Homily for Sunday, February 9

My homily from this past Sunday, my first Sunday preaching as a deacon

A few people asked for my homily from this past Sunday (my first Sunday as a deacon!) and so I thought I'd share it here, at least in its abbreviated form.

I don't generally keep a full script, I prefer bullet points to keep me on track, but which also don't chain me to a written text.

However, I wrote out some of the homily a little more for those interested. The Gospel passage this past Sunday was Luke 5:1-11.

The part of the Gospel that I became fixated on through prayer and discernment was this line from Jesus: “Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch

Here is the homily, God bless you all:

I have a confession: deep waters frighten me. No, it's not a phobia. I have good reason to be afraid!

In Colorado 5 years ago, I was white water rafting on the Arkansas river when we encountered a class 4 rapid. For those who need to know, there are only 5 categories of rapids and a class 4 is the second highest.

Our raft flipped and I was underwater for 45 seconds, the current continually pushing and pulling me down to the bottom of the river. I could not see, I had no idea whichwas was up. I thought I was going to die. I remember getting philosophical about the whole thing. Not how I expected to go, I told the Lord while I was on the bottom of the river, but I guess this is it.

Then suddenly and unexpectedly, I started getting pulled back up and then I tasted air again and I have never desired life more than at that moment.

And so when I hear the Gospel today, I get a little nervous, I get anxiety when I hear “Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch

And while my story is dramatic, it is not unique. Whether or not we have been white water rafting in Colorado, we all travel through and are threatened by deep waters.

In our life we face many deep waters.
There are the deep waters that sweep over us when a friend betrays us or speaks ill of us.

Or when we fear that the values and cherished virtues in this country are slipping away or being torn apart.

When we feel the grief clutching our throat as someone we love is dying and we don’t know how to respond or how to comfort them.

When we’ve lost or left a job, when we watch our children or friends make the wrong decisions and hurt themselves.

Perhaps it is the experience of loss, of hurt, of healing that follows upon a separation, a divorce, or a death.

These are our deep waters.

These are the deep waters, these are the things, the experiences that threaten to overwhelm us, to sweep over us and to hold us tight on the bottom of a river.

But if these waters are deep, deeper still is the mystery of love and this feast of life we celebrate today. Scripture says elsewhere that “deep waters cannot quench love, nor floods sweep it away” And God is love.

These deep waters are real, they are fierce, and anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something. But if these deep waters are fierce and real, fiercer and realer still is the love of Jesus.

The love of Jesus for you and for me.

And he never abandons us in our deep waters. He is the one who sea and sky obey, he is the one who walks on water and who rescues Peter from the water and his own fear. And he does the same for us.

Notice in the Gospel for today, Jesus gets into the boat to teach and even after he commands them to go fishing, he never gets out.

Jesus comes into our lives and he never leaves. He gets into our boat and there he stays, God is always by our side.

There is a beautiful hymn, the Cloud’s Veil, which was sung at my friend’s funeral several years ago, which perfectly articulates just how deep is God’s love.

"Even though the rain hides the stars,
even though the mist swirls the hills
Even when the dark clouds veil the sky, God is by my side.
Even when the sun shall fall in sleep,
even when at dawn the sky shall weep,
even in the night when storms shall rise,
God is by my side. God is by my side."

And it is this fundamental fact, that God IS by our side, which gives us the strength and the courage to venture out into deep waters and to survive. But lest this idea of God's presence, of his being by our side remain only an abstract notion of our mind, let us look to the PROOF that God gives us, the proof that God gives that shows he is truly always by our side.

The first proof is the Eucharist. God is by our side here in this Mass, in this communal celebration of the Eucharist.

When given to the dying or the ill we call Eucharist, viaticum which means "food for the way" or "food for the journey."

The Eucharist is food for the journey of life. If we are to venture out into deep waters, we need strength, we need courage, and we need God's grace. All of which he gives us in the Eucharist, his Body and Blood. Because no matter the deep waters, no matter how desperate things may seem, his love endures in this Eucharist, his presence remains.

But we are called not only to set out into deep waters and survive but to lower our nets for a catch.

From this Eucharist we are called to go forth as the Body of Christ, and to lower our nets to fish out of the deep waters of this life women and men who are suffering. From what we receive and celebrate here, we are then called and commissioned to go and BE that Body for the world.

There are so many people in the world enduring and suffering from deep waters. People who feel unseen, unknown, and unloved. And so we have a mission to go out to these women and men and to be the presence of God to them.

Christ has no hands and feet except ours. If our hands and our feet do not do the works of mercy and the works of justice, who will? But with God's grace, with the strength that comes from both receiving and BEING the Body of Christ, we can achieve wonders of love and show the world that Jesus is truly by our side always.

But what I am saying is not new to this community, because you already know this, you are already living this out. And I know this because I have already seen it and experienced it in you.

In my five years here, you have formed and shaped me, comforted in moments of weakness and fear, moments of deep anxiety. You helped to fish me out of the sea of my worries and your presence has been such a grace to me

This is what it means to be the Church and to be Church together. To be people who have known and will know how treacherous this life and its anxieties can be, but who also know that they are never alone. That we can never be alone and that no one should be alone in the midst of their deep waters, their anxieties and fears.

And no deep water, no storms, no anxieties, no fears can change this simple fact:

God IS by our side. Now and forever.