ICYMI: Pastor Jessica's sermon from 2/9/2025
Due to our live stream software crashing at the beginning of the service and disabling the audio, no one watching online was able to hear Pastor Jessica’s sermon! So here it is, beginning with the scripture:
Luke 5:1-11
Once while Jesus[a] was standing beside the Lake of Gennesaret and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, 2 he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gotten out of them and were washing their nets. 3 He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. 4 When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” 5 Simon answered, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.” 6 When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to burst. 7 So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink. 8 But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’s knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” 9 For he and all who were with him were astounded at the catch of fish that they had taken, 10 and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” 11 When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.
Sermon:
Dietrich Bonhoeffer is a famous theologian who many may be familiar with, there was even just a movie about him, but his story is one of God found in the unexpected. Bonhoeffer began his ministry vowing to stay out of politics as a clergyman, seeing his role to be that of a spiritual leader rather than a political activist. He earned a doctorate at 21 and quickly became a well respected professor and pastor.
While Bonhoeffer was German, he found himself studying at Union Theological Seminary and attending Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, New York for a time from 1930-1931, just before the start of the Holocaust. As Adolf Hitler rose to power in 1933, many in the church chose to take a stand, but others chose to remain out of the politics of war. Bonhoeffer had remained fairly apolitical until he spent time at Abyssian; it was there at this black congregation that he witnessed a powerful faith that was deeply intertwined with the struggle for racial justice. Seeing how Black Christians worshipped and resisted oppression with faith-filled activism changed him from the quiet pastor solely doing pastoral work and study, to a man with a new conviction: faith was not just about belief – it required action.
Bonhoeffer’s return to Germany after his time in New York led him to empower the church to publicly oppose Hitler and formed the Confessing Church, a movement that resisted Nazi control over Christianity. He spoke out against the persecution of Jews at a time when many Christians ignored it. As the Nazis grew more oppressive, Bonhoeffer became convinced that resisting them was not just a political choice – it was a moral and spiritual duty. He eventually was also recruited into a secret resistance group plotting to overthrow Hitler. Though a pacifist, he saw action against Hitler as the only way to be faithful to God by standing up for what was right, by speaking for Jews, for the oppressed, for the ones being condemned and murdered by governmental powers of dictatorship.
Bonhoeffer was arrested in 1943 and continued to write letters and reflections on faith from prison. He spoke of costly grace, naming that the grace of God earned by following Christ requires sacrifice, not simply comfort. On April 9, 1945 – just weeks before Germany surrendered – Bonhoeffer was executed at Flossenburg concentration camp.
“Being a Christian is less about cautiously avoiding sin than about courageously and actively doing God’s will.” Bonhoeffer defines that cost of discipleship as the willingness to turn over every aspect of one’s life to living into the calling of God upon one’s life. Our scripture from Luke today tells us a story of Jesus calling his first disciples. They found themselves in a boat on waters that were turning up no fish, on waters that were not providing for them enough to eat or to sell. These men’s livelihoods depended on the fishing they were doing and it was what they had given themselves over to. After a long day of nothing, Jesus appears and borrows one of their boats from which to preach. While he was preaching the men were listening I am sure, but also actively cleaning their fishing nets and preparing to head home for the day, tired and hungry and longing for family and friends.
After Jesus finished preaching he invited the fishermen to cast their nets back out into the water, something I imagine they were reluctant to do having just cleaned them and packed them away, and yet they did as he said. Their response to his call to action led to them filling their nets beyond bursting and acquiring so much fish they probably couldn’t even imagine what to do with it. Jesus had filled their nets, and given them a hope they were not looking for on the water that day. Simon Peter, James, and John turned away from their lives and began to follow this teacher. The cost of discipleship is one’s life.
These three men of the twelve experienced the goodness of God, the power of God, and became convicted to journey on a path to change the world. They taught alongside Jesus, healed alongside Jesus, prayed with him, walked with him, showed up with him through persecution and condemnation of those elites in their society. What did they pay? After his denial of Jesus, Simon Peter was arrested and condemned to die by crucifixion, choosing to be crucified upside down as a symbol of his human sin not comparable or worthy to that of Jesus’ crucifixion which provided perfect restoration. James was persecuted and arrested as well, being then beheaded as punishment for his faith. After Jesus’ death, John was persecuted as well, and yet continued to minister and serve. He was exiled, compelled to drink poison, and ousted for a faith that he remained true to through it all – leading and forming the church until his death, the cause of which is up for debate.
The cost of discipleship is one’s life. In oppression, in persecution, in evil, in a world that strives to do all it can to perpetuate cycles of poverty, racism, and discrimination the cost of discipleship is one’s life. It is a cost that is paid by doing what is right, by courageously and actively doing God’s will to try to foster transformation. In war, in times of systematic oppression, in times of unrest and uncertainty, there is an opportunity to arise, to live into what the cost of discipleship is by giving over one’s life to saying things, sharing things, educating, being willing to learn, being willing to accompany, advocating, writing, having conversations, putting up signs, marching, living in a way that models that the ways Jesus lived in the world, modeling the ways he empowered his disciples to live in the world, modeling the cost of discipleship being paid. The cost that buys us a kindom of God that is accessible and available to all.
When calling, Jesus is calling to set aside what we preoccupy ourselves with to allow, wait for it, our light to shine. When we live into the calling to be disciples, to live as children of God, we are shining our little lights everywhere. Bonhoeffer shined his light in the midst of a Nazi regime that said Jews didn’t deserve to worship, didn’t deserve to live; Martin Luther King in the midst of a racial injustice that said blacks aren’t equal and do not deserve the same rights or amenities, didn’t deserve to be counted as whole people, didn’t deserve to live; Malala Yousafzai in the midst of a place that said women don’t deserve an education and don’t have the same capabilities or rights to speak as men; people now in a time where tomorrow is uncertain, in a time where the rights of immigrants, trans individuals, people experiencing homelessness, women, inmates, and others are questioned.
What is the cost of discipleship? For Bonhoeffer and King it was their lives, for Yousafzai it was a bullet to the head. Maybe it is a dirty text message, a Facebook comment that disagrees, a scratch on a car, a response to a letter to a politician that isn’t liked as we journey through life striving to be who God is calling us to be – advocating, working, loving. Yet, what is the cost if we do nothing? Much more. The call to discipleship is not merely an invitation to believe – it is a call to action, a call to transformation, a call to sacrifice. Jesus did not promise his disciples comfort, ease, or safety. He promised them purpose. He promised them that their lives would matter, that their actions would shape the world, and that their commitment to God’s will would bring about a kindom unlike any the world had ever known.
Bonhoeffer, Peter, James, John, Martin Luther King Jr., Malala Yousafzai—each of these individuals heard a call and chose to respond. They chose faith over fear, action over complacency, justice over silence. Their lives were marked by the cost of discipleship, but also by the undeniable power of God working through them.
And now, Jesus stands on the shore of our lives, calling us to cast out into deeper waters. The question is: will we listen? Will we let go of fear, of hesitation, of the desire for comfort and security, and step into the life that Christ calls us to? Will we risk speaking up for the oppressed, advocating for justice, and embodying the radical love of God in a broken world?
The cost of discipleship is great—but the cost of doing nothing is far greater. Let us go forth, then, boldly and without fear, knowing that when we follow Christ, we are never alone. Our nets may be empty today, but when we trust in the call, our nets will be filled beyond what we could ever imagine.
May we be willing to pay the cost. May we shine our lights. And may we follow Jesus, no matter where he leads. Amen.