Hearers and preachers working together in the kingdom

Sermon for Trinity 5

1 Peter 3:8-15  +  Luke 5:1-11

It’s good to be back home, here with you, after our vacation. It’s hard for a pastor to be away, but it’s also helpful for many reasons, not the least of which is that it allows a pastor to experience again, a little bit, for a little while, the life of a layman, to go from the pulpit back to the pew, to remember the challenges that you face right here at the divine service: the challenge to pay attention when you’re not the one preaching or leading the congregation in prayer or in song. That’s not easy, is it? I think it’s harder for you than for me. Also, the challenge to focus on Christ and on your part in His Church, when you’ve got so many non-Church-related things going on in your life. How easy it would be for the devil to lure you away from the practice of the Christian faith, not by an open denial of Jesus, but by a steady immersion in worldliness that takes your eyes away from the cross and from your vocation as a Christian.

We have before us today a text on the two overarching vocations of Christians within the estate of the Church: hearers of the Word and preachers of the Word. The focus of the Gospel is on the vocation of preacher: From now on you will catch men. That is not said to all people or to all Christians. It’s said to Peter, Andrew, James and John, who left their secular livelihood and their families and followed Christ, not just to learn about God’s kingdom from Him, but to serve as His instruments for bringing people into it. It’s said to all those who have been called into the office of the holy ministry.

But we’re not going to overlook the other vocation that shows up in our Gospel, that of hearer. Before Jesus calls the disciples to set aside everything in preparation for their future ministry, He approaches them in their non-clergy vocation, that of fishermen. And He uses them there, too, to spread the nets of His kingdom. So we see both vocations being used by Jesus in our Gospel—that of clergy and that of non-clergy, all to fulfill His own purposes, all for the building of His kingdom. Christ reigns from the right hand of God, building His kingdom through His Word, and employing all godly vocations to see to it that His Word gets preached, so that sinners may be saved. In that sense, not every fisherman is a fisher of men, but every boat can become a pulpit. Every vocation an opportunity.

Every Christian has received a general “calling” or vocation to follow Jesus—to repent of our sins, to trust in Him for the forgiveness of sins, to lead a pious, godly life according to His Word, and, as St. Peter urged the hearers—the laymen—in today’s Epistle, to always be ready to give an “apology,” that is, a defense, a confession of the Christian faith, of the hope that is in you, to the one who asks. Repentance, faith, piety, and confession. To those four things every Christian has been called. Every day of a Christian’s life is to be consumed in those four things.

But let’s see how the Lord Jesus used vocation for His kingdom in today’s Gospel.

Peter, Andrew, James and John had already received a general calling from Jesus to follow Him some time before the events of today’s Gospel. They had accompanied Jesus for a time, learning from Him about repentance, faith, piety, and confession. But they hadn’t yet been called by Him to leave their regular, secular vocations and enter the holy ministry. So they still worked as fishermen, manning their fishing boats, letting down the nets for a catch.

Jesus came walking down to their “office,” as it were, to their place of work. He wanted to preach to the people who were gathered around Him, but they were all crowding together; He couldn’t see them all or speak to them all. So He steps into Peter’s boat, and the boat becomes His pulpit, enabling Him to see the crowds and speak the word of God to them.

Luke doesn’t record the sermon that Jesus preached from that floating pulpit, but you can be sure it was like the rest of His preaching, focusing on repentance, faith, piety, and confession.

On repentance: God’s holy Law requires love for God above all things, and to love God is to keep His Commandments. There’s no excuse for disobedience. And there is no leniency in the Law. Obey or die, the Law says. And since everyone has disobeyed, since everyone has sinned, the Lord Jesus calls sinners to repentance, to recognize that they have disobeyed, to admit that they were wrong, and they surely deserve to die.

Some needed to hear about repentance more than others in Israel, as it is today, those who were secure in their sins, imagining that they were safe from God’s wrath. Others knew their sin all too well, but didn’t think there was any hope. To them Jesus preached on faith. That is, He preached on God’s promise to forgive them their sins freely for His sake, through faith in Him, God’s only-begotten Son. Because He bore the sins of the world and would suffer for them on the cross making atonement for all sin and reconciling sinners with God. He called on sinners to trust in God’s promise to forgive them for His sake and in all God’s promises that sustain us throughout this earthly life.

Jesus also regularly preached on piety, the devout and dutiful obedience of God’s forgiven children. Piety includes regularly using the ministry of God’s Word and Sacraments, reading and pondering His Word, prayer, and dutifully keeping all of God’s commandments, not to earn a place in heaven, but as saints who are learning to live as saints, learning to be imitators of our dear Father and of His Son, Jesus Christ.

And Jesus regularly preached on confession. Whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven. Confession means speaking the truth about God and professing your allegiance to Him. It means answering questions about God, and it means inviting others to know the true God and His holy Word.

Whichever of those four areas received the focus of Jesus’ preaching from Peter’s boat, the crowds, including Peter, Andrew, James and John heard God’s Word that day because Jesus chose to use Peter’s boat as His pulpit, and Peter gladly provided it.

But the Lord wasn’t done teaching when He dismissed the crowds. It was time for these four disciples to move on to what He intended for them, away from letting down nets to catch fish and toward the letting down of the Gospel net to catch people for God’s kingdom.

He told Peter, Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch. Peter’s training as a fisherman and his experience the night before told him it would be worthless. Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing; nevertheless at Your word I will let down the net. And immediately so many fish filled their nets that the nets began to break.

Peter knew this was the almighty power of God at work, and so he fell on his knees before Jesus, Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord! But Jesus spoke to him in peace. Do not be afraid. From now on you will catch men. Jesus appointed Peter, Andrew, James and John to the office of the holy ministry, calling them to preach the Gospel. And the implication is that it would be the same powerful working of the Lord Jesus that would fill the nets with people through their preaching. The minister who preaches the Gospel faithfully isn’t responsible either for the lack of people in the church or for the abundance of people in the church. His task is simply to let down the net. The catch is all the work of Christ and of His Holy Spirit. And we’re to trust that He knows what He’s doing, even if it doesn’t make sense to us.

So Jesus used the secular vocation of fisherman to teach His future fishers of men about the ministry. They cannot accomplish anything on their own. But Jesus will accompany them, lead them, work through them, and bring in the people whom He has chosen through their preaching.

If I were preaching to men with the vocation of preacher this morning, I would talk more about the office of the ministry. But since I’m not, let me emphasize once again the importance of the vocation of hearer in the work of the kingdom. Your vocation, your calling to hear God’s Word, to use and to support the ministry of the Word is your primary calling. After that, it all comes back to those four basic parts of the practice of the Christian religion: Repentance, faith, piety, and confession.

Preachers must practice those four things in their vocation as preachers. Those with the vocation of hearers must do the same. Daily repentance and a living faith, piety and a zealous confession of the faith seem far removed from the to-do list that you deal with every day. But don’t let them be! Let them be a part of everything you do, of every aspect of your secular vocations. Fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, husbands, wives, teachers, students, homemakers, retired persons, firemen, military personnel, citizens, neighbors, patriots—in all these vocations, open your eyes to the opportunity God sets before you to put your Christian faith into practice with repentance, faith, piety…

And confession! See your vocation as a potential pulpit. Not for you to become the preacher, but for Jesus to take this opportunity to put someone in contact with His word, which is now being preached, not by His mouth, but by the mouths of those whom He has called into the office of the ministry. Invite! Explain! Answer! Speak of the Lord Jesus who has loved you, who has revealed the truth about sin and about God, who lived, died, and rose from the dead that all people might be saved.

In this way, preachers and hearers, shepherds and their flocks, work together for the kingdom of God. In this way and in no other the Lord Jesus will build His Church and expand His kingdom in the world. Let’s give thanks that we’ve been given a part in it! Amen.