Epiphany 5 - Year C

Luke 5: 1 - 11

I went to Bellevue Nursing home this week to lead the Holy Communion service. After the gospel, and I read today's gospel, the amazing abundance of fish where there should have been none, and Christ's knowing of this. And I asked the question.. "So, ok, who here believes in miracles?" . I thought there may be a few; but no lots and lots of hands went up. So many that I didn't notice anymore those who didn't, rather those who did. I was a bit amazed - wow, I said, it looks as though most of us do believe in miracles.

Meanwhile, I was praying for a little miracle myself as Col kept calling out what was my name? as in, ‘hey goodlooking, what's your name?" Col was in respite, so not a regular resident. and every time I answered he would say "not that rampant Catholic in Toowoomba by any chance?". This mainly happened before the service began, and I reckon this exchange repeated itself 11 times. At one point I did point out that professional standards prevented us calling people "good looker" now. "Don't be ridiculous", he said. He told me he was a Roman Catholic, so wouldn't share communion. I assured him he could with us, it was his choice.

He chose just before the consecration prayer over the bread and wine to remember my name! "Hey Jan - look at that, I did remember your name!" He then went on to say that he needed to tell me the story of his life. "Great idea," I said. "After the service". And I blithely continued. Well, blithely and I hope reverently. I was rather surprised when Col received communion, but glad. Was I looking forward to the after-service story? I was rather hoping that was something he would forget, as it was obvious his short-term memory was challenging him. However, we had finished the service, shared the peace, and beginning to pack up and there he was, making a bee line for me.
I resigned myself.

Col took my hand and in his usual enthusiastic, full of life, voice - and yet somehow quieter, just for him and me, said.... "That was wonderful. That was wonderful. Keep doing this. You are doing what you are meant to be doing."
And he wandered off to become involved in someone else's life - admittedly whether they wanted that or not.

I stood there and realised the gift I had just been given. The gift of recognition of ‘this is who you really are', the precious gift of thin place between humans and Holy Spirit. Col had made me feel right; not righteous, but that wonderful feeling of sureness in life, rather than doubt and insecurity and wondering if really you are on the right track. Col said: "I see you".

It was unexpected, it was totally out of framework of what I imagined this dementia sufferer was or could share with me, and I was awestruck. It was my miracle for the day or, rather, the miracle I was part of.

So that opens the can of worms doesn't it... what really are miracles? The relevant question is not really do we believe in them, but what exactly is it we are saying we believe in? I would hazard a guess that it is different for everyone. So, how is the Col encounter a miracle for me?

Firstly, a miracle for me, for Christians, has to be of God.
Secondly, miracles are not stand alone events; they happen to make something happen. In other words, a miracle meets us at our point of need - but does not leave us there. Something is changed forever.

The miracle of the Col encounter, for me, was to affirm an identity need in myself and move me on into participation with God in the movement of the world. I don't know if you can say miracles are big or small; this may seem quite small in that noone else noticed. Was it just my miracle? No, it belongs to everyone because when each of us commit to that continuing relationship with God, God's life unfolds, God's will is done, and the kingdom comes closer. Let me tell you, it is only through miracles of faith that that indeed will happen.
Where is the miracle in today's gospel? It's not in the fish - I reckon that's almost like Jesus saying "I'll give them something to remember this day by". Because it was the day that these fishermen made the God-action in the world happen because they listened to Jesus Christ. The miracle was that somehow these men respected and trusted the voice of Jesus despite all reasoning that they should do so. He wasn't a fisherman; they were in shallow water; everyone was tired and Jesus asked them to do something quite, quite ridiculous. Put your net there, he said. Some reluctance, yes, but in the end total obedience. The miracle was in the turning to Christ in faith; the essence of all miracles. He met them in their need (whether they could articulate it or not) and invited them to move into a mutual participation in his life, his ministry.

When we look at all the miracles Christ did, that is the pattern. It is the same in our own lives, if we own it. He meets us where we are at, in who we are... "I see you". And the way Jesus sees us and knows us is quite unexpected, as is the subsequent healing and the giving of abundant love. We think of the woman at the well, we think of the numerous ill and maimed people Jesus encountered. The miracles of healing were in the one to one encounter of faith; even if the world saw an illness healed, or lots of fish, or meals for ten thousand from almost nothing - the miracle was in the recognition of who was involved and the authority of Jesus Christ.

And with Jesus there is always then the call to move us from being recipients to being participants, to share in God's action in the world. It would seem to me, you see, that miracles can ONLY belong to God. So when I ask "who believes in miracles?" everyone of God should say "I do" because we are all part of one. We are of the people who expect God to move in totally unexpected ways. We are of the people who expect to be surprised by God-action in this world. We are of the people who are open to meeting Christ in the most out of the blue situations and astonishing encounters.

I keep thinking I should have learnt by now, this experience of God in the unforeseen, in the surprise of the Col-encounter. But it is like God keeps reminding me, reminding us, of the extraordinary invitation we belong to. It is a continual invitation, this participation in what God is doing, and thus we do need to be reminded in miraculous ways. God loving me is a miracle; and God certainly proved that in the extraordinary life and death of his Son.

The challenge of belonging to a God of miracles is to believe just that. If we believe in a miraculous God, we have to continually be shaking up our own conceptions of the ways God actually works in this world. Most of us have grown up with this story of the miracle of the fish - Christ challenges us over and over to see what it really is as living testimony of God who surprises us in the midst of situations whose outcome we already think we know.

Have you grown fixed in your expectations about what God is up to? What do you really believe about the ways God works in this world? If we believe in miracles, it means there can be no expectations and we belong to a God in whom everything is possible, about whom everything is possible - and of whom we cannot define or know what those possibilities are. The journey to the kingdom is beyond our imagining; just like the fishermen, we are to leave everything, everything of our known human experience, and to simply follow Jesus Christ. That is the miracle.

The Lord be with you.