A Homily for the Fifth Sunday after Trinity

Fear not. From henceforth thou shalt catch men.

—Saint Luke 5:10

Only a few weeks ago, in the Gospel lesson for the second Sunday after Easter, we heard Jesus describe himself as the good shepherd, thereby comparing us to sheep. Today we have heard him tell Simon Peter that he will be “catch men,” thereby comparing us to fish. If the comparison to sheep was unflattering, what shall we say about the comparison to fish? Are we, like fish, scaly and cold-blooded and not especially articulate?

This morning’s Gospel lesson recounts an incident early in Jesus’ ministry. He has come to live in the fishing town of Capernaum, and he is constantly besieged by crowds of people who want to hear him talk or see him perform miracles. In order to have any private time, even for prayer, he must leave town and seek refuge in the countryside. And when he is to speak in public, the crowd is so large that he can only do so by addressing them from the deck of Peter’s fishing boat.

On this particular occasion, the time has come to begin a new phase of his ministry, and, at the same time, to give his friends Peter, James and John, a new role in his ministry. But before he tells them about it, he wants to teach them a lesson.

We are accustomed to thinking about Jesus’s parables as stories he told to illustrate his teaching. If we were asked to describe what we read in the Gospels—or even what we hear in our Gospel lessons from Sunday to Sunday throughout the year—we would probably say that we learn about what Jesus said and what he did, and we might particularly mention miracles and parables. But the distinction is not a hard and fast one, and sometimes what Jesus does is as much a parable as any of the stories he told.

Consider the account of the fishing expedition, as told in today’s Gospel lesson, as a parable. The fishermen have been out all night in their boats, and they have caught little. Jesus comes to them the next day and tells them to push out into deep water and lower their nets for a catch. The fishermen know that this is not how or when fish are caught, and they tell Jesus so; nevertheless, they do as he says just because he says it. And they are rewarded with a huge catch of fish, so many fish that it seems that the net will break, and it takes two fishing boats working together to haul it in.

What are we to make of the story? It is not included in the Gospel as a helpful guide to commercial fishermen. It is here to make a point, just as surely as any of the parables are meant to make a point.

Peter and his partners were experienced fishermen and successful small businessmen. They knew the business of fishing at least as well as anyone on the lake. They owned their own boats and controlled their own schedule, and they were free to let down their nets at the best times and in the best places to catch the most fish. And, relying on all their skill and expertise, they had caught very little. Along comes Jesus, and he tells them to let down their nets at the wrong time and in the wrong place, and, when they trust him and do as he says, they fill their nets with a great multitude of fish. Where skill and experience have failed, faith finds a way.

Only after his friends have lived through this parable and learned this lesson does Jesus tell them what he has in mind: “Fear not. From now on you will catch men!” In the Gospel according to Matthew and Mark, Jesus is quoted as saying: “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” And all of the Gospels agree that the fishermen dropped everything and followed Jesus.

Today’s Gospel lesson ties in with two other passages from the Gospel. They are not appointed as lessons at the Sunday Eucharist, and so we do not often hear them read in church. The first is a short, spoken parable, and it is recorded in the thirteenth chapter of the Gospel according to Saint Matthew. This is one of the so-called “parables of the kingdom.”

The kingdom of heaven is like a net thrown into the sea, which collects fish of every kind. When it is full they haul it ashore and sit down to put what is good into buckets. What is bad they throw away. Thus it will be at the end of the age. The angels will go out and separate the wicked from the righteous

(There is that comparison again, likening us fish!) This short parable is, among other things, a commentary on the mission that Jesus assigned to Peter and the other apostles. They were to be “fishers of men,” to catch men as fishermen catch fish. The nets are lowered into sea, to collect whatever may be found there.

Jesus does not say that the kingdom is like the sea or that the kingdom is like the good fish; he says that the kingdom is like the net. And the net gathers everyone and everything. The net of the fishers of men is spread to catch everyone. And it is only at the end of the age that the angels will pluck the wicked out of the net and cast them away.

Peter, the fisherman, the fisher of men, much later in his life wrote a letter to the Church, in which he told us what is expected of those who are caught in the net, if we are not to be cast away in the end; and part of that letter was read this morning, as it has been read in the churches since the first century:

This is what you are called to do:

Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from deceit;

Turn from evil, and do good;

Seek peace, and follow after  it;

Sanctify the Lord Christ in your heart;

Be ready to answer those who ask the reason for your hope,

but answer them with kindness and respect;

And, before everything else:  show brotherly love.

The second passage is another acted-out parable, and it echoes or parallels this morning’s Gospel lesson, but in a way that gives particular meaning to today’s lesson. The story is recorded in the twenty-first (and last) chapter of the Gospel according to Saint John, and it describes Jesus’s third appearance to Peter and the others after his resurrection from the dead:

Jesus revealed himself again to his disciples at the Sea of Tiberias . . . in this way. Together were Simon Peter, Thomas called Didymus, Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, Zebedee's sons, and two others of his disciples. Simon Peter said to them, "I am going fishing." They said to him, "We also will come with you." So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. When it was already dawn, Jesus was standing on the shore; but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, "Children, have you caught anything to eat?" They answered him, "No." So he said to them, "Cast the net over the right side of the boat and you will find something." So they cast it, and were not able to pull it in because of the number of fish. So the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, "It is the Lord." . . . When they climbed out on shore, . . . Simon Peter went over and dragged the net ashore full of one hundred fifty-three large fish. Even though there were so many, the net was not torn.

The Sea of Tiberias is another name for the same body of water that is called Lake Gennesaret in this morning’s Gospel, and those are both other names for the lake we usually call the “Sea of Galilee.” And Peter, even though he had long since dropped everything to become a fisher of men, has, at least for one night, gone back to being a fisher of fish. James and John, his old partners, were on the boat with him. Once again, despite their skill and experience, they had caught nothing; but once again a familiar voice told them to let down their nets, and once again they did as he said, and once again, their net was filled so full that they could not haul it in.

We are told, this time, that there were a hundred and fifty-three fish in the net. It is odd to think of the apostles, unexpectedly meeting the risen Jesus, having stopped to count the number of fish; and, even if they did, one wonders why Saint John thought it important enough to record in his Gospel. According to Saint Jerome, the ancient Greek biologists had catalogued exactly 153 species of fish, so the number symbolizes every kind of fish—as Jesus had said in his parable of the kingdom: the kingdom is like a net that encloses every kind of fish.

And, of course, we know that Peter and James and John and the others did not retire to the obscure life of Galilean fishermen. Shortly after this encounter on the lakeshore, the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles, and they went out in earnest as fishers of men, casting wide the net of the kingdom. They did not fish only in the shallow waters of Galilee and Judea, but pushed out into the deep water of Europe and Asia and all the world, casting the net and enclosing people of every kind.

And so we come back to where we started, with the Jesus’s comparing us to fish. We are indeed fish caught up in the net that is the kingdom of God. Let us so live that at the end, when the angels separate the good fish from the bad, we will be gathered in and not cast away.

Church of Saint Mary Magdalene

Orange, California

08 July 2007

See a list of the deacon’s homilies.