The Call to Deep Water

Luke 5:1-11

This Lent, we are wandering alongside the disciple Peter to Easter. Like all of us, Peter has strengths and weaknesses, times he gets it right and times he wishes he could have a “do over.” The story of Peter isn’t the story of a hero or a villain. It is a story of a common person who is trying to be faithful. As we look closely at Peter’s story, we will see that Jesus is at each step along the way – offering him abundance, catching him when he begins to sink. So, each Sunday we are going to slip on Peter’s sandals and feel the sand between our toes, to find ourselves in his story as he learns and doubts, is impulsive and imperfect, that as he is shaped and formed as a disciple along his journey of faith, we might be too.

Now, first some practical matters. The first thing we need to do if we are going to walk in Peter’s sandals is find out what size shoe he wears. Here’s the thing – we don’t know. There are a lot of things we don’t know about Peter. These are the few things we do know:

1. “Peter” is the Greek translation of a nickname. His name is Simon. Jesus gives him the name “Cephas” – which is Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke, for “the rock.” Nicknames have a lot of power to influence how we think about ourselves. The Positive Coaching Alliance offers advice that coaches giving players a nickname that conveys a truthfully positive characteristic or connotation (like Speedy, or Mr. Clutch, Doctor J, Ice Man) can reinforce a strong quality or characteristic of a player. It can also give the player something positive to try to live up to. Even when he didn’t feel firm in his faith, Simon had Jesus’s voice in his head calling him “Cephas” – you’ve got this, Rocky. So, in the New Testament, Simon, Simon Peter, Cephas, and Peter are all names for the same person.

2. He was named Simon by his father, John. He had a brother named Andrew, who was also called by Jesus. And they are from Bethsaida, which is Hebrew for “house of fishing” – Surprise – it’s a fishing town on the northeastern shore of the Sea of Galilee, on the eastern side of where the Jordan river flows into the sea.

3. Simon Peter learned his father’s trade. They were fishermen. We know that Peter was not a star student. He had not been chosen to further his education after the basic years that everyone completed. He was not chosen for a set-apart, recognized ministry role of rabbi or priest. Instead, he had learned from his father where and when the schools of fish would likely be and how to put out and pull in the nets.

4. Peter got married and lived where his wife grew up, Capernaum, about 6 miles from Bethsaida, across the Jordan River, on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee. His brother Andrew had moved there too, and they were partners with James and John, the sons of Zebedee, in their fishing business. James and John were called to be disciples, too.

5. We don’t know more about Simon Peter’s wife than that her mother was sick and Jesus healed her. In fact, Luke tells us that some time before the day Jesus called Peter to be his disciple…we don’t have any idea how long before, but it was a while…Jesus was in Capernaum at the synagogue. Luke tells us, “Jesus left the synagogue and went to the home of Simon. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked Jesus to help her. So he bent over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her. She got up at once and began to wait on them.” And then Luke tells us that Jesus kept preaching in the synagogues of Judea.

Then, one day, Jesus was standing and teaching on the shore of Lake Gennesaret…another bit of confusion…the Sea of Galilee has a lot of names – Sea of Tiberius, Lake Tiberius, Lake Gennesaret, Lake Kinneret, and Sea of Galilee are all names for the same body of water. One day, Jesus was standing beside this body of water teaching and the crowds were pressing in. There were two boats pulled up onto the rocky shore – Simon Peter and Andrew’s boat and probably James and John’s boat – they were done fishing and were over washing their nets and repairing them like they did every morning – and Jesus got into Simon’s boat and asked him to put out a little. The way the Sea of Galilee is nestled among the hills with coves and narrow beaches with the land sloping gently up from them forms natural amphitheaters. The sound of a person speaking in a boat is louder at the top of the hill than in the boat. It made sense to put out a little so everyone could hear Jesus.

Then, when he finished teaching, Jesus told Simon Peter to put out into the deep water and let the nets down for a catch. That did NOT make sense. For one thing, they were tired. They had been fishing all night long and not caught a thing. They fished at night because it was cooler, so the work was easier. There are several theories offered about why they were fishing at night – maybe the fish were easier to catch at night because they couldn’t see the nets as well or because they were swimming at a shallower depth because the sun wasn’t bothering their eyes. I’m not sure either of those theories hold up if you look at the science of fish eyes. What I do think makes some sense is that fish would be at a shallower depth in the early evening and early morning hours when flying insects are out just above the surface of the water…food tends to attract.

But when Jesus tells them to put out into the deep, the sun was high in the sky, the insects and morning dew gone, and so were the schools of fish. Why did Jesus want them to go out into the deep and fish again? Peter is reluctant. Jesus, we tried that already. We are tired of trying that. We already know it’s not going to work.

I know that this passage is often used to preach about going out into the deep – where it is unpredictable and possibly dangerous, how we would rather stay close to the shore, but the big catch is in the deep. It is certainly a message that Jesus would teach, but I don’t think that is what is going on here.

They’ve been in the deep water all night long. They go out there every night. They are tired, and they want to quit. Two thoughts here: How often do we negate an idea in the church because we have already tried it? “We’ve done that – didn’t work.” How often do we find ourselves tired and ready to take a break? Besides, there were no fish anyway.

But Peter does it because Jesus was the one who said to. There are so many fish that the nets are breaking, James and John bring out their boat, both boats are so full they are low in the water, and Simon knows this is not natural.

He senses that he is in the presence of someone with power beyond the powers of this world – Jesus already healed his mother-in-law, he had been teaching about God, this catch was nothing short of miraculous – everything he had ever done wrong flashed through Peter’s mind – this guy probably knew all about it. He might as well have been standing there naked, he felt so exposed. He was unclean, unworthy, inside and out he was unprepared to encounter the holy, he was a sinner and he begs Jesus to get away. But Jesus doesn’t even take a step back. He doesn’t tell Simon that he really ought to get his act together. He doesn’t ask what Simon’s abilities are or what he wants in life. He just tells him not to be afraid and that he has a new purpose – from now on he will be catching people alive – that’s literally what the text says. It’s a particular kind of catching, and it’s not an invitation to evangelism.

Catching people alive is what you do when you are at war and taking prisoners. Jesus extends an invitation to justice. Peter, Andrew, James, and John weren’t the best students, but they went to school and studied the prophets. They would have heard what Jesus was saying much differently than what we have typically thought about when we read this passage. They would have heard Jesus’ words as a fulfillment of the prophet Amos, “The time will surely come when you will be taken away with hooks, the last of you with fishhooks.” And of Ezekiel’s warning to Egypt with its wealth oppressing other nations, “But I will put hooks in your jaws and make the fish of your streams stick to your scales. I will pull you out from among your streams, with all the fish sticking to your scales.”

You aren’t going to be able to weigh and tax and oppress people anymore.

There’s one other thing we know about Peter. He was barely getting by. Fishing was controlled tightly by the Roman state. Roman would “tax” the fishermen when they got to the market by taking the largest, best fish and shipping them to banquet tables of the powerful…after all, Rome owned the waters and all that swam in them. Then, the rest could be sold and the tariffs, duties, and tributes imposed. And they would take home any leftover small fish and almost no profit and do it again tomorrow…just to survive.

Diana Butler Bass writes, “They were peasants on the bottom rungs of an extractive and abusive system. And those peasants were often in conflict with the politicians and tax collectors who stole from them. They resented imperial control of their homeland and its lakes and waters. They swam in a sea of injustice.”

So, when Jesus says, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” They hear an invitation they can’t refuse. It isn’t about abandoning their families and their business – it is about seeking a better life for them. It is about standing up for what is right. It is about speaking truth to power. It is about taking the powerful alive so that the weak are no longer struggling to live. It is about justice. It is about the Kingdom of God.

Immediately, Peter and the others put down their nets and followed him. Jesus is calling you, too.