Sermon for All Saints-by-the-Sea, The Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany, February 7, 2010
by the Reverend Dr. Jeffry L Bullock

“And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken; and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.”

A fine American novel begins with the report that the two sons of a Presbyterian minister, brought up at the juncture of some of the finest trout streams in Montana, were raised with the understanding that “there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing.”  Furthermore, one of the sons reported that he and his brother were “left to assume...that all first class fishermen on the Sea of Galilee were fly fisherman and that John, the favorite, was a dry-fly fisherman.” Would you like to “get religion”? Just watch a good fly fisherman rolling the line out over the circles of a rising trout.  If you tried fly-fishing, you’ll know there’s nothing that feels quite like the line running through your fingers as a fish spins line off your reel.  I’ve fished like that many times and I understand the spiritual mystery; I’ve stood hip dip in a mountain stream with the sun descending red over the mountain behind my back.  Prayer was all around me.
        
Of course, not all fishing is so subtle.  Most fishing in the world is more like the subsistence fishing you see on the Alaskan seas.  Have you seen one of the documentaries?  Mounds of frozen nets and steel crash around frozen decks, and the men and women fishing are always in danger of being washed into the ice. Moreover, not every fishing trip brings a reward--the chance storm, the broken hand, the tangled line tripping your foot, the long way home with an empty boat--any or all of these calamities could wreck your hopes.  Fishing may be an introduction to faithfulness, but it’s often also an experience that chastens even the most devout believer. 
        
We can hear the disappointment in this morning’s Gospel.  Simon Peter’s boat has been out all night, braving the waves of the shallow Galilee.  The truth is, empty nets feel as if they weigh even more than full nets when you must haul them in empty, time and again, through a long night.  When Simon and his crew returned to the beach with their empty boats, likely all they wanted was sleep.  So when Jesus asks them to put out again so that he can teach the crowd on the beach, who knows how Simon and his crew really felt?  We can only catch a sense of their mood because when Jesus was done teaching, he told Peter to go out once again, and let down his nets. 
        
Peter’s response can’t be called anything but testy.  ‘But Master, we’ve been out all night and haven’t caught a thing--how will we catch anything now?’  But then, in a key moment, Simon Peter stops himself:  ‘Still,’ Simon says, ‘if you say so, we will do it.’  Those last words, “if you say so, we will do it” may be the earliest confession of faith, the first creed, in the New Testament.  ‘I may not know what I’m doing but if you ask me Jesus, I will do what you ask.’
        
There was never a question that Simon and his crew would catch fish, at least not in the Kingdom of Jesus.  There were so very many fish, overflowing the boats and endangering the crew. And that realization is revealing in its own right--Jesus didn’t guide Simon and his crew to go after something they couldn’t catch; Jesus guided them to catch fish he believed they could.  Jesus didn’t ask them to do the impossible, at least the impossible if Jesus was at hand. Again, what a haul of fish, far beyond the fishermen’s hopes and dreams.  There’s a sign for faith, that if you do what God calls you to do, you will be rewarded in ways you never could have dreamed.
        
If you’ve ever fished with a guide on a stream or a lake for the first time, this Gospel story makes immediate sense. Even if you’re never been a dry-fly fisherman, you can imagine how a guide works.  A good guide will lead you to cast to that undercut bank, or to bounce your fly off a rock into the water or maybe the guide will tell you to let your fly drift, right to the edge of an underwater boulder. In every case, the guide will show you the way not for the guide’s good but for yours.  When Jesus sent Simon Peter out to fish for human beings, he did it for the good of the world, he didn’t do it for himself.  And with a guide like Jesus, the Simon and his crew could never come home empty-handed.
        
When Simon Peter realizes how Jesus has guided the fishermen to the catch of fish, he falls to his knees in front of Jesus.  Simon drops the respectful “mister” he first used to address Jesus; the humbled Simon now calls Jesus “Lord.”  “Don’t be afraid,” Jesus tells Simon, “from now on you will be catching people.”
        
Two things happen in that sentence, two critical things that every one of us needs to cling to.  First, Jesus tells Simon ‘not to be afraid’.  Six times Luke reports God telling men and women, “don’t be afraid.” Every instance of those six times when God urges the people to “not be afraid,” whether it’s Mary, or the shepherds, or Simon and his crew, immediately following something wonderful, something wholly unexpected happens.  “Don’t be afraid” always precedes an act of God’s love—Mary bears the Christ child, the hope of the world; the shepherds see the angel host and Simon and his crew catch more fish than they could have imagined in their dreams.

And that brings us to the second point--Jesus tells Simon from now on, he will be catching people.  That word “catch” is the same word used throughout the New Testament for catching something alive.  In other words, Jesus isn’t practicing catch and release (though surely he would be sympathetic); Jesus is guiding Simon to God’s work, safely gathering the people together into the Kingdom of God.  Simon’s not going to be out catching fish as he once did, Simon and his crew will be gathering the people of God together into eternal life.

Even if you’ve never held a rod and reel in your hand, I suspect everyone’s a Simon, a fisherman, in their heart.  Pick up your rods, take up your reels, and remember this—“don’t be afraid,” if you do the work of God you cannot fail.  God will be gathering us up, to overflowing!, into the Kingdom of God.  So when we’re done with worship this morning, get on out there and catch some fish—Jesus the Christ will be with you to guide you.  Amen.

The Rev. Jeffrey Bullock
All Saints by the Sea Episcopal Church
Santa Barbara, CA   93108