Grace-St. Luke’s Episcopal Church
Memphis, Tennessee
February 4, 2001

A Prescription for Spiritual Health
The Rev. William A. Kolb

Gospel: Luke 5:1-11

In this morning’s Gospel reading, we find ourselves in a fishing village and we find Jesus visiting fishermen, men who have been out all night trying to make a living but having no luck --- they have been pulling in empty nets for many hours.

The central character is Simon Peter, also known as Peter the Rock and just plain Peter. Later, Peter would be named by Jesus as the man upon whom the Church would be built. Jesus would say, Peter (whose name in Greek means rock), you are the rock on which the Church shall stand. Peter then in fact became the first Bishop of Rome, the head of the Church, just as Jesus had instructed. This is the man who in today’s Gospel reading is blessed with a miraculous bounty of fish that would be like you or me winning a lottery. In response to this, Peter says to the Lord, get away from me; leave me for I am a sinful man.

This struck me, for I did not know if Peter’s statement was totally out of context --- Jesus does a great miracle, a symbol perhaps of God’s great, overflowing love for Peter, and Peter starts talking about what a sinner he is. What was the connection?

I thought about it a bit – and then I happened to drive past a church on Poplar here in Memphis. This small Church has a marquee on which sayings are posted and changed regularly. The saying that I saw was "We need loving the most when we deserve it least."

Now I was drawn to thinking about this saying in connection with Peter’s saying that he was a sinful man. I thought that might be a very good example of the saying on the marquee; that Peter was feeling worthless but Jesus was loving him to overflowing, symbolized by all the fish in Peter’s previously empty nets. But then I thought, can love be deserved? Was this a time that Peter didn’t deserve love
because he was aware of his own sinfulness? The ancient theologian St. Thomas Aquinas is helpful here; he says "A gift is properly an unreturnable giving…hence it is manifest that love has the nature of a first gift, through which all free gifts are given." I believe Aquinas meant by this that love, by its nature, is grace – we cannot earn love; love is always a gift. And so I am reminded that God loves you and loves me not because we are good and deserve it, but because God is God and knows no other way to relate to His children but in absolute love.

Unfortunately we do not always feel loved or loveable. Getting back to Peter in his boat with Jesus, Peter did not feel loved or loveable at this moment; he was painfully aware of his own sinfulness.

And he WAS a sinful man. But by sinful we do not mean sinful like the preacher in the Commercial Appeal yesterday. That man was sentenced to years in prison for robbing convenience stores to feed his crack-cocaine habit. He would rob them late at night after they closed so that he wouldn’t hurt anyone and wouldn’t get hurt. But he did break-and-enter many, many times, and robbed many, many
stores. And it probably didn’t help him with the judge that by day he preached in the midst of a Memphis congregation, and his usual theme was to exhort young men about the evils of a life of crime and drugs.

No, the kind of sinfulness of which Peter speaks to the Lord is the sense of inadequacy that came to him when in the presence of the Holy. Holiness is bright and the bright light of holiness puts all else into shadow. When I see a great sacrifice, a selflessness, in a newspaper story or in history, where, for
example, someone has risked and given his life for the survival of others, I am aware for a moment of my own lack of courage, my own alertness to my own safety.

It is that kind of perspective that caused Peter to say what he did: go away from me for I am a sinful man. Jesus had told him to fish where he had come up empty all night and he came up with more than he could have imagined, a catch larger than he had ever experienced. And he was awestruck and knew that he was in the presence of a miracle and a miracle-maker and he saw that he was but an imperfect, self-concerned everyday man, and said so. And that is why Jesus chose him to be history’s rock on which the Church has been built and has survived and thrived over these two millennia. Because Peter had the humility to know that he was not all that he should be, could be, was created with the potential to
be, and that he needed the love of God to be more than he knew how to be on his own. That is the quality that God looks for in each of us. If we are to be fishers of men, if we are to attract others to the love and light of God just by showing forth the fruits of God's presence in our lives, we must first have this quality of the knowledge of our own needfulness.

I recall talking with my rector, a man now retired to the diocese of Massachusetts, but then a priest in Virginia. Dick Tyree helped me through the shoals and eddies of discerning whether I should attempt the adventure of entering theological school. Near the end of that process I received word that I had been accepted at Virginia Theological Seminary and rushed to tell him the news. He rejoiced with me,
but his face turned dark when I said in my excitement, "I just hope I am worthy of this." He replied with somewhat of a scowl, "Nobody is worthy; only God’s grace makes it possible."

There I was again, assuming I had earned my own way; there I was again, failing to recognize the grace and gift of it all. We are so inclined to assume that whatever good fortune we have comes to us because we are special or because we are good or because we have earned it. That way we are beholden to nobody. But we are beholden to God, for life itself, and for the richness that can come to our lives from
living in the knowledge of His love.

But I want to make something clear, to myself and to you this morning – and for me it is the heart of this homily, and I think it is something that is important to our mental health, because without spiritual health, there may be no kind of health in us whatsoever.

What I want to make clear applies to all of us and to all of humankind, all the time. It is this: you and I are sinful because we are human, but that has no effect on God’s love for us. True love is never earned or deserved, especially God’s love. God’s freely given love is unconditional. We are all sinners and we all fall short of the Glory of God. Of course we do. We are not God, we need God. And God is there for us, night and day our whole lives long, just like but much more than a mother is for her children.

And so my learning this morning is that upon becoming aware of God’s love for us, which by God’s Grace may happen a number of times during our life, we do not have to say, "go away from me Lord for I am a sinner!" Rather, we can say, "Lord, I am a sinner; come closer and closer; open my heart that my life may be overflowing with your blessings and gracious love, now and always."

That my friends, is health and wholeness, mental health, emotional health, spiritual health.

Amen.

Copyright 2001 The Rev. William A. Kolb

Gospel: Luke 3:15-16; 21-22

As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, "I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire."

Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased." NRSV

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