Deep Water by Rev. Dr. Jay Marshall Groat on February 9, 2025, at Mount Vernon, Ohio based on Luke 5: 1-11

So, do you believe me when I tell you that you’ve got a phone inside of you, ringing, every day? An old-fashioned phone with a handle. And every day we receive a call. We are part of the reformed tradition. That’s what reformation means. We are part of the reformed tradition, and it is basically the reformed tradition that each of us receive a call. Calvin in particular taught that everyone has a calling, The first question of the Westminster shorter catechism back in the day – and I mean back, back, back, back in the day – you had to know the Westminster shorter catechism in order to be a church member and the first question is, “What is the chief end of man?” Now today because we are liberated and progressive we would write that question, “What is the chief end of life?” That’s the question, that’s what a catechism is, it’s a series of questions and answers. The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. Now we wouldn’t write that today. The answer would be the chief end of life is to glorify God and to enjoy God forever. And Calvin taught that the way that we do that is we answer the call. Some are called to be butchers; some are called to be bakers. Calvin was trying to wed so-called secular life with God, and Calvin said, “No, don’t do that. You have a calling.” Some are called to be butchers, bakers, candlestick makers. Some are called to be pastors. When you find your calling, you glorify God and, oh yeah, enjoy God. You have found your calling.

One of the things that made such an impression on me during college summer years is when I worked in factories in central Ohio to make money for college, and I hated it, especially working at Rockwell International on an assembly line. I was a card-carrying United Auto Worker, and we made truck axles for military vehicles, and I hated it. I hated being inside, for eight and sometimes more hours in the glory of summer. I’m not very good at working with my hands, I wasn’t good at it, I hated it. I made good money. And here was one of my takeaways – there were men and women there who loved it. They loved working with their hands, they loved making a good buck for them and their families, and they liked going to work. So, I would explain to them, “You know, you’re just like what Calvin was talking about.” No, I didn’t do that, big mistake, but I thought it, and I’m thinking it now. It’s a calling. So, what we just heard is a loose, very interesting and strange rendition of Jesus calling his first disciples.

Here’s what it’s like. I think this is what it’s like, because I want you to notice there’s a couple of strange and weird things happening here, and one of them is that Simon Peter – did you catch that part where he’s afraid? He’s sensing something life-changing is going on, that Jesus is calling him. Did you catch that he said, “No, get away from me. This is too much, this is scaring me.” And then he says this interesting thing, he says, “I’m a sinful man.” Simon Peter was making a common mistake that many of us make, that you have to be good to do the work of God. Now this is dangerous stuff. We wouldn’t teach our children this. We would never say to our children, “You don’t have to be good.” Who would do that? But the reality is you don’t have to be good to do the perfect will of God, you just have to answer that call. Stop trying to be so good. Can you imagine a preacher standing up here and saying that? It’s good to be good. Choose goodness. But don’t get hung up on how imperfect you are. God calls imperfect people to do perfect things.

I think every day is a little bit like this. I told you this once before, it was about a year ago, and I’m going to tell you again, and then I’m going to finish up by telling you about my cousin Bill, who I also told you about a year ago, but first there’s this. Deep waters. By the way, deep waters are where the big fish are, and what’s the biggest fish that you’re ever going to catch? The biggest fish that you will ever catch is you. I want you to think about that today. And you’ve got to go into the deep waters to catch that fish. Deep waters are deep, and deep waters are frightening. Deep waters are unexplored. Today we are being called to go into the deep waters of our psyche and our souls, and what we’re going to find there is the biggest fish of all – us, through the grace of Christ.

I think this is what every day is like. Once upon a time in a kingdom far, far away there was a king. The king lived in a grand, majestic castle, and the castle was surrounded by a deep-water moat. This deep-water moat went all around the castle, and inside the moat were crocodiles, alligators, sea serpents, everything imaginable that will take away your life. Now the king had a problem, the king did not have any children. The king was getting on in years, so he decided, “I need to find out who’s going to be my successor.” The king gathered all of the young men and women because the kingdom was in a liberated, progressive region. (Laughter.) The king included all of the young men and women of the kingdom. The king stood on the side of the castle, and on the other side of the moat were all the young men and women of the kingdom. The king addressed the crowd and said, “Whoever has the courage to dive into this moat and swim to the other side and stand with me, you will be my successor.” As soon as the king said it, there was a splash, and because this was a liberated and progressive kingdom there was a young woman in the water, and immediately all were amazed because she swam with great speed and courage, and all of the terrible sea creatures were trying to nip at her, and she jumped up and stood beside the king and all were amazed. The king said to the young woman, “My child, you did it. One day all of this will be yours. And in the meantime, what can I do for you now?” The young woman turned to the king and said, “You can give me the name of the person who pushed me in that moat.” (Laughter.) You saw it coming, right?

Look, our democracy is under attack, and it’s scary. And it’s not just our democracy. Certain groups of people that the United Church of Christ loves and supports are under attack, and it’s scary. We have been pushed into the deep waters, and we are up for it. We are up for it. I’ll finish with this. It’s the deep waters, and in the deep waters you can find the big fish. We can find ourselves, and we can also find the people in our lives who aren’t just alive but are living. My cousin Bill and I, we weren’t old enough to drive. He was from Belle Vernon, Pennsylvania – not Mount Vernon – Belle Vernon, Pennsylvania, which is located across I-70 from Monessen, Pennsylvania, my mother’s hometown. My cousin Bill, I loved him. I loved Bill so much. He was a year older than me, and he wasn’t just alive. Bill knew how to live. Shoulder-length red hair, never shut up, drove my parents crazy. Always smiling, always laughing, always into mischief, heart of gold. I think he was maybe eighth grade, maybe I was seventh, neither one of us drove. He spent two weeks with us one summer in Marysville. One day, straight out of Tom Sawyer/Huck Finn, we got on our bikes. I got on my bike, he got on my brother’s bike, and we had our fishing rods and our tackle boxes, and we rode our bikes a couple miles outside of town to Dr. Malcom MacIvor’s farm, my dad’s best friend in the church, and MacIvor’s farm had a farm pond.

The farm pond had a boat, and Bill and I said to each other, “Let’s do it like they did it in Luke 5. Let’s get in the boat and go out into the deep waters.” I didn’t know it then, but I know it now. We were trying to catch big fish, but what I caught that day was my cousin Bill. I caught him. We got out there, we had red and white bobbers. We threw our line into the water, and not long thereafter we were just talking, and I looked for my bobber and my bobber was gone. It was gone. I pulled on my line, and it was tight. I started to reel it in, and it was barely coming in. All of a sudden, my fishing rod line was taking us from one side of that pond to the other. After a while, a long while, 45 minutes, finally I could reel it in and finally I saw my bobber, and that’s when it happened. We measured it later; it was a 24-inch catfish. We both saw the head of that thing and we were both like Simon Peter, we were afraid. It had those whiskers, they were that long (extends arms), and we looked at that fish and said, “We’re not getting that thing into the boat with us.” Bill rowed the boat to the shore, and we got out and dragged that poor fish out of the water. We didn’t have cameras.

This is about living. This is about Jesus calling us every day to do something that frightens us, to do something. Jesus is the one who says, “Don’t be afraid. You can do this.” So, we got on our bikes because we knew nobody was going to believe this and we rode to my house. I held that fish. We put it in my kitchen sink. Nobody was home, my mom got home after a little while. It was the first time I ever heard her curse, first time. (Laughter.) “Get that fish out of my sink.” Everybody ended up coming home, my brother and sister, my dad. The fish was still alive. We got him in my mom’s car, we decided we were going to let the fish live. As God is my witness, it was like a Disney movie, because that fish was still alive, and we put it in the water, and it didn’t move. This is why when you write narratives you create tension, right? That fish didn’t move. Now I was wanting that thing to live, and after about five or 10 minutes slowly that fish swam off.

Now warning – tragedy coming. A few years later Bill graduated from high school and joined the Air Force. He was on delayed entry, he had the summer off, and then he was going to go in the Air Force. The Youghiogheny River flows very close to Belle Vernon, Pennsylvania, and one beautiful summer day Bill and some of his friends went to the river, and they were playing Frisbee. The Youghiogheny is a whitewater river. Bill went into the deep waters to get the Frisbee, and he didn’t get out. And I was always so struck by that – (sirens heard outside) – by the way, prayers for those giving help and prayers for those who need help. I’m always struck by that tragic irony of the gift of the water as we caught that fish and the tragedy of the water that took Bill’s life. Deep water, deep water. So, Bill lives on in me, and you’ve got the Bills in your life, and they live on. Every day the phone is ringing, and it’s calling us. Yes? And we answer. And we’re not just alive, we live, because every day Jesus is calling and says, “Don’t be afraid. You can do this.” Amen?