Year C, Epiphany 5
Gospel: Luke 5:1-11
In this passage, obedience opens up the way for miracles.
This is a powerful story about Jesus calling people to join him in mission. In the last and most recognized part of this story, Jesus tells Simon that he will make him a fisher of men, and they leave everything to follow him.
But leading up to that moment, Simon and his crew make some crucial choices, based purely on obedience, before they realize who Jesus is. Those acts of obedience open up the way for Jesus to do something miraculous.
View from the Crew
There are several people in this story besides Jesus and Simon Peter.
Sometimes, a good way to understand what’s happening in a situation is to mentally put yourself in the place of somebody who was there – Did you ever see those videos in history class, with Walter Cronkite narrating: “It’s 1776 at the signing of the Declaration of Independence and You are there!”
Well, imagine you are a crewmember on Simon’s boat. “It’s 30 AD, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee as Jesus calls his first disciples – and You are there...”
It’s just turning to evening as you join Simon and the rest of the crew in the boat. Simon’s boat is about 20 feet long, wooden, and smells like fish – so does Simon, and so do you.
Simon’s partners, James and John and their crew, are fishing in their father’s boat. Both boats put into the water as the stars are coming out. Fishing is a quiet kind of work; there’s no need to talk, really, and you don’t want to scare the fish.
It’s a long night, throwing the net out, pulling it back in – and catching nothing. Over and over: throw it out, pull it back – nothing, throw it out, pull it back – nothing. Simon steers the boat from one favorite spot to another, and every one of them turns up dry tonight.
The sky begins to get grey, and still no catch. You can see the other boat a ways off, and they’re sitting high in the water, too. This whole night is going to be worthless if you don’t catch something soon. Throw the net out; pull it back – nothing.
Finally, with the sun up, Simon gives the signal, and you pull back in to shore. Total catch for the night – nothing. The fish must have found a good hiding place. Everybody starts washing out the nets.
Nearby, a lot of people are gathered around a man who’s talking. He starts walking over, with the people following him. Apparently, he knows Simon; he gets in the boat and asks him something. Simon looks over and motions the crew back in the boat. What’s this about?
Simon says to row out a little ways from the shore. The crowd on the shore moves closer to the water. Then Simon says to drop anchor. The man sits down in the stern, facing the shore and starts talking. Apparently, he’s a teacher or a preacher, and from the size of the crowd, he must be popular.
How does he know Simon? And how long is he going to talk? You’d like to get home. It’s been a long night.
Simon looks tired and slightly irritated. This is not a time to ask.
The man finishes his talk and then motions to Simon. You hear him ask Simon to put out further and drop the nets.
Simon’s patience is visibly waning. “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing...”
“Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.”
The man looks at Simon. Simon looks at you.
You’re thinking, ‘Who is this guy getting in your boat and telling you how to fish?’ He glares back and motions to throw out the net. Whatever. Now is clearly not the time to ask, but later, Simon’s going to have to explain this.
You throw out the net.
And the rest is history. The nets came up so full that they started to break. The crew had to signal the other boat, and they filled both boats so full they started to sink. Everyone was amazed, and Simon didn’t have to explain anything. It was obvious that this teacher had much more authority than they realized, and not just about fishing. When they got back to the shore, they left everything and followed him.
Simon’s obedience (twice)
In the most dramatic part of this story, Simon falls down in front of Jesus, recognizing him as Lord after seeing this miraculous catch of fish. Then, Jesus tells him not to be afraid, that he will become a fisher of men.
Though the catch is the dramatic part, I think what leads up to the catch is just as important, if not more so. What I’m talking about is Simon Peter’s obedience, and also his crew’s obedience.
When Jesus got in Peter’s boat and asked him to put out a little ways so he could teach the people, Peter and his crew did it. Perhaps he did it as a favor, recalling that Jesus had just healed his mother-in-law. Perhaps he did it partly out of respect because Jesus was a teacher.
When Jesus was finished teaching, he asked Peter to do something else – something that didn’t make sense and wasn’t really called for.
Jesus asks Peter to put out into deeper water and throw out the nets for a catch. Peter may have been willing to do Jesus the first favor out of a sense of respect or gratitude, but with this second request, he was stepping into Peter’s territory.
For Jesus to be authoritative in teaching about the Law was one thing, but for Jesus to tell Peter how to fish seemed to be overstepping his bounds.
You can probably think of someone you know who is an expert in everything. No matter what the topic is, they know all about it, even if they don’t. They’ll argue with someone who really is an expert. What do you do? To argue back will just make you crazy; but to let them go on is just as bad.
The issue is who really has authority on the subject. It would seem Peter, the fisherman, should be the authority on fishing, not Jesus, the teacher/carpenter. But Jesus was also God, and having been present at creation to make the sea, the fish and Peter himself, he was actually a much higher authority on the subject.
Peter, despite appearances, decides to give Jesus the benefit of the doubt. He explains that they’ve already tried what Jesus suggests and failed, “yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.”
This is obedience.
Obedience
Obedience is doing what you’re told, not because you want to or because it makes sense or you feel it’s likely to work, but because the person who tells you has authority, and you submit to it.
This concept undergirds all military endeavors; the military depends on clear authority structures and prompt, complete obedience. The idea of obedience is not a popular one in our culture of independence, though. Even the army now has changed its slogan - An Army of One – to reflect our culture’s obsession with individuality.
But we’re starting to see that an excess of individuality, when it becomes a primary good and doesn’t ever bow to the idea of a ‘greater good,’ causes society to deteriorate.
The Church is not an army of one. The Church is a Body with many parts, governed by Christ as its head. When the parts of the body do things on their own, without the head’s direction, it causes problems for the whole body.
I recently learned a bit about Huntington’s Disease, which is similar to Parkinson’s – in this condition, the nerves begin sending signals to the muscles at random times. The result is jerky movements that make it hard for the person to speak clearly, walk straight, eat, or move without bumping things. The person’s thinking is clear; it’s not a disorder of the brain. You could say it’s an obedience problem in the nerves. The nerves send out their own orders to the muscles, without the brain’s direction, and the result is chaotic movement and frustration for the person trying to live in his body while it’s doing its own thing instead of what he’s telling it to do.
When we as the Church focus on self-actualization rather than developing a good ear for hearing Christ’s direction and a quick response of obedience, the result is chaotic movement within the body and Christ getting frustrated that his Body parts are all trying to do their own thing rather than cooperating.
Obedience has nothing to do with how I feel, or what I think; it has everything to do with knowing who’s in authority over me and accepting that direction, regardless. I can express my concerns, my doubts, my outright objections, but if I do it anyway, that’s still obedience, and that’s what’s crucial to being someone God can work with.
God calls people individually, and he knows us each by name, but we can only collaborate with His larger purposes if we obey Him. What Peter and his crew and the partners in the other boat saw that day with the miraculous catch of fish was that Jesus had authority over their world. And it was their obedience, even when they didn’t yet know the extent of his authority, that put them in a position to see this.
There will most likely be times in your life when you’re told to do something that you don’t want to do or that doesn’t make sense or that you don’t think will work. In those situations, you need to discern, not the wisdom of the order, but who’s giving it. Remember the game ‘Simon says...’ If Simon says, you do it. If Simon doesn’t say, don’t do it or you lose that game. If the order is authoritative, then do it. It may open up the possibility of something miraculous.
Jesus told Simon, ‘Let down your nets for a catch.’ Simon objected, but he obeyed, and his crew obeyed him also. That’s why we’re here today. Because these fishermen obeyed Jesus’ directions for catching fish, he taught them to catch people, and they taught the people they caught, until now we’ve been caught and hauled into the boat to fish for others. That’s pretty miraculous.
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Given to Vidor Presbyterian
Feb. 4, 2007