Jesus calls these specific people. He doesn’t pick the most talented budding theologians. He picks the people who could scale the actual work.
Jesus calls us to trust precisely because it is
This story. Who doesn’t know it for that great line?
Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.
This is the big call story—how Jesus gets his four closest disciples to follow him. He finds these four young men who fish by trade and he offers them the chance to become disciples of the rabbi. We like to think of it as an offer they couldn’t refuse.
We hear this story, and this result, but I don’t think we give much thought to what we actually just heard. Perhaps it is the end that matters more to us than the means.
But the means are the best part of the story.
About the Fishing
Before we go any further, I have a confession to make. I can’t stand fishing. I’m not a fan. I’ve tried. Off of docks and boats and shorelines. I’ve tried streams and ponds and lakes. It isn’t for me. But I can tell you why: it’s the silence. It’s the not moving and not talking that does me in.
Everything I want to do scares fish away. Or else, I put down my pole and read. Which means I’m totally unprepared for when the fish jumps on the line.
So every time I hear this, I ask Jesus Can we please have a different hook? Because I don’t think this one catches me.
But the funny thing is — he never takes me up on that suggestion! It’s almost as if he wants me to take a look at myself in the mirror!
As much as I struggle with the image, it speaks to me anyway. And for that, we’ll have to think about this story and why it is actually totally bonkers.
Escaping clutches
When we last saw Jesus, he was escaping his hometown. In the time right after that, he meets Simon, heals his Mom and stays at their house, gets mobbed by people possessed with spirits, which he rebukes because demons could ruin this whole thing, and he goes all over the place preaching the Good News like crazy. All that in 6 verses.
But all these people are suddenly flocking to him. Just 6 verses after people tried to kill him for heresy, remember! There are so many people, he can hardly move! So he’s getting in boats and teaching from the boat because at least there everyone can see him.
And these two boats belong to Simon, Andrew, James, and John. Poor laborers who fish for a living. And we know they’re poor because everyone was. There’s no middle class there, so if you worked for a living, you were poor.
If you fished, you fished to feed wealthy people who didn’t.
They aren’t literate because nobody was literate. Except the scribes and rabbis.
While we’re all used to thinking of Peter as the rock and disciple #1, he isn’t Peter yet in the story. Here, he’s Simon, a poor fisherman, cleaning his net after one terrible night of fishing. We’d say nothing’s biting, but they need to fish for volume. With nets. There’s no bait.
Here, at the end of their day, this sunny morning. They’re packing up because they didn’t just fail to catch anything. You don’t go back out in the daytime. Because you won’t find any fish.
Heading Out Deep
This teaching morphs as they go out to the deep water. It stopped being a normal Bible study about the time those eager crowds could no longer hear a word he’s saying. The lesson is changing and these poor fishermen have no idea why.
But they do it anyway.
Jesus tells them that they’re going out to the deep water and should put the nets in the water. And Peter’s protest isn’t worth anything — it’s more
But they do it. This is really important. Because what Jesus is asking them to do is ridiculous. There’s no chance it’ll work. Maybe they know that and are just going along. Maybe they want to see what happens.
And maybe they think OK, we know you make miracles happen. Who knows? Maybe we’ll catch something.
Think about how much speculation we have to put into the story here. We don’t know what they’re thinking or why this is happening or any motivation at all. But I think that speculation matches really well with what they thought was going to happen. Because for them and for us, Jesus is the wildcard. We’re all speculating here!
He came to poor people, shut up the demons, healed the sick, challenged his hometown and before all of that, resisted the devil in the desert for 40 days as he tempted him with all the power in the world. This is the guy in the boat with these 4 fishermen who failed to catch a single fish last night.
Filling Nets
They throw the nets out and suddenly they fill so full they begin to tear. It takes two boats to rescue them! But there are so many fish in those nets that it imperils their boats! They’re sinking!
This guy who showed up and healed Peter’s Mom the other night, healed and preached and taught and made crazy stuff happen has brought them out into the deep water to die!
Go away, Jesus! Peter begs Jesus to leave them. Like
Like Jonah, he’s ignored God somehow and now is being chased down and thrown into the sea. All the stories he must have been told about an angry God who punishes the weak of heart or the poor in their poverty.
God doesn’t come to people like me to save them. This must be a horror story.
He has no idea yet how wrong that is.
But Jesus says the words the angel said to Mary and Elizabeth. That he’ll say to them again and again in the times ahead.
“Do not be afraid.”
This is the half of the line I think matters most. It’s the directive God gives us more than any other. Do not be afraid. Fear not.
Then he says, let’s go fishing for people.
And with that, they go to shore and leave it all. The boats, the nets, the fish; their livelihoods and even their families.
Jesus picked them. Not city scholars. Or legacy recruits. These weren’t big name disciples with perfect SAT scores. If anything, they flunked their audition; like singers who couldn’t even find the note.
Jesus took from the masses, not the best, but the ones who could believe in the cause. And this doesn’t even say it clear enough.
He took fishermen, not those of us who fish for fun or enjoy the spoils of another’s work. He took workers and said the words are going to come from your mouth.
What Jesus does with Peter is like what God did with Moses — giving the prophetic voice, not to the priestly brother, but to the one who stuttered. He gave the Good News to the one seemingly least equipped to proclaim it. And then said it’s yours!
It’s a way of saying God isn’t punishing you! God has plans for you!
That call to fear not! Don’t be afraid! That isn’t nothing here. That’s the center of it.
Going Fishing
And we need to hear that! Because most of the people here don’t want to be fishing for people.
Maybe your attitude toward that idea is like my attitude toward the fishing of fish! Maybe that sounds too much like the E-word: evangelism. Or it reminds you of evangelical days of yore when you had to go win some souls for Christ.
Or maybe you’re good and WASPy like me and fishing for people is something other people do. Something we aren’t called to. It’s uncouth or grotesque. It too violates the unspoken rules.
No matter that it’s at the heart of discipleship and the very thing he called his people to do. Not to come join Team Jesus and prove how much better our church is than other churches.
He Called Them
He called them to strike out with him into the deep water and put out our nets.
To do the things they are good at and see what happens when they bring Jesus along with them.
They will marvel at miracles and stress their trust in him. And before long, he’ll be sending them out into the world to do with other people exactly what he did with them.
He calls them. As they are. Who they are. And he says come, let’s do this on a whole new scale.
And the miracle in the
And it’s much bigger than we think. A great world full of possibility, needing faith, hope, and love. Our gifts, God’s gifts, to trust, to share.