Isaiah 6:1-8; Luke 5:1-11
Allison and Jared welcomed Julian, their second child, on December 17. Caitie and Doug welcomed their first child, Grace, on October 11. Abi and Quentin are expecting their first child—and “expecting” is an interesting way to speak of awaiting the birth of a little person, of witnessing a baby’s hidden growth and first movements, of swinging wildly from kinda knowing what to expect to feeling utterly clueless. And “expecting” only hints at the marvel of it all—the joy, the wonder, and the worries.
“Can we do this?” is one big question the parents ask one another. Can we be for him what he needs? Can we prepare her for the life that awaits her? What’s the world going to be like when they get older? What will become of our country? What will become of the oceans and the forests? What will become of us? Jesus teaches us,
Do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing.[1]
I hear you, Jesus, I really do, but I wonder if you know what it’s like to hold an infant in your arms, when suddenly the realization washes over you like a long wave that from now on this little person is your responsibility. It’s hard not to worry when you love. When things get difficult, or when we imagine them getting difficult one day, it’s not ourselves so much that we’re worried about, it’s the ones we have let ourselves be bound to in love—but you know that, of course… you know exactly what it’s like to bind yourself in love to all of us.
Simon and his partners, James and John, worried a little every time they pulled away from the shore in their boats, “Will we catch enough?” Enough to feed our families and take some of the catch to market? Enough to make boat payments and replace worn out nets? Enough to cover Rome’s fishery tax that will be due whether we catch anything or not? For them, every day, the big question was, “Will there be enough?” And that one we all know, don’t we? Will there be enough to pay the bills? Enough to stay in school? Enough to pay back the loan? It’s easy to see ourselves in one of those boats, pulling away from shore, gazing across the water, some of us wondering, others worrying, “Will there be enough?” And it’s not hard at all to see ourselves in that same boat, rowing back to shore after a long night of working and hoping, with little or nothing to show for it. We drop the little sail, we pull the boat up on the beach, and we begin cleaning the nets. And how’s that for a sad joke: we didn’t catch a single fish all night, but plenty of trash. You almost want to laugh, but you’re playing the scene in your mind of you coming home and telling your spouse and your kids that last night’s work wouldn’t put any food on the table. You hope that tomorrow will be better—and if it won’t, how will you make ends meet?
Luke tells us that Jesus was there, teaching the crowd, and that they were pressing in on him to hear the word of God. They were drawn to Jesus because he brought good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and freedom to the oppressed. They were drawn to him because wherever he went, life began to shine when he spoke and when he touched the sick and healed them. Jesus got into Simon’s boat, asked him to put out a little way from the shore, and then he sat down and taught. And while Luke doesn’t tell us a single word of what Jesus taught that day by the lake, he makes sure we know exactly what he told Simon, just one sentence: “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.”
Now you and I, we’ve been in that boat. We’ve tossed out the net and pulled it in empty, again and again, and again. We’ve rowed out on the lake with expectation and after a long night rowed back to shore with nothing but wet nets and sore arms. Frankly, we don’t know where Simon finds the grace to respond, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.”
We don’t know where Simon Peter found the grace in that moment to respond with such trust and obedience, but he and those with him did let down the nets and pulled in the biggest catch ever, more fish than the nets and the boats could possibly hold. Now we can see why Luke didn’t write down a single word of Jesus’ teaching from the boat: because this is the message; this net-breaking, boat sinking catch, this abundance is the good news of great joy for all the people.
Peter falls down at Jesus’ knees, knowing that he is in the presence of God, fearful that the fire of holiness might consume him. “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man,” he says. And the Lord replies, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” There is no explicit call like, “Come, and follow me;” there’s only this assurance and Simon Peter’s trust in Jesus, his simple obedience to Jesus, and a wondrous eruption of fullness.
“Will there be enough?” is no longer the big question. There is more than enough. What, then, is the big question? You may say to yourself, “Wow, that’s a lot of fish,” and your first question is, “Should I can it or freeze it?” Maybe I should get a bigger boat and some stronger nets, expand the business, you know? Perhaps a partnership? Simon & Jesus—Deep Water Fishing has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?
We all know that’s not it. The gospel isn’t about inviting Jesus into your boat and enjoying a life of net-breaking and boat-sinking fishing trips. The gospel is about Jesus pulling us into his boat and taking us to vocational school for kingdom workers. The real catch that day wasn’t fish. Jesus speaks of “catching people” and that image is troubling; it smacks of entrapment. But in Luke’s story it’s the fishermen who are the ones being caught, and not in cleverly set traps or in cunningly designed nets. They get caught up in the vision of life that Jesus embodies. In the very waters we have fished all night without catching anything, waters we thought we knew like the back of our hands, there, right under the surface, in the deep, is a fullness we can barely imagine—and Jesus has the power to bring it out, to bring it up.
The crowds came to the lakeshore to hear the word of God, and hear it they did, but then they got to taste the Jesus vision of life at the all-you-can-eat grilled-fish picnic on the beach. So many people, and all of them ate, and not one of them worried if there would be enough.
Not all of them left everything and followed Jesus. But Peter, James and John did, and soon Mary, Joanna, and Susanna did, and soon many more. For them, the big question was, “How do we live fearlessly into the nearness of God’s reign? How do we live the life we have found in the presence of Jesus?”
It is easy for us to see ourselves in that boat, worrying about tomorrow after working all night without catching anything. But then there is that moment when Jesus is done teaching and he challenges us to lower our nets one more time. That moment when Peter decides, we don’t know how, in circumstances far from promising, to simply do what Jesus said.
The only reason we know this story and continue to tell it, is that those first followers trusted Jesus and found something more powerful than their fear or their worries, something more powerful than their failures and betrayals. They found life. They caught the vision of life Jesus embodied, and they lived it in the power of the Spirit.
I still worry sometimes—every day, to be honest. I wonder what life will be like when my kids will be grandparents, and it worries me how long it’s taking us to stop heating the planet. I wonder what will become of our democratic institutions and democracy itself in this age of social media, big data, and big lies, and it worries me that a so many people in this country—the children and grandchildren of the generation that fought fascism in the name of democracy and freedom—that so many of them are busy flirting with white nationalism and autocratic leadership. I wonder what will become of us, and I do worry.
But I believe in Jesus. I’m caught up in the vision of life he embodies—a life of deep compassion, faithful prayer, forgiveness, attention given to the ones habitually overlooked, simplicity and generosity, and in all things, the pulse of divine love.
Jesus has made us his own. He has bound himself to us in love. We belong to him, and through him to each other. We forget it all the time, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t so. We belong to him and to each other, and Luke’s story of the miraculous catch invites us to do what the first disciples did: do what Jesus says, even in the face of unpromising circumstances, and let ourselves be awesomely surprised.
[1] Luke 12:22-23