Mercy - A Sermon for AGM Sunday February 9 2025

GOSPEL: Luke 5:1-11

The holy gospel according to Luke.

Glory to you, O Lord.

Jesus’ teaching of God’s word has begun to draw great crowds. For Simon, James, and John, Jesus’ teaching inspires hospitality, then obedience, and then risk. After Jesus’ creative power is revealed, fear and amazement leads these three fishermen to leave everything behind to become apostles.

1 Once while Jesus was standing beside the Lake of Gennesaret and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, 2 he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gotten out of them and were washing their nets. 3 He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. 4 When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” 5 Simon answered, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.” 6 When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to burst. 7 So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink. 8 But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’s knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” 9 For he and all who were with him were astounded at the catch of fish that they had taken, 10 and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” 11 When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.

The gospel of the Lord.

Praise to you, O Christ.

You catch more flies with sugar than vinegar.

Peter looks to Jesus in the boat, perhaps hiding his face,

Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!

Jesus could have said,

“Yeah you are a sinner!”

Jesus could have said,

“you are forgiven of your sin.”

instead Jesus said,

“Do not be afraid.

You’re going to catch people.”

Jesus invites sinners into mission.

On this AGM Sunday,

as we prepare to conduct the business of this church,

Remember that Jesus invites sinners to follow,

Jesus invites sinners into mission,

sinners that catch people.

If you want to know Jesus’ mission,

what Jesus is talking about,

just turn back a page in Luke’s gospel.

Jesus was in Nazareth,

the hometown synagogue

and was handed the Isaiah scroll.

Jesus found the place and read:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
  because he has anointed me
   to bring good news to the poor.
 He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
  and recovery of sight to the blind,
   to set free those who are oppressed,
 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”
“Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

This is Jesus’ mission statement,

this is precisely what Jesus’ ministry looks like.

We need the reminder,

especially on AGM Sunday,

That the church’s purpose

is to continue the ministry of Jesus Christ.

You catch more flies with sugar than vinegar.

But I’ve witnessed some vinegar lately.

With the confirmation class,

we watched the Martin Luther movie,

and we were struck by the preaching of Tetzel,

one of Luthers’ opponents.

He threatened people with the fires of hell.

But offered an indulgence

to purchase years off purgatory.

The people were drawn away from Tetzel’s vinegar,

drawn away from fearing hell,

and moved towards Luther’s far sweeter invitation

to meet the merciful God.

Luther sought the merciful God,

proclaimed the grace of the merciful God,

and almost paid for this search with his life.

500 years later,

vinegar preaching continues today.

Some use shame and guilt,

some kind of manipulation,

or some kind of trick or trap to catch people.

Some continue to proclaim the fires of hell.

To scare people into submission,

oops, I mean scare people into faith.

Jesus says “do not be afraid. You will catch people”

You catch more flies with sugar than vinegar.

The USAmerican President is sure making headlines, huh?

People in Canada are paying attention,

as are Christians of various backgrounds.

One such headline emerged from the Presidential inauguration,

and the traditional worship service

held at the National Cathedral in Washington DC.

Bishop Marion Edgar Budde made headlines with her sermon.

Allow me to quote the ending:

“Let me make one final plea, Mr President.

Millions have put their trust in you.

As you told the nation yesterday,

you have felt the providential hand of a loving God.

In the name of our God,

I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country

who are scared now.

There are gay, lesbian and transgender children

in Democratic, Republican and independent families

who fear for their lives.

And the people who pick our crops

and clean our office buildings;

who labor in our poultry farms and meat-packing plants;

who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants

and work the night shift in hospitals –

they may not be citizens or have the proper documentation,

but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals.

They pay taxes, and are good neighbors.

They are faithful members of our churches, mosques

and synagogues, gurdwara, and temples.

Have mercy, Mr President, on those in our communities

whose children fear that their parents will be taken away.

Help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in

their own lands to find compassion and welcome here.

Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the

stranger, for we were once strangers in this land.

May God grant us all the strength and courage to honor the

dignity of every human being, speak the truth in love, and

walk humbly with one another and our God, for the good of

all the people of this nation and the world.”

The Bishop preached a hip hop sermon,

just like Jesus did in the hometown Synagogue.

She took the ancient words of the Gospel,

and gave them her own spin

in the language of the people

for her time.

It was a call for mercy,

In the name of the merciful God,

for an increase of sugar and putting aside the vinegar.

It was a reminder of the call of the Christian

to love, peace, justice, and mercy;

For this is the Christian faith lived out in the world.

Yet there are calls for the bishop to be … fired,

or at least to apologize.

Sometimes you need a little vinegar to help preserve the truth.

The bishop cannot apologize

for calling upon the powerful

to show mercy to the vulnerable.

This is Jesus.

This is God’s will - mercy.

If the call to mercy is offensive to a Christian,

then that Christian has missed the essential message

of Christ.

To quote from one response,

shared with me by another good bishop:

“If there is an apology to be made, let it be this:

we, the Church, have too often stayed silent.

We have too often chosen comfort over courage,

division over reconciliation,

and power over service.

For these failings, we must repent

and return to the way of Christ;

a way that leads us into the hard, beautiful work

of healing what has been broken.”

It seems the North America is at a crossroads,

perhaps we too are at a crossroads.

The Annual General Meeting

is our opportunity to decide how we will follow Jesus

as a congregation.

We will approve a Budget,

we will move motions,

and with it,

we approve a a theological statement

about who we are and what God is calling us into.

We have the opportunity to decide:

Is mercy central to who we are?

Put another way,

Do we want our ministry taste sweet or sour?

Jesus came to Gennesaret

and called Simon, James and John.

It looked like a lesson in fishing with nets,

but it was really a lesson in trust.

The fisher has to trust.

It is both active and passive;

you follow best fishing practices,

you trust in the tools of the trade,

but the fish still has to come to you.

When you don’t catch anything,

its okay to try something new.

or to dust yourself off and try again.

Most importantly,

the invitation is to trust God,

to trust Jesus.

Here’s the first lesson in trust:

do what Jesus tells you to do,

put your nets out where Jesus tells you,

and there is an abundance.

As a congregation,

we continue to discern

where Jesus is telling us to put out our nets.

Jesus is calling us to put our nets

into the waters of mercy.

Second lesson in trust:

leave everything behind and follow.

Simon left behind the tools of the trade,

his livelihood, his family

and by following Jesus,

his whole life becomes a walk of trust,

or knowing Peter’s failings,

a trust fall, and Jesus catches him.

So, we can ask ourselves:

what do we need to leave behind

so that we can follow Jesus?

Wouldn’t it be great if we could leave behind

the anger or bitterness that is in our hearts.

I’d love to leave anxiety behind.

Perhaps we need to leave behind

always having to be right, 

or the false sense of self we have learned,

or the lies that we have believed about ourselves,

or the lies we’ve been taught about others.

For us to be open to God and God’s will,

we have to leave close mindedness behind.

To be open to our neighbours

we ought to leave binary thinking behind.

As we consider the needs of those in our community,

we ought to leave ignorance behind.

Frankly, I believe it is time to leave hell behind.

Jesus saves sinners,

if there is a place of eternal torment out there,

we are saved from it in baptism.

One and for all, on the cross, Jesus declared,

“It is finished!”

Death and hell are defeated by Christ.

Leave the fires of hell behind,

leave condemnation of the other behind.

Cling instead to love,

cling to the resurrection of the dead,

cling to the Gospel,

cling to God’s love and acceptance for you,

and for all.

You catch more flies with sugar than vinegar!

Most of all,

what needs to be left behind is fear.

Do not be afraid, Jesus says.

Jesus gives faith amidst our fears.

3 kinds of fear emerge in this text:

fear rooted in the past,

fear in the present,

fear of future.

Leave behind your past failures,

and with it any guilt or shame.

Failure is necessary for growth.

Learn the lessons from the past

but don’t dwell there.

Sure, the fishers caught nothing that previous night,

oh, but they can sure catch now.

Leave behind your present failures,

tell it like it is,

Yeah, I am a sinner,

and what of it?

Jesus saves sinners.

You, child of God,

you’re not just a sinner,

you are chosen, cherished, and loved.

And remember,

God calls sinners to catch people.

Leave behind future fears.

We are going to fail, and that’s okay.

When you fall,

trust that Jesus will catch you.

Trust in God to guide and provide,

and remember what God did

with the greatest failure of all time -

Christ died on that cross,

but God raised Christ from that grave.

God’s work is resurrection and new life, 

and God brings it in and through people like us.

May we be Christ’s church,

the body of saints and sinners

who put away the vinegar

and take out the sugar.

May we leave behind the lies and fears,

putting our nets out into the waters of mercy.

May we continue the ministry of Jesus Christ,

and join God in blessing people and creation.

Thanks be to God. Amen.