Life's Not Fair
Sometimes, when our faith is wondering just what to do, we must listen for those outrageous ways that God is asking us to cast our nets, even when it makes no sense.
Based on 1 Kings 8:22-30 and Luke 5:1-11. Preached at Leeds Church, Markham.
One of the earliest lessons I remember, as a kid, is that “life’s not fair.” And while I still tend to struggle with this idea because why is it that some make it and some don’t? Why are some people subjected to one thing while others are subjected to another? The reality is that I don’t know… But I’m becoming more grateful that sometimes God is not fair… God is not fair in the forgiveness shown to Israel. God is not fair in the forgiveness shown to you and to me. God is not fair when the fish overwhelm the boats of the soon to be disciples even though they had tried all night to catch even just a few fish.
In our first reading today, Solomon is asking for more than Israel deserves. Israel does not deserve forgiveness. They have been given all the instructions, all the ways to live a holy life with God, and they continually turn back to themselves. They continually try to do things their own way or by their own power, or they try to gain the control of their own destiny. They miss seeing the bigger picture that God has called them into. That God has invited them to be part of. And don’t we so often do this too?
We miss how God is bigger than the political climate of our country, or bigger than our fears about which college we will go to. This fear is real, often even warranted as our future is uncertain, but what we as Christians claim and know is that God is bigger than our fears. Whenever God shows up, God says, “do not be afraid.” God is bigger than what we can see right in front of us at any given time. Often, in the Hebrew Scriptures, it would take generations for the promises of God to be seen so clearly. Israel wandered in the dessert for years because they had missed how God was guiding and moving. Even David and Moses did not see the finality of God’s plan in their lifetimes.
We miss the ways that God is asking us to step into relationship with God, and with one another. We miss the ways God is inviting us to cast our nets and have the boats overflowed because we have followed the outrageous ask of God. To put their nets out again, the disciples were taking one step of faith in a way that didn’t make sense. They had tried, there is no indication that they would or should be successful now. But they tried it anyway.
Sometimes, when our faith is wondering just what to do, we must listen for those outrageous ways that God is asking us to cast our nets, even when it makes no sense. Being faithful to God’s call in our lives does not mean we make all logical steps. Sometimes it means moving into a bus, or coming to the east coast after years spent out west. Sometimes it may mean proposing that we feed people once a month even though they could go down the road somewhere else. Sometimes it means moving to Guatemala because we think God is up to something particularly important there. Sometimes it means stepping away from our families who depend so fully on us, to go to Honduras and see what God is up to there. Sometimes it means reading chapter after chapter of the Bible that we never would have picked up on our own, and quite frankly, don’t always enjoy. Sometimes it means asking a friend to join us on a Sunday morning even though they haven’t been to church in years. God continues to ask us, today, to do the unexpected and see where we end up.
God was on the move then and continues to be on the move now. Solomon declared, “‘But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built!” (1 Kings 8:27) God is not in some far-off place, or only in our hearts. When we start to make God fit only in heaven, or only moving alongside us, we start to imagine God as limited and finite. God is not a pie that only has eight slices and you get a slice, and I get a slice, and when all eight of us have one, there’s no more. God is like syrup that gets on your hands and the table. No matter how much you wipe at it, there’s always a bit more sticking to your nails, or suddenly in your hair, or on your chin. God’s love is overwhelming and sticky, and it spreads onto everything and everywhere.
My hope this week is that you will see God pop up in new ways like syrup on a Saturday morning. That you will hear the Spirit asking you to do the unexpected, and that you will find your boat overwhelmed with fish. May we be people who know that God is bigger than our fears, greater than what is happening to us and around us right now, and may we chose to follow God even when it is all unfair, for God is inviting us in to the Kingdom building work in this place.