LAUNCHING OUT
The Fifth Sunday after Trinity
The Rev. Michael Vinson+ Rector
The Collect. GRANT, O Lord, we beseech thee, that the course of this world may be so peaceably ordered by thy governance, that thy Church may joyfully serve thee in all godly quietness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Two small words near the end of the Collect we have just prayed carry more weight than they might first appear. We asked God to order the course of this world by His governance, so that His Church might joyfully serve Him in all godly quietness. Joyfully. In all godly quietness. It is that last phrase I want us to enter this morning, because the Church is asking for something the world cannot give and cannot understand.
The world has its own version of quietness. It is the quietness of insulation — enough comfort, enough distance from difficulty, enough control over circumstances that nothing can disturb you. It is a quietness that depends entirely on the world behaving itself. And it is, of course, perpetually out of reach, because the world never behaves itself for long.
But there is a greater reason it remains out of reach. The Preacher in Ecclesiastes has tried everything the self can try. Not carelessly — methodically, brilliantly, with his wisdom intact throughout. Houses, vineyards, gardens, silver, gold, singers, the delights of men. "Whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them." This is not a fool stumbling into excess. This is the wisest man in Jerusalem governing his own life with maximum intelligence and maximum resource — withholding nothing, pursuing every form of flourishing the world can offer. And at the end of it all, he looks on the works of his hands and says: behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit. And then the most searching line of all: his heart taketh not rest in the night.
Augustine knew the same truth from the inside, arriving at it not through royal experiment but through years of restless searching: "Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in thee." Both the Preacher and the Bishop, separated by centuries, arrive at the same verdict. The self cannot produce what it most deeply needs. It can build, acquire, achieve, and accumulate — and still lie awake in the dark, its heart finding no rest. Not because it has failed, but because it has succeeded completely — and found that the creature cannot satisfy itself. The soul was never made to rest in its own works or its own governance. It was made for God; and apart from Him, even its greatest labors are, as the Preacher says, vanity and vexation of spirit. The self, in all its striving, has been running from the only One who can give it rest.
The prophet Isaiah names the remedy with extraordinary accuracy: "In quietness and in trust shall be your strength." Not in the absence of enemies. Not in the elimination of difficulty. But in quietness — an interior settledness — and in trust, which is to say, in the soul's resting in One greater than itself. Godly quietness is Augustinian rest. It is the deep, unshakeable confidence of a soul that has found its true home — not in its own competence or governance, but in the Lord who governs all things.
This is what we are asking for when she prays this Collect. Not an easier world. Not relief from its anxieties and pressures. But the grace to be so moored in Christ's governance that the disorder of this present age cannot unsettle your joy. And this morning, St. Peter — both in his Epistle and in the Gospel — is going to show us what this looks like, and what it costs.
The Apostle Peter is not writing to a comfortable Church. The community he addresses in his Epistle is scattered, suffering, surrounded by a world of people who could harm them and who, in some cases, already have. Every natural human instinct in these Christians Peter is addressing would have been to harden, to retaliate, to render evil for evil and railing for railing. And Peter calls them instead to something that can only be described as godly quietness under stress.
“Be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous. Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing. Let him seek peace and ensue it.”
This is not passiveness or apathy. The Apostle is calling for an extraordinarily demanding discipline of the interior— the discipline of a soul so settled in Christ's governance that it can absorb hostility without being destabilized by it. The world's quietness requires the absence of enemies. Yet, Peter's godly quietness holds even when enemies are at the gate — most fully, in fact, when the pressure is greatest. It is not a circumstantial peace. It is an interior disposition of the soul.
And then Peter names its source: "Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts." There it is. The interior posture from which everything else flows. Not grit, not stoicism, not sheer moral effort — but the enthronement of Christ as Lord within the soul. This is what Augustine means by rest. This is what the Collect is asking for. The soul that has sanctified the Lord in its heart does not need the world to be orderly in order to be quiet and at peace. Its quietness comes from a source beyond the world's reach." But how does the soul arrive at this place? Peter knows because he has been there. And the Gospel this morning takes us back to the moment it happened.
Simon Peter had been fishing all night. He knew this lake. He had spent his life on it — the currents, the seasons, the depths where fish ran. He was not a careless man or an incompetent one. He was experienced, capable, and utterly empty-handed. His own effort, his own wisdom, his own governance of the night had brought him back to shore with aching arms and nothing to show for it. All his labor, and his heart taketh not rest. This is the self at the end of its resources — not wicked, not faithless, but exhausted and found wanting by its own effort alone. Peter on the lake is the Preacher of Ecclesiastes in the palace: wisdom intact, effort spent, but nets empty.
Then Jesus gets into the boat. Notice what happens first. Before the miracle, before the command to launch out, Jesus sits down and teaches the people from the boat. The Word of God goes out from that small vessel on the water. The boat becomes a pulpit. The lake becomes a nave. The Lord's governance always begins with His Word — working inward, reaching the interior life before it moves anything on the surface.
And then, when he has finished speaking, he turns to Simon and says: "Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a draught."
Peter's response is the most honest thing in the passage. It is the response of every soul that has tried and failed and is not entirely sure it has the energy or fortitude to try again. "Master, we have toiled all the night and have taken nothing." He is not being insolent. He is being honest. A fisherman telling a carpenter that this is not how fishing works.
And then — here is the hinge upon which everything turns — Peter says: "Nevertheless, at thy word, I will let down the net."
Nevertheless. At thy word. That is the soul releasing its own governance and hears the Word of God. It is the beginning of detaching from the self's own certainties — its expertise, its relentless liturgy of effort, of believing it understands how the deep works — it is the placing of all of this under the Word and governance of Christ. Peter does not yet know what will happen. He has no new information. The odds have not changed. But the Lord has spoken, and Peter, in that moment of surrender, steps out of the shallows of self-reliance and into the deep, deep waters of trusting Christ.
What follows is almost overwhelming in its abundance. The nets fill beyond breaking. Both boats are called and both begin to sink with the weight of the catch. This is what the governance of God looks like when a soul stops governing itself and submits to Him — boats so laden with His generosity they begin to sink beneath it.
But the most important thing that happens on that lake is not the unbelievable draught of fish.
What’s most important is Peter, falling on his knees before the Lord.
When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, "Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord."
This is not simply a confession of guilt. No. This is the self collapsing before the Lord of all things — the moment a man encounters the holiness and governance of Christ so overwhelmingly that every pretension to self-sufficiency dissolves. Peter does not fall to his knees because he has been examining his conscience. He falls because the light of the glory of Christ has flooded the boat and left nowhere to hide. The self, in that light, is seen for what it is. And what it is, is not enough.
And then Christ speaks the words, words that are the gift of godly quietness: "Fear not."
He doesn’t say "your sins are forgiven" — though that will come for Peter. Not "you are now adequate" — Peter never will be, in himself. But "fear not." Two words that still what all the striving of the night could not quiet. This is Augustinian rest, given not as an achievement but as a divine gift — the soul undone, the heart opened, and Christ speaking peace into the interior life a peace that no exterior circumstance could ever have produced.
The Gospel ends with six words that are the whole interior life in miniature: 'They forsook all, and followed him.' Not merely a change of vocation but a reordering of loves. The self, once governed by its own competence. Agenda, and self-will, now released — loves detached from lesser things, the soul free to follow the one thing needful. St. Peter is the man who will write, decades later from his own suffering: 'Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts.' Every word of it was learned on that lake, in a boat on the lake of Gennesaret, when Jesus said, 'Fear not' and everything changed.
The Church that prays this Collect is not asking for fair winds and smooth water. She is asking for what Peter found in that boat — the grace to sail through the deep waters of this present age with her Lord at the helm. The world, my friends, will not grow quieter. The noise will not diminish. The competing claims on your loves, your time, your worship — these will press harder, not lighter, as the days go on. But that is what the Collect knows. We are not praying for the waters to calm. We are praying for the soul to be so kept by Christ's governance that the waters cannot capsize our joy.
My brothers and sisters, the invitation this morning is the same one Peter received on that lake. The Lord has gotten into the boat this morning. He has spoken His Word. And He is saying to each of us what He said to that exhausted fisherman: “launch out into the deep and let down your nets.” Not into the shallows of self-governance, where we exhaust ourselves through the night and take nothing. But into the deep — the deep of trust, the deep of surrender, the deep of a life no longer governed by the self's own certainties but governed by the Word of the Christ who governs all things.
“God spake once, and twice I have also heard the same, that power belongeth unto God; And that thou, Lord, art merciful; for thou rewardest every man according to his work.” (Ps 62:11-12). Our work is to fall down at the feet of Christ and trust Him.
That is where godly quietness is found. Not in the sheltered harbor. Not in the absence of difficulty. But out in the deep, with Christ in the boat, having heard His "fear not" — and having believed it.
“Nevertheless, at thy word.” May it be so for this parish. May it be so for each of us. Amen+
