Readings: Isaiah 6:1-8 (9013); Psalm 138; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11; Luke 5:1-11 

Jesus is standing beside the lake of Gennesaret. The crowd is pressing in on him. They have seen him perform miracles. They have watched him heal the sick. His words have cut into their very souls. So crowded is it that he gets Simon to take him out in one of the fishing boats. They drop anchor a little way from the shore, and Jesus begins to preach to the people. After he has finished speaking, he turns to Simon. "Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch."

It doesn't make much sense to the seasoned fisherman, but he too has witnessed miracles at the hands of this amazing person.  He does as he is told. They catch so many fish that another boat has to come to their aid. Both boats are in danger of being swamped.

When I was growing up, my family spent many summers at a cottage on Lake Erie.  We children spent hours in the water.  It was a lovely beach.  It was sandy.  The water was sparkling and clear.  It was very shallow and safe, the perfect place for children to play.  We could walk way out into the water, bobbing in the waves.  It never got much past your waist.  Now it was a great place to play.  But because it was shallow, it was not a great place to learn how to swim.  We all learned to swim in deeper water. 

Spiritually we spend much of our lives safely in shallow water.  It is not that we have no sense of commitment.  We are honestly trying to serve God.  We go to church.  We serve on various committees.  We try to do what God is calling us to.  But we stay with what is familiar.  We don't want to risk being labelled fanatical.  We avoid Bible Study and personal prayer.  We certainly don't make it too public that we are Christians. 

Fearful of what God might ask of us, we do not risk putting out into the deep.  And we really may need the safety of the shallow waters for a time.  Life is not easy just because we are Christians.  Life has its frustrations, disappointments, and times of difficulty.  They may keep us from taking risks.  But eventually we need to plunge in and learn how to swim.          

Put out into the deep water", Jesus is telling us.  It is the same thing he was saying to Peter and the others when he called them to leave their fishing and to follow him.  They were putting out into deep waters.  Jesus was on an unpredictable way.  It would prove to be a costly allegiance. 

Isaiah was setting out into deep waters when he responded to God's call.  What visions did you see as that passage was read from the Old Testament this morning?  There is Isaiah asking God “How long?”  How long is it going to take until people realize what is going on?  How long can we keep going?  How long can we stand it?  And God answers him, “Until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without people and the land is utterly desolate,”

It is a very contemporary scene, is it not?  What comes to mind for you?  The terror of Hiroshima! The aftermath of a flood or an earthquake! The devastation of Chechnya! A bombing in Tel Aviv! A denuded mountainside in Haiti! The Twin Towers laid flat in New York! The aftermath of the fires last summer in British Columbia!

Isaiah lived in a difficult period in Israel's history.  It was a time of great change, a time of danger, of war, of threat, of despair.  Isaiah felt totally inadequate to the task to which God was calling him.  Yet he heard himself saying, "Here am I; send me."  He had his eyes, ears and heart attuned to God.  He heard God's call.  He responded. 

The season of Epiphany is about that kind of reaching out to humanity.  Again and again God calls out to us, through our brokenness, through our inadequacies, through our fear, depression and hopelessness, through our feelings of insecurity until we come to that place of hope where we freely say, “here I am, send me.”  And the wonder of it all is that when we do, we truly find out who we are meant to be.  It is in the incomprehensible depths of God's love that we meet our true potential.  It is in setting out into the deep water that we claim and lay hold of all that God has done for us.  Amen.