All three scripture passages involve a call story, God reaches into and disrupts the lives of Isaiah, Paul and Peter, each of them recognizes their unworthiness, but by God’s grace and their willingness they follow the call. 2 to 3 millennia later we reflect on their stories still; for we are in search of what God may be saying to us in our day and age.
Now at first blush, our day and age seems so unlike theirs that is can be difficult to find points of connection. We might think that theirs was a simpler, less chaotic time that the moment in which we find ourselves. But I want to dispel that notion. One account of what was happening politically and economically around the Sea of Galilee when Peter and his companion fishermen left everything to followed Jesus goes like this. Herod Antipas was the Roman governor that ruled the area around the Sea of Galilee. He was a son of Herod the Great who built the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. Perhaps in an effort to live up to or exceed what his father had done, Herod Antipas undertook an aggressive effort to impress the Roman Emperor Tiberius. Herod moved the capital of the area to a city he built along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, he named that city Tiberius. To keep up an aggressive building campaign he needed tax dollars. An aggressive tax hike on the peasant class would have likely led to a revolt which would have gotten Herod sacked. Instead he decides to commercialize the Sea of Galilee. He plans to harvest the fish, salt them and sell them across the Mediterranean, even as far as Rome. The fish from the sea of Galilee had been a shared resource, used by local peasants to add some protein to the diets. Now Herod is essentially taking control of the resource to make money and gain influence and power. He couldn’t do this alone so opportunities existed for many to “better themselves” by getting involved in the fish trade. Simon Peter his brother Andrew, and their partners James and John were all involved in this potentially lucrative line of work.
After a disappointing night of fishing, along comes Jesus. He climbs into Simon Peter’s boat a few feet from shore so that he could be better heard by the crowds that were following him. When he finished talking Jesus turns to Peter and said “Let’s go fishing!” “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.”
We know the story, they catch so many fish that the nets were at the breaking point. The load nearly swamped their boats.
A shiver runs down Peter’s spine. What just happened? He falls to his knees and says to the one who orchestrated this miraculous catch saying “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” But Jesus replies “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.”
A choice point – stick with what he knows, take the proceeds of the sale of all these fish less taxes, invest more in Herod’s growing economy – or follow this wonder worker to do who knows what – “catch people.”
Peter and Andrew, James and John set out with Jesus on an adventure that is still changing the world.
I would suggest that we are living through a moment of profound import, a moment of rapid change, of political and economic upheaval. What I hear in this gospel reading is a word for us, the words that Jesus spoke to Peter. “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.”
Now I do not expect myself or any of us to lead Peter’s life, or the lives of Andrew or James of John. But I do expect that if we choose to follow Jesus, we too will be catching Peter.
But what exactly should we do? I cannot answer that question. Nor could the disciples when they saw the resurrected Jesus ascend into the heavens. But they lived their lives attentive to what Jesus said and did and guided and strengthed by the Holy spirit. And they changed the world.
For a long time the notion of catching people frightened and even repulsed me. By the nature of my constitution, I could not, by any act of will power aim to do so. Others might jump at the opportunity. But now it strikes me, that what I can do, what together we can do, is what followers of Jesus have done over two millennia. When the world around them was in tumult, they follow the example of Jesus’, the example of the disciples and saints down through the years. They chose to build a community with love as its core value, caring not just for themselves but for their neighbour, the stranger, even their enemy.
The chose to live and work and find their being in unity, in the unity that we know as Father Son and Holy Spirit.