Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after Trinity
“Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing;
nevertheless, at thy word I will let down the net”
Simon Peter’s words capture elegantly and poignantly the reality of Christian experience and faith especially in contemporary times. There is the haunting sense of nothingness, the fear that what we have been doing all the years of our lives is really worth nothing. And yet, as Simon Peter says, “at thy word I will let down the net.” We press on not just with a sense of stoic futility, not just because, but “at thy word.” That changes everything and makes all our doings something worth and something understood. It is really about the Providence of God which rules and moves in and through our lives.
The Collect prays “that the course of this world may be so peaceably ordered by thy governance, that thy Church may joyfully serve thee in all godly quietness.” The Epistle reading, too, from First Peter (the role and place of Peter are suggested in these readings which belong to the early part of the Trinity season and in close proximity to the feast of St. Peter and St. Paul) exhorts us to a certain outlook and behavior regardless of the material outcome and regardless of the realities of suffering. It concludes by bidding us to “sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts.”
The idea of Providence is a rich and important theological concept. It is not unique to Christianity, of course, but it takes on a certain colour and hue in the Christian understanding because of the figure of Jesus Christ. The three great Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam are all word-centered, we might say, but in different ways. For Christians, Jesus Christ is “the Word made flesh” and that gives special meaning and poignancy to what Peter says here: “nevertheless, at thy word I will let down the net.” In the face of the emptiness of human experience, in the dark night of suffering and sorrow, too, I would add, there is this strong affirmation of the goodness of God who alone can bring good out of evil, and light out of darkness, the God who is no stranger to the darkness of human sin experienced as suffering and death, emptiness and loss.
