So here’s how I imagine the scene: it’s morning on the shore of the Lake of Gennesaret, a very large fresh-water lake in Israel that is also known as the Sea of Galilee. The local fishermen have finished fishing for the night; they’ve pulled their boats ashore, and have stepped out of them to begin the regular task of cleaning their nets—pulling them over the side of their boats, washing with sand and water. The boats aren’t huge fishing boats by any means, but rather are like any of the small fishing boats we might find along the coast here in New England… minus the engines. The men are not in a great mood—they didn’t catch anything last night—and they are looking forward to going home and getting food and sleep.
Slowly they become aware of a growing din—and finally they pause and look up to see a crowd approaching, and eventually they make out that one member of the crowd is leading them, or perhaps that they are all just following him. One of the fishermen, Simon, recognizes the man, and nods in understanding: it is the rabbi Jesus, whose reputation as a wise teacher has spread rapidly, and whose reputation as a healer has spread even moreso—and in fact Simon was himself a witness to such healing, as his mother-in-law had been suffering with a terrible fever, and Jesus had come to his house and healed her instantly. Simon was not surprised to see Jesus followed by this large crowd.
He was surprised, however, when Jesus walked right up to his boat and stepped into it! And even more surprised when Jesus asked him, “could you push us out from the shore just a little bit.” Tired though he was, Simon was glad to comply, though unsure of what would come next. So Simon and his fellows quickly hauled their nets back into the boat, and then pushed out into the shallow waters—in fact they pushed out not far at all before Jesus says, “this is good”.
No sooner have they dropped anchor when Jesus proceeds to sit in the boat, and begins teaching the crowd the word of God. No one could say how long he spoke—it seemed a few moments, but it could’ve been a couple hours—but when he stopped speaking, he wasn’t finished. “Put out in deep waters, and let down your nets for a catch.”
The men… are reluctant… and Simon tries to explain how badly their night of fishing had gone, but—maybe it was just his sense of hospitality, honoring a guest’s request, or maybe it was a look in Jesus’ eye—Simon quickly relents, and they let out their nets… …for the catch of a lifetime! Everyone is astounded, but Simon—remember it’s his boat—Simon’s emotions go way beyond amazement: I mean, when Jesus came and healed his mother-in-law, that was amazing. But, you know, great healers, or at least rumors of great healers, pass through once in a while; it wasn’t entirely unheard of. But now Simon finds himself face-to-face with one who can command nature itself—Simon knows he is in the presence of divinity, and is thus immediately conscious of his unworthiness.
And I think that’s just the point: none of these men—Simon, whom we come to know as Peter, and James and John, and the rest of the twelve—none of them are extraordinary men. In fact, as the “background” portion of the bulletin makes mention, rabbis only called the best of the best of the best to be disciples, and the rest all went on to finish learning the family trade. So these guys out fishing in their boats, these are the not-disciple-material guys, the average, ordinary guys who didn’t make the cut. And to them Jesus says: “Don’t be afraid! From now on you will be catching people.”
I believe this story is immensely important for we who follow Jesus, because it reminds us of three things. First, it reminds us that the call to be a disciple of Jesus is immensely disruptive: Jesus comes to us in the midst of our ordinary lives and asks us to follow, to step out of our comfort zones, and to follow a way that is counter to the world’s way of doing things. Jesus gets into our boats and says, “put out into deep water and let down your nets,” and there’s no telling what might come next.
Second, it reminds us that we aren’t expected to be extraordinary: Jesus calls us, knowing exactly who we are, strengths and weaknesses, and what we are is enough—enough for God to use to accomplish his extraordinary mission; there is no “not good enough”: all that we are, all that we bring, it all counts.
And third, we’re reminded that the first thing Jesus tells us, is that we’re called to catch. The Greek word for “catching” that Luke uses in this story is a word that means “to catch alive”. Jesus calls us, as he called those fishermen, to a new vocation of catching people so they might live, a life-giving vocation of being caught up in God’s mission of salvation for all people.
You are worthy—worthy of Jesus’ disruptive, life-changing call, worthy of a vocation of people-catching and live-giving, worthy precisely because God has made you so by calling you.
Sermons at Trinity, Milford 