by The Very Rev. Jered Weber-Johnson, Rector
The problem of an old fisherman, is at some point you’ve heard all his stories before! Apologies to those of you who have heard this one. I promise not to embellish it!
Each fall, in the village where I grew up, indigenous folks harvest salmon at the mouth of the river near the edge of town. This is not sport fishing, not recreation, or for fun. This is subsistence living, the hard work of gathering food from the water to feed families and whole communities. Crews of four partner up in two separate boats, to stretch a net around the schools of fish congregating in the harbor, waiting for the tides to shift to begin their journey upstream. One boat tows the net in a giant loop, corralling the salmon, while on the other boat, one person plunges a large pole into the water near the gap in the net, creating a screen of bubbles to push the fish back into the enclosure. The rest heave on the net, drawing it, hand over hand, into the stationary boat. It is long, slow, cold work!
One fall I had the privilege of joining a family in their annual subsistence harvest. I remember how weary we felt as the day wore on, the jellyfish stings on our hands, the nets cutting into our fingers, the creeping chill that started in our boots as we settled into a pulling rhythm in the cold metal skiff and that spread to the rest of our extremities until we were shivering, wet, and exhausted. We caught very few salmon that day. Perhaps the fish had already moved on or not yet arrived. We were about to call it quits when a voice from the bridge overhead, shouted to our captain: “Cousin! The fish are over there!” Arm outstretched, finger extended, the figure on the bridge was pointing to the far end of the harbor, out in the deep water. He could make out a school that from our vantage point we could not see. We moved the boats, let out our nets, and pulled in a haul that I won’t soon forget. The nets weren’t literally bursting, and our boats did not start to sink. But, we did catch all the fish we needed for the day and then some, and my crewmates and I were all amazed!
Genuine amazement might seem like a rarity these days. Cause for wonder might feel aloof and out of reach – those moments when the impossible happens, when hope is answered, beauty dazzles us, when something feels miraculous. Like you, I yearn for these things. And yet, the barrage of bad news, the steady unraveling of civil rights, the threats to the lives and livelihoods of so many living in our nation by our leaders elected and unelected, the rising menace of authoritarianism and violence here and abroad, have left me weary and exhausted.
In Luke’s gospel, you can hear that weariness when Jesus asks Simon to put out into deeper water and cast out his nets. Jesus has just finished teaching the crowds, after commandeering Simon’s boat, after Simon and his compatriots have finished a long night of fishing to no avail, and now he wants Simon to do even more?
Weariness, both emotional and physical, is an understandable and natural response to long toil, especially when it feels like no progress has been made and no positive result is discernible. Like the prophets of old, like Isaiah this morning, those who have labored long for progress, as those who have suffered oppression for many years, might rightly ask “How long, O Lord.” How long?!?
How long, is the question we ask when experiencing the dark night of the soul. How long, is the question we ask when hope seems ever on the other side of the horizon. How long, is our plea when evil seems to prevail.
In our present moment it might feel as if there is a barrage of injustice, a myriad of stories as the powerful roll back rights for marginalized communities, roll back protections for our vulnerable planet, and steadily trample down so much progress in our world. This barrage is meant to dismay, to overwhelm, and to create a sense of weariness and fatigue, such that we might cry out, “How long, O Lord?”
At the end of the Selma march, in Montgomery, in the face of ongoing and brutal racial injustice, at what might have felt like a nadir in the life of our nation, The Rev’d Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, addressing the crowd, said:
“I know you are asking today, “How long will it take?” Somebody’s asking, “How long will prejudice blind the visions of men…?” Somebody’s asking, “When will wounded justice, lying prostrate on the streets of Selma and Birmingham and communities all over the South, be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men?” Somebody’s asking, “…How long will justice be crucified and truth bear it?””
King and those who paved the way for Civil Rights, those often forgotten in the tomes of our national history, knew in their weary bones, that the struggle was long, centuries in fact, to find some modicum of justice, some step toward liberation for all God’s children. Answering his own question, King told the crowd:
“I come to say to you this afternoon, however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, because “truth crushed to the ground will rise again. How long? Not long, because “no lie can live forever.” How long? Not long, because “you shall reap what you sow.”…How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it is bent toward justice.”
There is no magical thinking in the Rev’d Dr. King’s teaching here. His assertion that the arc of the moral universe is bent toward justice, and his belief that God’s liberation was not far off, is rooted in real struggle, the kind of long and persistent work, built on the shoulders of generations long past, the kind of hard labor that leads to real weariness. King and the leaders of the Civil Rights movement knew weariness. But, by some act of audacity, King had witnessed something that sparked his amazement, an amazement that led to following Jesus, that led to hope and abandonment of fear. Like the disciples this morning, King had left everything in the certain hope that by the power of the Spirit, in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, the goal of liberation and justice were not far off. How long? Not long!
This morning, if you are weary, I encourage you to take a moment to remember the times when the abundance of God surprised you. Recount with one another the blessings of care you received, the support of loved ones, the time grace seemed to sustain you on your way. Remember and retell the ways in which God provided in the past, where help showed up unexpected and unlooked for. Remember those moments when beauty amazed you, when wonder filled your heart, when the impossible felt, by mercy’s sake, possible. Remember when the door opened, when help came. Tell the stories of overcoming addiction. Tell the stories of those who led us to be our better selves. Remember the times that injustice was put to flight, and hate banished, and rights returned. Remember the stories of the beginning of the movement for Black Lives begun in Ferguson and Minneapolis. Tell the stories of Saint Martin De Porres, Pauli Murray, Martin, Ruby, and Denzil! Remember and retell. Be amazed. It is amazement that sparks hope and ignites a passion to follow into a deeper life of transformation. The disciples were amazed. And when Jesus called them, they left everything to follow.
Today you might be wondering “How long?”. Almost as if in reply, the Apostle this morning tells us, “I would remind you, siblings, of the good news”. This is the good news, friends, by grace, the God of love came to us, lived with us, died on our behalf, was raised, and appeared to the disciples and is appearing to us still to this day, inviting us to be his disciples, to share and make known that justice and liberation are not far off. Do not be weary. Be amazed, let go of fear, and follow Jesus.
