Go Deep

Go Deep

This Sunday is particularly important in the American liturgical calendar. It is the Sunday we celebrate the triumph of good over evil, of truth over untruth, of the ultimate victory of the righteous. I mean of course that this is Super Bowl Sunday.

One of the most thrilling plays that we will wait for; one of the plays known in backyard games and college playoffs, is when the quarterback gets in the huddle and in whatever code is used, looks intently at a receiver and says “God says, “Go deep.””

It means that the quarterback will throw the ball far and true deep down the field. Fans will be thrilled, situations redeemed, careers rescued.

This drama will be played in the midst of what is often a grinding sport of men smashing into each other and being carted off the field. It is the drama of our lives, because our lives often feel like a wearing tension of and unending series of runs up the middle.

Life is often tedious and religion irrelevant.

Most people have lives of grinding regularity. Their waking hours are filled with repetitive tasks and few real challenges. Most interpersonal relations stabilize into a steady state of habitual actions in which conflict and caring takes very predictable forms. We are people of habit who put on our pants one leg at a time because of the way pants and legs are made.

In this life of cycles and circles, there is a dim understanding that there must be more. And so we reach for the divine, the not us, the holy other, the prophetic perspective on who we are to take us to a new, livelier place.

We skim across the surface of what looks like monotony. The deeper waters are rich and alive, however. I enjoy scuba diving and will go wreck diving in Malta with my father in law in just a few days. Off the Florida keys I have been diving in John Pennecamp state park. This completely marine park is a sancuary for the reefs and is off limits to fishing. You will find in its depth colors and darting fascination you wouldn’t suspect from the surface. You will also find in its depths a statue of Jesus that was sunk there many years before called “Christ of the Abyss.” Christ of the Abyss is a 8 1/2 foot, 4000 pound bronze sculpture of Jesus Christ that stands in 25 feet of water off of Key Largo, Florida. Jesus has his hands outstretched, reaching up, waiting to be discovered by those who look beneath the surface.

The church has often been irrelevant in our search for deeper meaning. Paul Tillich, in the beginning of his systematics says that religion, for the most part, has been “answering questions no one ever asked in language no one can understand.” It is not unusual that people have given up on the church. We are caught up in committees and structures, fighting battles the culture finished years ago. We still fight about full participation for gay and lesbian people when it is a fact of life for most of our culture.

Peter Hears the Call

Like Peter, we are trying to get on with the business of life and watch in amusement as the church does its thing. Peter, like most of us, is fatigued and skeptical. Like us, he has been fishing in the dark for many fruitless hours.

Clarence Darrow was quoted as saying his favorite bible passage was from Luke 5:5, "We have toiled all the night and have taken nothing." For all his accomplishments, he felt his efforts were often fruitless. History judged him differently.

The call to dedication did not come to the early disciples in the cloistered halls of some worship center. The call came to them in the midst of the frustrations of their normal life. The people who built and rebuilt this church after its fires were people who faced the dedication required by the events of the day in the midst of the complexity of their lives.

The unusual suggestions of God have to do with how we go about the regular business of our life. Jesus spoke to the fishermen disciples through their very vocation. “Put out into deep water.” The fishermen thought they knew better than this holy guy. They knew the fish weren’t biting. They were at least polite, of course. With much eye rolling and perhaps a nudge to each other they followed Jesus suggestion with only a mumbled protest. Jesus calls them to have faith and fish where the big ones are. He calls them to expect great things.

It was as though an obscure minister came to an engineer who was trying to get a light bulb to work after thousands of trials and errors and said, “Have your tried a carbon filament?”

God’s Unusual Suggestions for Us

Jesus has suggestions for each of us and they call us to the deeper waters of life. They seem unusual only because we think we know better.

When the culture wants you to settle for mere comfort. God says, “Go deep.”

When your employer wants to take all your energy. God says, “Go deep.”

When your children want the easy answers. God says, “Go deep.”

When you’re down by 6 and there’s only a minute left. God says, “Go deep.”

When the people in your life are like things and things are like people to you. God says, “Go deep.”

When our country wants you to think only about short term gains and sacrifice principles. God says, “Go deep.”

When the chips are down folks are afraid to go deep, even in desperation. In the history of the Super bowl, the longest reception was 81 yards (Favre to Freeman – 1997), this season in the NFL there were 10 longer than that. We are afraid of the depths, afraid of being intercepted, afraid there will be no one at the other end.

Don’t be afraid. The depths will not crush you. Let us go together in this boat, the church, into deep water. Let us transcend the ordinary today and find God’s extraordinary presence in our lives.

Lord’s Supper as Going Deep

The elements of the Lord’s Supper that we are about to take are completely ordinary. We have eaten bread and drunk juice thousands of times before. Jesus dines with us in the midst of the ordinary and asks us to put our nets into the deep water again. We approach the table fatigued and skeptical, but Jesus continues to meet us here. After the teaching, after the work, Jesus comes to us in the ordinary actions of our life with the extraordinary suggestion that we go deep into the mysteries that bring us home.