What would you do if you just got out of a volunteer shift at Beth-El Center and Jesus got into the backseat of your car? What if he then asked you to drive him to the center of town? You’d probably feel annoyed at both the imposition and the inconvenience. You’d probably much rather spend time tending to your basic needs or relaxing. You also might feel a bit obligated to drive him because, after all, he’s helped your family out. Such help to people in your area has been appearing a lot in the feed of your local news app and who are you to deny a rising star? And when Jesus proceeds to ask you to attach a megaphone to the top of your car, you’d probably have some choice words about his audacity. And, then, when he goes even further, telling you you’ll have a better car, one with enough horsepower to run around a speedway track, you’d probably exclaim “ridiculous”—until your car starts running like a suped-up race car in the Indy 500 and you realize there’s some benefits to Jesus’s imposition.
This is probably how the fishermen felt when Jesus calls them at the Sea of Galilee (which Luke here calls the Lake of Gennesaret). Imagine. They’d been fishing all night with no success and were out of their boats washing their nets in what must have been the morning or afternoon. They must have been exhausted and frustrated. They probably were hungry. They might even have doubted their skills in their profession. Yet there they are, scrubbing their nets with hands that must have been worn and calloused.
Then here comes Jesus, imposing on them by getting into Simon Peter’s boat and asking Simon Peter to put out a little from shore. It’s no accident that Jesus has chosen them. Jesus had just healed one of Simon Peter’s family members, and I can imagine Simon Peter must have felt a sense of obligation. He probably mutters silently to himself about how we would rather go home and eat and rest as Jesus gets into the boat and preaches.
Maybe Jesus notices this about Simon Peter. Maybe this is why he tells Simon Peter to lower the net. And Simon Peter agrees, after an initial display of disbelief, saying “Yet if you say so.” Follow this with an amazing catch that starts breaking the nets the fishermen had been cleaning painstakingly just moments before. Simon Peter, in a moment of repentance, calls Jesus “Lord,” and Jesus tells the men they’ll be catching people from now on and the men leave everything behind to follow him.
The men’s decision to leave their boats behind is probably more astonishing than the catch itself. For one thing, Jesus doesn’t outright ask them to leave the boats behind in this encounter. It’s their choice. They do it out of their own free will. They must be so motivated by Jesus and the sign he performed to say to themselves, “this might be a good idea,” even if it means giving up their livelihood.
And a lucrative livelihood it was. Fishing was one of the most profitable industries on the Sea of Galilee since fish was a staple in the diet of first-century Palestine. Carp and tilapia, some archaeologists have speculated, might have been the kind of fish caught. The nets mentioned most likely were trammel nets. What’s interesting about the metaphors involved here is that carp has a symbolic association with strength, tilapia with abundance, and trammel nets have three layers made to be lowered into deeper water. Strength and abundance from going deeper with layers. Sounds like metaphors for the spiritual journey, don’t they? Perhaps Luke places the call of Simon Peter and James and John after the catch to give a solid reason why they left everything to follow: Jesus invited them to go deeper in a very real spiritual sense. Sometimes going deeper with Jesus involves not only seeing our many layers but also, like an onion, peeling back the ones that keep the core hidden. Sometimes going deeper with Jesus requires leaving things behind—be it a trustworthy car, a boat, a goal we once had, or who and what we thought we were or were supposed to be.
I already feel your response to that. What is Jesus asking me to give up? Does this mean my livelihood or well-deserved and earned retirement? How many of us could do that? (I admit I couldn’t.) Could you or I give up our families? Maybe yes, maybe not, depending. Could we give up time with cherished friends? What about our hobbies and interests? Could we really give up that novel we’ve been writing or that pollinator garden we’ve been planting or our Wordle puzzles or watching the Montreal Canadiens lose another game this season? (Maybe I could give that last one up.) But is this what God’s asking?
Maybe, if we tend to overemphasize or place the value of these things above other things. Deeper things. Things like God and love and connection with others who are also just as much God’s beloved as we are. Things like empathy and compassion and mercy and justice. And the very hard work it takes to make these dreams that God has for us a reality on earth. Sometimes we may have to sacrifice the expectations of others, even ones we’ve internalized, to live from a more authentic place. Sometimes standing up against injustice and speaking truth to power may require sacrificing our public image or even safety. Sometimes we may have to sacrifice old habits or beliefs and ways of thinking that keep us from being the very best version of ourselves that we can be. Sometimes we must let our egos die, we must get out of our own way, so that God can do amazing things through us. So that God can show us a better way.
I’ll admit as I continue along in my own process toward ordination, I’m learning just how much I’m sacrificing—in terms of time, of energy, of other endeavors and pastimes. Yet I’m still answering the call. I’m still faithful to it. Because I believe in God’s dream, and I believe God will equip me for the work God is calling me to do. I believe God does this for all of us, in whatever ways we are being called to serve.
It’s easy to interpret the fishermen’s leaving of their boats and families behind as a request to give up everything to follow Jesus. Indeed, many have interpreted the story this way. And it kind of makes sense because, after all, Jesus’s death on the cross involved surrender. And whether we’re being called to serve as ordained or lay ministers in the Church—because Jesus calls us all to minister in one form or another—I think following Jesus brings with it an invitation to let go of what’s unhealthy, of that which no longer serves us, of that which keeps us from reaching our full, God-given potential. It also brings an invitation to shuffle and to redirect our priorities, as well as new ways of using our gifts and talents and all that makes us uniquely who we are. Jesus asks us to go deeper so that we can do extraordinary things: For the spread of the kingdom of God. To live a good life.
If there’s anything Jesus asks us to give up, it’s our preconceived notions about our plans for ourselves or what we’re able to do. Such surrender requires humility and trust. Simon Peter ultimately surrenders and trusts. He might even have said to himself, “Well, this Jesus guy healed a member of my family, so what do I have to lose by lowering the net when he tells me to?” And Jesus leads Simon Peter to strength and abundance, not just in the catching of fish, but also in the redirection of that skill and its use in catching people and building the kin-dom of God. In that sense, Simon Peter gains far more than he lost by choosing to go deeper spiritually and to answer Jesus’s call. Surrender, he finds, is more about taking on than giving up; it’s about accepting an invitation rather than suffering an imposition. Those three fishermen didn’t give up their trade. They just took on a new way of doing it.
I invite us today to ask ourselves: what do we really have to lose by answering Jesus’s call? Like Simon Peter, we may just find we have far more to gain from Jesus’s invitation than we ever imagined for ourselves, if we just allow ourselves to get out of our own way, if we go deeper. We need not fear because Jesus will always supe us up for the ride.
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