness, about new life, about letting go of the things in life that have you trapped and giving yourself a chance for new life. It was a message that struck Peter right to his core because of what he had known in his own life—his own feelings of being trapped and unable to change, stuck in a life that felt all the more hopeless after another night with no catch of fish, no money, no hope. He wanted so much for things to be different. The rabbi’s words went right to the site of his pain.

When the rabbi had finished preaching, he said to Peter, “I haven’t been on a fishing boat in some time; might we push off a little further from shore and see if anything is biting today?” Peter, James, and John knew that nothing had been caught overnight and that it made little sense to fish again in broad daylight, but they agreed. They went into the deep water, and against all their expectations, the catch was the best they had had in months. Those in other boats saw what was happening and began to throw over ropes and tie up beside them to help with the catch that threatened to capsize the little boat.

All of the fishermen smiled and laughed hysterically, yelling out to one another as they hauled in the nets full of fish, when suddenly, something about that moment, the catch that defied all his diminished expectations about what he thought was possible—something about it was just too much for Peter. He connected his low expectations about catching a fish that morning to the way his hopes and expectations about everything in his life had diminished. He realized he was stuck believing his life was as good as it was ever going to be. Even though he had invited this man onto his boat, even though he had agreed to push out into the deep water, even though the mood on the boat all around him was full of joy, Peter was overcome with grief, and without quite knowing why, he began to cry. Falling to his knees and hiding his face in his hands, the words came almost automatically, unconsciously: “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.” But Jesus, kneeling down himself and putting his arm around the broken and tired man who would become his good friend, said, “Do not be afraid. From now on, you will be catching people.”

It’s one of the most powerful and relatable stories in all of scripture, and its primary theme comes up in plenty of other stories: Jesus finds the woman or man who is near the end of their rope, stuck in a cycle of life they feel like they cannot change, or unable to escape a past and a present that feels like the only one they have. Jesus helps them understand that they can do and be something more, something different, something new.

It happens not at the times when people are ready or willing or waiting to follow but often when they feel the most tired and hopeless and strung out. In this story, it is when the fishermen have struggled all night and caught nothing; it is “into this context, where men . . . have . . . come face to face with their limits and [almost] give[n] up, Jesus enters and asks the men to push one of the boats away from the beach” (Gregory, Feasting on the Word, Year C).

Jesus knows how to approach the disciples in a way that is just right for them: “the boat . . . is particularly instructive in this narrative. Jesus asks [Peter] to go a short distance from the shore for his first round of teaching. . . . (Later there is a request to go out into deeper waters, with great results)” (Byron, Feasting on the Word, Year C). Jesus eases those who need him into a place of accepting his help, and he does so in just the right way.

We should give Peter credit for responding, for those who are stuck do not always respond. God’s word of hope demands our decision; “it lays upon us the choice of staying in the boat or leaving everything and following.” It lays upon us the choice of “moving through that transformative moment to the fullness of life, when ears and eyes and hearts are truly opened and cannot turn back” (Ostendorf, Feasting on the Word, Year C), when you break down crying even though you aren’t sure why and you finally realize you are ready for a change.

It is a message for anyone, anywhere, in any time who feels stuck, trapped, bored, half-alive, unsettled. Jesus lays before us the opportunity for forgiveness and newness of life, the opportunity to start again, to regain the life God has given us, to shake off the burden of being defined in a way you know you don’t want. This is the offer Jesus makes.

Last night the youth of our church held an amazing worship service. It had an anti-bullying theme, and all the music was from songs by Lady Gaga. The “sermon” was a panel discussion between several high school students who talked about how bullying, especially cyberbullying, happens when we allow someone else’s negativity to define how we think about ourselves. The brilliant young people in charge of that service put the whole thing together in their church because of a shared belief: the Christian story is that no one gets to tell you who you are, because God is the one who made you and God has no mistakes or regrets about that, only hopes for the future. The panel discussion was followed by the Lady Gaga song “Born This Way,” which turns upside down our typical (mistaken) assumption that maybe there’s something bad about being born the way you are. The chorus goes, “I’m beautiful in my way, ’cause God makes no mistakes. I’m on the right track, baby. I was born this way. Don’t hide yourself in regret. Just love yourself and you’re set. I’m on the right track, baby. I was born this way.”

That’s Christianity. There’s an old spiritual called “Nobody Knows Who I Am until the Judgment Day.” Whether it’s Sayid or Peter or kids being bullied in school or Lady Gaga or you or me, we all have a promise to keep in mind. The story of Jesus is that nobody can say who you are based on what’s happened in the past. Nobody can define your story, limit your potential, or take away your hope, because the one who has created you began not with the past in mind but looking toward the future. Nobody knows who you are until the judgment day. Nobody knows who you are until the end. You were born this way. You’re on the right track, baby. Amen.