The Upside Down and Backwards Way of the LORD - Sermon for the 5th Sunday after Trinity

Fifth Sunday after Trinity
July 17^th, Year of Our + Lord 2022
Our Redeemer and Our Savior’s Lutheran Churches
Custer and Hill City, South Dakota
Luke 5:1-11
The Upside Down and Backwards Way of the LORD

 Audio of this sermon is available HERE.

Lord, are you sure this is going to work?

   I had had enough.  Not so long before, on Mt. Carmel, it seemed like we were winning, and I was so stoked.  I mean, my name is Eliyahu, I think you pronounce it “Elijah.”  Eliyahu or Elijah, either way, my name means “Yahweh is my God,” or “the LORD is my God.”  And the LORD of Israel was my God; I was happy to be His prophet.  At Mt. Carmel, the LORD arranged a competition, the false god, Baal, and his prophets, matched up against Yahweh, the LORD, and me.  The challenge was for the prophets to call on Baal to send fire down from heaven to consume their sacrifice, then I would do the same with the LORD, and we would see who the True God really was.   

   Those false prophets arranged their sacrificial bull on the wood of their altar, and prayed to Baal to send down fire to consume the sacrifice.  All day they cried and wailed and even cut themselves, begging Baal to rain down fire.  But nothing happened.  Because, duh, Baal is just an idol, a carving made from wood, an imagined god, existing only in the minds of his worshipers.  Baal’s prophets prayed fervently, but not even a spark fell from the heavens. 

   As the evening drew near, I ordered that four jars of water be poured over my bull and the wood that was laid out on my altar.  I ordered water to be poured over it, three times, for the Holy, Holy, Holy LORD.  And of course, four jars three times makes twelve, the number of Israel.  On top of the excellent Hebrew symbolism, the meat and the wood were clearly soaking wet.  Only then did I pray to Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  Immediately fire shot down from heaven, burning up the bull, the wood, and vaporizing the water.  The people fell on their faces and shouted, “Yahweh, He is God, Yahweh, He is God.”  What a great moment.  Israel had wandered far from the LORD.   But now, surely, God’s people would return to Him, humbled, but newly faithful.  What a rush.  What a moment.   

    It didn’t last.  Despite the defeat of her prophets and her idol, the wicked Queen Jezebel was not overthrown.  The fervor of the people for the true God, Yahweh, didn’t last.  In fact, Jezebel swore that day an oath to put me to death.  When I heard of her threat, I gave in to fear, and I ran.  I just wanted to die, to be done fighting the good fight, to rest with my fathers.  But the LORD would not let me die.  After 40 days, I ended up at Mt. Horeb, also called Mt. Sinai, the mountain of the Moses, the very place where the LORD met him to deliver His covenant and His Word to His new people, Israel.  There, the LORD taught me an essential lesson, a truth that will still serve you well, today. 

    The LORD God is almighty, eternal, all-knowing, the source of all light and power and glory.  So, we assume, His ways and His works will be uniformly impressive.  We weak, fallen, needy creatures, are always impressed by powerful sights.  And we form our expectations of God accordingly.  But God is not like us.  He does not need to impress us.  Certainly, He does not worry about our expectations.  So, the LORD came to me at Mt. Horeb and asked me what I was doing.  I whined about all that I had suffered, and how I was the only faithful Israelite left.  The LORD was not impressed with me, but He was gracious.   He commanded me “Come out of your cave and stand before me.”  He wanted to teach me something. 

    I hung back, as I was afraid of standing before the LORD.  And for good reason.  First there came a wind that could fracture rocks.  Then earthquakes shook the ground.  Then fire blazed.  It was awesome.  But the LORD was not in any of these.  Then, a low whisper, a still, small voice called to me, the very voice of the LORD God Almighty.  I covered my face, and came out, for I knew it was the LORD.  Patiently, He inquired of my complaint, and He heard my complaint. 

    I thought I was the only faithful one left.  I thought that God’s word had been utterly rejected, by everyone else.  My life was in danger; my ministry was a failure; evil was winning the day. 

    No.  Do not think so highly of yourself, counseled Yahweh.  Go, appoint new kings, and a new prophet, to take your place.  And do not doubt that I have sustained a remnant of faithful people for myself, 7,000 in Israel who have not bowed the knee and kissed Baal.  Everything my eyes and ears could take in, all that I could perceive screamed that the way of faithfulness to the LORD had been defeated. 

    But no, the LORD corrected me.  He reminded me, “My faithfulness has no end.  I will prevail, despite how bad everything seems to you, right now.” 

    Your man Luther called this the Theology of the Cross.  That God usually hides His power, mercy and victory under things that appear to be weak, cruel and defeated.  The Glory of the LORD is hidden under opposites.  Christians are called to look through the surface of things and realize that the LORD, Yahweh, He truly is great, the only One who is great.  And He will prevail, for His Name’s sake, and for your blessing. 

    This is what Simon Peter learned from the LORD Jesus.  A Jewish fisherman’s common sense led Peter to acknowledge Jesus as a Master, as a special teacher.  But then Jesus gave ridiculous fishing advice to a professional fisherman.  After borrowing Peter’s boat as a make-shift pulpit, Jesus tells Peter: “Put out your nets for a catch.” 

    Oh man, here we go.  Fish in the sea of Galilee are hard to catch.  Successful fishermen know to cast their nets at night, in the very deepest water.  Not at midday a few feet away from the shore.  But, this fellow Jesus can really preach.  (Luke doesn’t specify the content of His boat sermon, but I think Jesus preached about Elijah and the still small voice.)  Reluctantly, Peter agrees: "Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets."  

    The LORD is mostly present in His still, small voice.  But, at critical moments, He will do spectacular things, to get people to pay attention.  Despite the wrong hour and the wrong place, Peter cast his nets, and within seconds they were bursting with fish.  The LORD of heaven and earth has command over the schools of fish, the birds of the air, and over the lives of men.  Peter, a simple, honest believer, realized that the Master he had grudgingly obeyed was actually the LORD God Almighty.  He fell to his knees:  "Depart from me, O Lord, for I am a sinful man."

    All of that may seem upside down to you.  But what comes next is so much more counter-expectational.  Jesus said to Simon, "Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men."  Of all the potential ministers among all the people of the earth, God was choosing an uneducated, smelly fisherman from the backwater region of Galilee.  Choosing him to be a foundation stone in His Church.  Of all the men Jesus would eventually call as His disciples, in training to be His Apostles, His sent ones, not one of them was worthy.  None were good candidates for the task.  That the men called into the LORD’s inner circle should be so unworthy shocks our sensibilities. 

    And this was a good warm-up for the main event.  For as unlikely a bunch of candidates as were Peter, Andrew, John, James and the rest, the upside-downness of God’s way of salvation is so much stranger.  As Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”    

    God could have destroyed all evil, in an instant, as soon as it entered into this world.  But that would have meant Adam and Eve would have been destroyed, cut off from God and every good thing forever, and we would never have been born.  God didn’t want that.  He wanted you.  So, instead of destroying all evil, and humanity along with it, the LORD Almighty decided to take our problem, our weakness, our sin, into Himself.  Jesus stood in our place as the Sinner, in order to destroy sin’s power to separate us from Him, forever. 

    The net that Peter cast into the shallow waters was a regular 1^st century fishing net.  The net that Jesus taught to Peter, and to all His Church, to be cast into the world, is His very upside-down and backwards story of salvation by grace, through faith in Jesus, crucified, and resurrected.  He who knew no sin became sin for us, that in Him, we might become the righteousness of God.  No human would ever have imagined such a way of salvation.  But God, before the foundation of the world, rejoiced to commit Himself to this plan. 

    What does it mean to be a Christian?  It is to know your sin and the just condemnation that you deserve, but also to know, trust and cling to the free gift of forgiveness and eternal life that Jesus lived and died and rose again to deliver to you. 

    The same God who rescued me from Jezebel and preserved 7,000 faithful in Israel, the same LORD who called and used Peter to build His Church, this same God is on your side, and will be with you when things seem to be falling apart.  Listen to His still small voice, hear His Word, whenever you can, and through it, the Holy Spirit will strengthen you and maintain your faith.    

    How does God grow His Church?   Through the net-casting of His forgiven children.  Pastors from pulpits, parents at bedtime, and Christians in their everyday lives are moved by the Spirit of Christ to speak of God’s cross-shaped love, in still small voices of truth.  This doesn’t always seem like such a good plan to us.  But it is the LORD’s plan, and He makes it work, perfectly.    

    And so we cast our nets, and the Holy Spirit continues to draw sinners to the Holy One, Jesus Christ Our Lord, Amen.