In the Gospel today we have a pericope that most of us know very well. Jesus is on the shore of the See of Galilee, teaching the people who have gathered around him. The text tells us that they were pressing in on him, anxious to hear what he had to say. Jesus didn't sugar-coat his message. He spoke plainly and urgently, with parables and stories. We know that, as he taught, he would often bless the children and heal the sick. It was compelling, life-changing teaching. But with his listeners crowding around so, the confusion was getting in the way of his message. Jesus saw a pair of boats pulled up onto the rocky beach at the water's edge. The fishermen to whom they belong were nearby, mending the nets from their seemingly fruitless toil of the night before.
Fishermen have fished the waters of the See of Galillee for thousands of years. Occasionally people would fish with a hook and line, as we find mentioned in Matthew 17:24-27, but commercial fishing took place with nets and teams of fishermen to handle them. They primarily used two types of nets:
1) Casting net. Poorer fishermen who didn't own boats would use casting nets along the shore. The casting net was thrown out over the water. It was a round net which was about 10 to 20 feet (3 to 6 meters) in diameter. Weights at the edge would pull the net to the bottom, catching any fish that might be under it. The fisherman would wade out to the net, and gather it in, bringing any fish to shore.
2) Seine net or drag net. These were large vertical wall-like nets that could be attached to the shore or to another boat. A boat could drag the other end out into the water in a semicircular arc and then back to the shore again, pulling in the fish as it came. Then a team of fishermen on both ends of the net would heave it into shore. I can remember seeing these nets being used off the beaches of Natal as a young boy. Addington beach was particularly popular for seine netting.
Another way to use this kind of net was to take it into deep water, often at night and sometimes with another boat, and lay out the floats at the top of the net in a long line across the water. Fish might be driven into the net by the splashes of the fisherman. Then the ends would be pulled together surrounding a school of fish, and they would be pulled on board the boat.
You can imagine the need for mending the nets. Disentangling fish from the nets sometimes broke the fibres, as did debris from the lake bottom, or the strain of too many fish. The hours must have been rugged. The best deep water fishing was at night, then the mornings would be given to mending the nets, sorting and selling the fish, and perhaps using casting nets along the shore if their night’s labours hadn't "netted" any fish.
Peter and his brother Andrew, and their neighbours James and John, the sons of Zebedee, were partners, often working together as they fished the Sea of Galilee. They fished commercially. In addition to Capernaum, there were other commercial fishing towns: Bethsaida (which means "house of fishing") and Magdala (otherwise known as Migdal Nunaya, which means "bulwark of the fishes"). They would sell their fish fresh in the local markets. The rest they would salt and dry for export as far as Spain.
Back to today’s Gospel where Jesus was teaching by the lakeside, crowded by the people. He saw a couple of fishing boats pulled up on the shore, and asked the owner of one, Simon, if he would put out a little from shore. Then he sat down in the boat and taught the people – you will remember that sitting was the accustomed position for teaching in those days. On other occasions in his ministry Jesus used Peter's boat in a similar way.
Can you see Jesus in your mind’s eye, twenty or thirty feet out from shore, sitting in the boat which was bobbing slightly? His voice carried well across the water. And the people along the shore stopped their crowding, and sat down to listen. This is one of the instances where we are not told what it was that Jesus was teaching about. In the boat, listening too, was Peter. He would probably have been proud that it was his boat that was used by the Teacher, and that he could sit next to him, publicly sharing a bit of the glory.
But the glory ended when Jesus finished his teaching and dismissed the people. On some occasions he had been known to pray for the sick after the formal teaching, but not on that day. Jesus turned to Peter with a request, almost a command: "Put out into the deep water, and let down the nets for a catch."
We know the part of this Gospel portion where we are told about Jesus telling them to put down their nets. I preached on it last year. A huge school of fish is caught in the net. Peter has to call to James and John on the beach for help in bringing the catch in. They bring their boat out to Peter. The men work noiselessly until the last of the huge catch has been brought into the boats. The gunwales of the boats are now dangerously close to the waterline.
Carefully, oh, so carefully, they rowed the laden boats ashore, not relaxing until they could hear the prow crunch on the rocks of the beach. This proves to be the biggest catch they have ever brought in. And not at night, but in the middle of the day!
Peter was aware that this was no ordinary man. He healed people, he taught good news, and he could command hundreds of fish as well as tell a couple of fishermen where to go to find them. Peter was overwhelmed and humbled. His pride had drained way, and all that was left was his sense of sinfulness in the presence of this man.
But Jesus didn't let him grovel. He told him not to be afraid.
And then he said those wonderful words that changed Peter’s life: "From now on you will be catching men." The verb used here is nearly unique in the New Testament: ζωγρέω (zogreo), which means "to take alive" or "to take, catch or capture" and it builds on the idea of the miraculous "catch." This word is used only twice in the New Testament – here and in the second letter of Paul to Timothy. The word is used in the Septuagint – the Greek Old testament - and in Greek literature in the vocabulary of war and hunting. Peter had been catching fish to kill and sell them. But now he would be taking men alive to give them freedom. The only other time the word is used in the New Testament is in 2 Timothy 2:25-26. St Paul is giving instruction in Christian leadership to the young man Timothy. He says, “And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kindly to everyone, an apt teacher, patient, correcting opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant that they will repent and come to know the truth, and that they may escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive – that is the word ζωγρέω - by him to do his will.” People can either be live as captives of Satan, or as freed servants of Jesus. While Satan captures for lives of subservience and sin, Jesus "captures" for lives in which the truth has made the captives free.
The final sentence of this passage marks a turning point for both Jesus and for the fishermen. We are told in chapter 5, verse 11, "So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him". There is in this sentence both the negative and the positive, the leaving and the following.
Have you ever wondered about Peter’s wife – Scripture tells us he had a mother-in-law - and the other families of the fishermen from Capernaum. Certainly Peter and the others came back often, since Jesus was using Capernaum as a base in Galilee. But they were gone for much of the time. Did they rent out the boats to others who took over the business in their absence? Or did Zebedee, the father of Peter's partners, help them out? Did the amazing catch of fish provide enough income to tide over the families until the fishermen returned? We don't know nor are we told.
What we are told is that while once Peter was catching fish, from then on he was catching new believers. And to do the second he had to stop doing the first. Isn’t that a fear we often have in our own lives of faith? We are scared of what God might expect us to do. More often we are scared of what we might be expected to give up. Dear people, we cannot drag all of our lives behind us and still be obedient followers. Some things have to go. The good can be the enemy of the best. There often needs to be a letting go so we can follow fully.
Not only was this a turning point for the fishermen Peter, James and John, but it marked a new era for Jesus. Now he had followers who were with him constantly from this day until the day he was crucified. The best expression of the Christian faith is in community. We are followers together.
All we need do is leave our nets.
May God bless you in your following in the days ahead.
