THE CHALLENGE OF FAITH

SERMON PREACHED BY FR. TONY NOBLE ON FEBRUARY 4, 2007

Luke 5:11 "And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him."

This is an extraordinary statement by St. Luke: "They left everything and followed him."

Jesus goes out to sea in Simon Peter's boat. After teaching the crowd from the boat he asks Peter to throw out the net for fish. "Launch into the deep" he says. It is really the challenge of faith. Launch into the deep. Peter is taken aback. What would Jesus know - he is the son of a carpenter. These fisherman got nothing all night. But he does what Jesus says, and lo - a huge catch of fish. And Peter is stunned. It finishes with St. Luke saying that they took the boats in and then "left everything and followed him."

Would you? Would you leave everything, and on the basis of a miraculous catch of fish, follow Jesus? Would such a simple demonstration of faith cause anyone to leave everything?

Surely the twelve weren't just caught up in the excitement of the moment? They were going to be leaving their livelihood, their homes, their families - and for what? We know that in following Jesus they would face questions, doubts, suffering - and for a lot of the

time they didn't really understand who Jesus was. They knew it wasn't going to be plain sailing.

Last week in Luke 5 we heard about Jesus being rejected by his own people in the synagogue of Nazareth. So the apostles knew that they would also get rejection. And yet they left everything and followed him. I don't think they were responding on the spur of the moment. In fact when you reflect on what caused his rejection in the synagogue at Nazareth - which was his declaration of to proclaim good news to the poor, release to the captives, sight to the blind, liberty to the oppressed - that statement of Jesus was Jesus' Mission Statement. And if you were one of the twelve - when you combine Jesus' declaration about his purpose with this miraculous catch of fish, it surely reveals the dawn of a new day for anyone who longed for the coming of God's Kingdom.

And so we cannot be surprised that St. Peter immediately left everything and followed Jesus. Suddenly everything had been revealed. I think any of us in the same situation would follow Jesus without reservation. Except we have so many things that tie us down and prevent us from giving up everything. Of course it was a great risk - but isn't faith in God a calculated risk?

Every Sunday we stand and say “I believe in one God”, and then continue with propositions that are both historical and yet out of this world. Propositions that many people cannot believe in, even in the church. Thus just to come to Mass on Sunday is a risk of faith. Going along with Jesus 2,000 years ago was just as risky then as going along with the church now.

Thomas Merton, the famous monk, said: "I believe not because I want to know, but because I want to be." We don't say the creed because we know it all - but because we want to be formed by the teachings of the church. We believe not because we know, but because we want to be. And that is it. And it is just as risky as St. Peter leaving everything and following Jesus. Why do we take this risk of faith? St. Anselm said that we believe so that we may understand - and not vice versa. That is why the recitation of the Creed is part of our Sunday Mass. Not because we necessarily believe everything, but that so we may understand the wonderful mysteries of God which are laid out in the Creed. For some of us it takes a long time to believe. Better to have doubts than to sing it without giving it a thought.

Many people are not satisfied with this sort of lifestyle, this living by faith, this going along with what the church believes so that we may ultimately understand of ways of God. Many people are not satisfied with living by faith. They want certainty. And they want their questions answered. This leads to fundamentalism.

Basically fundamentalism is the adoption of an authority which is not open to questioning. It doesn't have to be biblical fundamentalism - fundamentalism could be anything. For instance, the confrontation between the two fundamentalisms of evolution and creationism - both claiming to be right, both excluding the other. Fundamentalism is also people in authority who say "no outcasts" but really mean "it's my way or the highway." Or it could be the fanatical fundamentalism of Islam, which we see so starkly now.

I doubt that fundamentalism was what attracted St. Peter to Jesus, to give up everything on that day. It was something more than that. For Jesus' Mission Statement was more than a call to action – it was about hope and salvation for the world. That is what attracted St. Peter: this message of hope and salvation from Jesus.

When the church translates Jesus' mission to mean programs, consultations, etc, it may think it is bringing hope - but in actual fact it is making what we do as the prime reason for our existence. Isn't that the fault of the church today? This is not the way Jesus taught us. We lose our vision when our mission becomes only what we do.

St. Peter followed Jesus not because he wanted to do something, but because he wanted to be something. On the lake that day Jesus showed Peter that what he did wasn't all that important. Even a Rabbi from Nazareth could do it!

St Paul was a great one for talking about what we do. He wrote many letters about what Christians should be doing. He wrote to all sorts of churches exhorting them to express what they believed in action, and to do it with love. He wrote a lot about church order and discipline. He was always pointing out that what we do is formed firstly by what we believe.

The most important thing St. Paul ever wrote is in today's epistle:

“For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.”

For St. Paul, everything we do is firstly because of our faith - as risky as that is.

Jesus' words to Peter today are words that he addresses to all of us about our faith: Launch into the deep. Take the risk of faith.