Going out into the deeps

Isaiah 6.1-2a, 3-8 ‘Here I am! Send me.’

1 Corinthians 15.3-8, 11 ‘So we [reach and so you believed’

Luke 5.1-11 ‘They left everything and followed him.’

 

 

‘Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch’

 

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There’s something a bit fishy about today’s gospel reading.

 

Yes, it features fishermen: but they’re commissioned to become fishers-of-men, not catching fish anymore, but saving souls.

 

And isn’t it a bit odd that the Galilean fishermen need the direction of a carpenter’s son from Nazareth, which is not by water, to tell them how to do their job effectively?

 

And what of that most remarkable catch of fish, so much so that two boats were almost sinking under their weight?

 

And perhaps most bizarrely, the fishermen, who are effectively small businessmen, leave their lucrative catch and walk away!

 

Well, as in all reading of scripture we are called, like the fishermen on the Sea of Galilee, to push out away from the shallows, to see beyond the surface and let down our nets deep.

 

To use a different image, Gregory the Great, the Bishop of Rome who, in 597, sent St Augustine of Canterbury to England to evangelise afresh, once said ‘Scripture is like a river again, broad and deep, shallow enough here for the lamb to go wading, but deep enough there for the elephant to swim’.

 

We can fish the surface of faith or cast our nets deep.

 

On the surface it’s about Jesus helping out some fishermen who are having a tough time; that’s amazing and miraculous in itself, but where does that take us?

 

Is Jesus just a bit of a wonder worker, an impressive guru figure who can do remarkable things so that people follow him?

 

Gregory speaks of different senses by which we read the gospels: the surface and the deeper.[1]

 

So, when we look again at this gospel we can see there are deep things going on.

 

Peter unlocks this for us, ‘…he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” (Luke 5.8)

 

This is an act of awe-filled devotion, falling to his knees as one would only before God: Jesus is Lord, sovereign now in Peter’s life.

 

We can’t, then, read this passage as an interesting fisherman’s tale, but as something that has direct bearing on our life of faith as individuals and for the Church as a whole.

 

When we cast out into the deep and put down our spiritual nets we find there is much we can draw from those waters.

 

This gospel is about the fruitfulness of daily life, of calling, of decision, of response and of commission.

 

We see that the fishermen’s daily tasks are made fruitful at his word.

 

Their fishing efforts were literally fulfilled – filled full – by Jesus’ word.

 

Can his word for you, to go out into the deeps? What holds you back from doing that?

 

We can always go deeper into faith and into the life of the Holy God.

 

Are you ready, like Peter, flaky as he was, to say, ‘at your word I will let down the nets’? (v5)

 

Peter is awestruck by what Jesus can do, not just on the surface level, but going deeper too.

 

Peter’s words echo Isaiah’s reaction of inadequacy and awareness of his personal sinfulness in the majestic presence and power of God in the temple: ‘Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips.’ (Isaiah 6.5)

 

Reverent awe is the response proper to the call, and word, of Jesus Christ.

 

This text, alongside our first from Isaiah, tells us not to think that faith in Jesus Christ is a self-help technique, rather one of faith and trust in Him.

 

The encounter with awe, majesty is converting: the immediacy and impact of what the fishermen did is shocking when you think about it.

 

‘And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him.’ (v11)

 

They put  aside their own priorities and came, in St Benedict’s words, to ‘prefer nothing to Christ’.

 

They say in effect the words of Isaiah, ‘Here am I! Send me’ (Isaiah 6.8) and the words of Mary, ‘Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word’. (Luke 1.38)

 

Those are words of going out into the deep in love and trust, facing down fears through faith in Jesus Christ.

 

If you push out into the deep, you want to know your boat will float and be buoyant: this is the spiritual move Peter, James, John, you and me are called to make: ‘do not be afraid’ (v10) says Jesus.

 

When we do this our nets filled, our lives are full-filled, we are nourished spiritually so that we cannot keep the Good News to ourselves, but to bring it ashore to a hungry world.

 

As he calls them, Jesus is coaching, training, shaping, these fishermen to a task that goes well beyond the shores of Galilee.

 

There’s purpose in what we are called to as Christians, not solely for ourselves but for the sake of the world.

 

And what feeds the world is Christ, the Living Bread from heaven, who takes the ordinary loaves and fishes to multiply them that all people may know salvation.

 

As with the teeming fish, which is an image of the life of the Church and all her people throughout the world, so the task falls to us by our faith, our hope, our love and our devotion to Christ to share the Good News and draw others to Christ.

 

The fishermen found their lives repurposed in Christ; Isaiah found new purpose in the presence of the same Living God, you are called ‘to shine as a light in the world to the glory of God the Father’: are you ready to say, ‘Here am I! Send me’?

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[1] Gregory uses a method typical of his era, and valuable today, a fourfold way of reading scripture, the Quadriga: the historical sense (plain sense), the allegorical sense (typological), the moral sense (tropological), and the anagogical sense (pertaining to the last or ultimate things).