SERMON FOR FEBRUARY 6, 2022                TEXT: LUKE 5:1-11

          “The treasures of indulgences are nets with which one now fishes for the wealth of men.” This is no. 66 of the 95 theses Luther so famously posted for debate on October 31, 1517. The controversy over indulgences in the late medieval church sparked the Reformation. For Protestants today it is hard to wrap our minds around the piety behind this practice, but it made theological sense to Luther’s contemporaries. His criticism would have raised a lot of eyebrows.

          The sacrament of confession consisted of three parts:    oral confession of one’s sins to a priest, absolution, and a work of satisfaction. Only God could forgive sins, and absolution was freely granted through the grace of Christ. But once the sin was forgiven, one still needed to make amends for the wrong done. The church imposed a temporal penalty, which needed to be satisfied in order for one to be restored to a state of grace and good standing in the church. Just as our law codes provide sentencing guidelines for specific crimes, the church’s practice of confession determined particular penances for different sins — for example, prayers, almsgiving, fasting, pilgrimages, and donations to the church in support of its work. The church claimed authority over the so-called treasury of merits. Certain holy people, like the saints, abounded in good works and acquired over their lifetimes more merits than they required to clear their own accounts. Their excess was “banked” by the church to be made available to penitents in need. If a person died without completing the penance they owed, they would spend time in purgatory, satisfying their debts and undergoing the purification required to enter heaven. One could get there a lot faster if some of the saints’ riches of holiness were transferred from the church’s treasury of merits to the sinner’s purgatorial account.                           

          And that is where indulgences came in. Purchasing an indulgence was a donation to the church, in this case the proceeds went for building St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. This good work released one from some amount of the temporal penalties one had already incurred or would wrack up in the future. You could buy them on behalf of your departed loved ones as well, thus helping them pass more quickly through the pains of purgatory. What made the campaign of 1517 particularly appealing was that it offered a plenary indulgence, that is, remittance of one’s total debt. Hence the crass jingle used by the friar in charge of the sale: “. . . as soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs.”

          For Luther, who at the time was a parish priest as well as a university professor, this indulgence sale was problematic. It conflicted with his own struggle to find a gracious God whose mercy was not contingent on human good works. It did not agree with what he found in the Scriptures. It had appalling effects on the people he was serving, leading the faithful to trust in letters of pardon for their salvation rather than in the mercy and love of God. Finally, it raised troubling questions about the church’s integrity. Luther did not hesitate to call the leadership to account. Although he didn’t attack the pope directly, he certainly put him on the spot. Here are several of Luther’s more provocative theses: “This unbridled preaching of indulgences makes it difficult even for learned men to rescue the reverence which is due the pope from slander or from the shrewd questions of the laity. Such as: ‘Why does not the pope empty purgatory for the sake of holy love and the dire need of the souls that are there, if he redeems an infinite number of souls for the sake of miserable money with which to build a church?‘’The former reason would be most just; the latter is most trivial. Again, ‘Why does not the pope, whose wealth is today greater than the riches of the richest, build this one basilica of St. Peter with his own money rather than with the money of poor believers?’”

          “The treasures of the gospel are nets with which one formerly fished for men of wealth,” writes Luther. “The treasures of indulgences are nets with which one now fishes for the wealth of men.” Here in a nutshell he gives us the tale of two church leaders: Simon Peter the Galilean fisherman and the Roman pope, who was sitting upon the apostolic throne. In Luke’s story, when Jesus tells Peter to cast his nets in the deep water, he is at first doubtful. He has been fishing all night to no avail. But, like many others in the scriptures who are called by God, Peter overcomes his reluctance and does as the Lord asks with surprising results. He is overwhelmed by the abundance of what Jesus provides. Peter and his companions catch so many fish that their nets begin to break. He is awed, even unnerved, by the power Jesus reveals so that he may believe and follow. Before doing so, Peter makes his confession. First he addressed Jesus as “Master”; now he calls him “Lord” and recognizes the gulf between them: “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” Jesus then bridges the separation with words of assurance and a call to discipleship: “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.”

          In the gospels of Matthew and Mark Jesus says, “I will make you fish for people” or in the older more familiar translation, “fishers of men.” In those parallel accounts Simon, later called Peter,    and his brother Andrew are both named and directly addressed by Jesus, and their response is simply to leave their nets and follow him immediately. There is no miraculous catch of fish, no hesitation and no further conversation. This makes Luke’s focus on Peter all the more striking. Pentecost is celebrated as the birth of the church, but the church is conceived in this moment, when Jesus calls his first disciples, the ones who were with him from the beginning, who shared his life and witnessed his death and resurrection. They then received the Holy Spirit, becoming the first proclaimers of the Gospel and leaders of the community that gathered around that good news. The disciples are the essential link between the original saving events and all the generations to come. And Peter is foremost among them.

          By referring to the story of Peter’s call, Luther points to the contrast between the humbled disciple and the arrogant one, between the servant of the Lord who rows into deep water to labor with his nets and the one, like Luther’s pope, who is enthroned on high to judge others and exploit them. We are all called to follow in Peter’s footsteps. His first confession remains the defining one, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” The consequence is what empowers him as an apostle; it is what empowers us all — the Lord does not go away but stays and claims him without reservation. So we too venture out into the deep waters of our troubled world with the Lord by our side and cast our nets wide. We catch those who, like us, are captive to sin, so that we can release them into the freedom of God’s mercy. Amen.