Lectio: Luke 5:1-11
February 7, 2010
Luke 5:1-11
5:1 Once while Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God,
5:2 he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets.
5:3 He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat.
5:4 When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.”
5:5 Simon answered, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.”
5:6 When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break.
5:7 So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink.
5:8 But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!”
5:9 For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken;
5:10 and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who are partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.”
5:11 When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.
Failure.
Failure is not the end of the end of the story. Peter and his crew were calling it a night. They fished all night and hadn’t caught anything. It had been a wasted night. No productivity in spite of lots of effort. That is one of the most frustrating experiences in any job. That feeling of working as hard as you can and for long hours and then having nothing to show for it. I recently had that feeling when I went on a writing retreat to complete a paper for a class I’m taking. Worked for 2 days and wrote close to 20 pages. When I got home i went to open the document so i could send it off for review and… and… nothing! It was empty. I had forgotten to save it properly. No backup. It was just gone. A whole weekend away from home, family and friends wasted. Lots of effort. Nothing to show for it. Frustration.
This story also contains elements of unrealized potential and underutilized capacity. Peter and co. had plenty of potential to catch a lot of fish. They knew how to fish. They also had the right tools and equipment. They had a team, boats, nets - everything commercial fishermen of that time would need to have a thriving fishing business. They obviously had knowledge and experience and knew what they were doing. But it just didn’t happen, it didn’t come together for them.
This is a good place in the story to stop. To sit with it before moving onto to the resolution. Frankly this is where most of us live. This is where i spend most of my time. Feeling like a failure. Knowing there’s more potential and capacity but not sure how to get at it.
So we can ask ourselves some pointed questions here: Where do you feel like a failure? Sit with that question for a few minutes, a day or even a week… I’m not recommending we beat ourselves up with it just get real honest.
Once that is firmly fixed we can move onto the rest of the story and the resolution and ask: Are we willing to let Jesus lead us in that area and do what he says even if we don’t see the point? That’s my favorite part of the story when Peter essentially says, “Look! We’ve been fishing all night and nothing but if you say so…” I would have loved to have seen Peter’s body language at this point. i wonder if he rolled his eyes as he turned around to tell the crew they were going back out… I wonder if he was thinking “What does a carpenter know about fishing, anyway!” I wonder if he was little perturbed by the whole thing.
Sometimes we need to do what Jesus tells us even when (and possibly especially when) we don’t see the point.
So where is Jesus asking for your obedience?
Ultimately this story is about Peter’s call to be a “fisher of men and women.” He would later catch thousands of people for the first Jesus movement. That story is in Acts 2. This story is kind of like the prequel to that one. In both stories however God shows up in powerful ways and unlocks the potential and capacity we could never even see…
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