Epiphany 5c.07                                                     February 4, 2007

Benedictine Spirituality defines the Christian path
        in terms of three disciplines.
The first is stability.
That means commitment to our community
        and our relationships.
It’s a about hanging together.

The second is Obedience.
That means having our hearts and minds open
        so we can receive guidance.
We are willing to learn from our Church,
       from the Scriptures, and from each other.

The third discipline is conversion of life.
That’s what today’s Gospel lesson is about.
Peter was already stable.
He was there working with his partners,
       and with the rest of the fishermen in his village.
He was already obedient.
When Jesus asked to use his boat as a stage for teaching,
       Peter said “yes.”
When Jesus told him to put out into the deep water
      and let down his nets,
      Peter didn’t see the sense in it,
                but he did it.

That obedience, that willingness to follow,
      led to conversion of life.
Christian conversion isn’t random.
It follows a pattern.
We talked about the pattern at the Annual Meeting last week.
It’s called the Renewal – Apostolate Cycle.

The first step of conversion is taking a deeper view of life.
Jesus said to Peter,

       “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets . . . .”

Life is not a work project, a contest, or a diverting entertainment
       like a tv show or pop song.
It is a sacred mystery.
Life has depth – and in the depth is grace, wonder, and meaning.
Putting out into the deep waters
       means looking into the heart of things.

Not all Christians have put out into the deep water.
Some visit the church occasionally
       because that’s what nice people do.
Some look to the church for advice and guidance,
       as they might turn to a self-help book
                to smooth out a rough spot in their lives.

And there’s nothing wrong with that.
We connect to the faith from where we are,
       and that’s where a lot of us begin.
But that casual engagement with Christianity
       isn’t conversion of life.

Conversion happens when faith opens us up
       to explore the mystery of being,
       to be still and know that God is God,
       that there is a beauty beneath the surface of things.
The poet, Louise Bogan wrote,

       “I cannot believe that the inscrutable universe
       turns on an axis of suffering;
       somewhere the strange beauty of the world
                must rest upon pure joy!”

Putting out into the deep waters and letting down our nets
       is the Christian way of fishing for that joy.
We do it by going inward both together and in solitude.
Our basic ways are prayer, study, and the sacraments.
There are many forms of Christian prayer

        – lectio divina, Ignatian prayer, centering prayer,
                the Jesus Prayer, breath prayer.
There is much to study – Scripture of course,
        but also theology, the lives of saints,
                the literature of faith.

The sacraments are the essential core of our way inward.
Baptism is the beginning, then regular Communion,
       and healing and reconciliation.
A sacrament is always a sacred encounter

       – but the occasional sacrament is not a spiritual practice.
It is the faithful, patient, week after week participation
       in the Divine Mysteries
       that gradually opens our heart to God.

Sometimes we have to fish all night and catch nothing.
That’s how it was for .
“Master we have worked all night and caught nothing,”
       he said to Jesus.

He had given up and was cleaning his nets to put them away.
But Jesus told him to go deep again,
      and he caught more fish than he could handle.
He had to call the others to help him.

That’s how it is with the spiritual life.
For the longest time, nothing happens,
      then we are overwhelmed with grace

      – more than we can handle alone.
That’s why we have to do this in a community.
We have to share the sacraments,
      pray together as well as alone,
                and study in groups.

But conversion isn’t all about us.
Jesus didn’t just leave Peter to enjoy his catch.
He called him to become a fisher of people,
       a Catcher in the Rye, a saver of souls.

The spiritual practice of going inward is only half the trip.
Elizabeth O’Connor the great spiritual author
       from the Church of the Savior in Washington, D. C.
       titled one of her books The Journey Inward, The Journey Outward.

If our journey inward is authentic it will lead us back out
       into the world with a new life force,
       a life lived for others in mercy and compassion.
We call that the Apostolate – or the Apostolic Mission.

Grace is life and joy when it is shared with others.
If we keep if for ourselves, it turns to poison.
As a community we have to balance
        the renewal of our own spiritual lives
        with service to each other and the world.

As individuals, we also need to balance
        being inward and contemplative;
        with the apostolate, active service.
Most of our apostolate is in our ordinary daily lives
        with work, family, and friends.
It is doing ordinary things with extraordinary grace,
        natural things with supernatural serenity and love.

Part of our Apostolate should be in the Church,
        healing, building, and strengthening this community
                 that sustains us and can sustain others.
The last part of our Apostolate should be
        through the Church to others.
It should be service done as part of the mission programs
        of the congregation to neighbors near and far.
Christian service is inherently both local and global.
That’s what Paul means when he says
        that the good news of God’s love
        is to be shared first with the Jews,
                 then to the nations.

We offer service first to the people in need close by,
        but we don’t stop there.
We are part of a world wide Communion
        with a world wide mission
                  committed to peace, justice, and mercy
                  from Haiti to Darfur, from Ecuador to Burundi.
When we commit ourselves to being agents
        of mercy and reconciliation,
        it brings us up against life’s rough edges.
It is hard work, frustrating work, that fails often as not.
And that can have one of two results.
We can become tired, disillusioned and full of despair.
We can wash our hands of the whole thing.

Or we can “put out into the deep waters” again.
Both the rewards and the frustrations of service
          can send us back to the fountain of grace

          – to prayer, study, and the sacraments.
That’s why we call it a cycle,
          and it’s why conversion isn’t something
                   we undergo once in life
                   and be done with it.

Conversion of life is a way of life.
It is our way of life, the Christian way.
We cycle deeper and deeper into God,
   into the “ the inscrutable universe . . . ;
   (into) the strange beauty of the world (which) rest(s) upon pure joy!

                                                                    Amen.