NEVERTHELESS, IF YOU SAY SO, I WILL DO IT

The calling of Peter (Luke chapter 5)
Catherine Gower

We are all familiar with the story of the draught of fishes. But what is the miracle in this story? Is it the huge catch? Is it that, although by their own efforts they could catch nothing, with Jesus’ help the fishermen loaded their boats until they nearly sank? The catch was certainly prodigious, but in this story, that is not where the miracle lies.

St Luke tells it very simply. Jesus was teaching the people by the lake at Gennesaret. Such was the press of the crowd that he was almost pushed into the water. There were two boats nearby because the fishermen had come in from their night’s work and were washing out the nets. Jesus gets into Simon’s boat, and asks Simon to put out a little from the beach. He sits in the boat and teaches the crowd.

We are not told what Jesus said to the crowd on this occasion but we can imagine that he spoke about the possibility of a simple and intimate relationship with God, something over and above the keeping of the Law and attendance at synagogue. A transforming friendship available to ordinary people in their daily lives, something close at hand, possible, easy. Something that would seem, by comparison with meeting the religious obligations of the day, like rest after labour.

Simon had been out all night fishing. For all his labour he had caught nothing. Fishing is like that. Since Jesus is in Simon’s boat, Simon can’t help hearing Jesus’ words. The idea of rest appeals to him. The idea that being close to God does not require any great efforts, any special equipment, any unique talent. Fishing is hard work, thinks Simon. Being close to God is not.

After he has finished teaching the crowd, Jesus turns to Simon. Simon thinks that Jesus will want to go back to the beach. But no. ‘Put out into the deep water’, says Jesus, ‘and put your nets in for a catch.’

Simon starts to explain. Jesus might know a lot about God but perhaps not so much about fishing. ‘We have been out working all night’, he begins. And then the miracle occurs. Looking at Jesus, Simon goes on to say, ‘But if you say so, I will put out the nets’.

Hearing Jesus teach, Simon had been changed, as he sat in that boat, from a man limited by the constraints of his experience into a man for whom anything was possible. Suddenly the limits of his life had been lifted. He was no longer restricted to a life of labour, where everything depended on his efforts. He had become a man capable of participation in miracles. In that moment he stopped being a fisherman and became a fisher of men. The magnificent catch was simply a sign. The miracle had already occurred.

So it is with us. If we can hear what Jesus has to say to us, we can be freed from the limits of all that we have been told and all that our experience has led us to assume. We can say with Simon, ‘Nevertheless, if you say so’. Who knows what miracles may then take place in our lives?