Is there a more frustrating episode from the Gospels for the church in 2022 than the miraculous draught of fish?
Simon Peter and the others hardly know Jesus at this point of the story. They are tired after a long night’s work that has produced nothing. Jesus shows up, while they are stowing their gear and getting ready to go home, and he gets into the boat. This is presumptuous of him. “Boys," he says, “put out a little from the shore.”
Now, Jesus had just healed Peter’s mother-in-law, and various other people too, so the guys have reason to be willing to work with him. They set out a little ways. From the boat, Jesus speaks to whomever has gathered to hear. Everyone is feeling good, but still, it’s past time to get home. And when he’s finished teaching, Jesus tells them to set out into deeper water and “let down your nets for a catch.”
Now, this is what Simon and the guys had been doing all night. They had just washed the nets and folded them, or rolled them, or whatever it is they do to put them away. Peter can’t hide his reluctance, and St. Luke doesn’t try to keep it from us. His response to Jesus is, essentially, “Are you kidding me?” They’d had a long and frustrating night with no catch to speak of: nary a fish to bring home. They would like it if Jesus regarded them with empathy and encouraged them to go home and rest. They would appreciate it if he would reassure them that tomorrow is another day. But he does neither. He just looks at Peter with that look that says, “Do you want to make this harder than it has to be?” And Peter and the boys point the boat toward deeper water.
You know what happens next. Following a night of failure, as a result of their reluctant compliance with Jesus’ instructions, they catch more fish than they can handle, so many fish that their nets are breaking, so many fish that they call another boat over to help, and they fill both boats, so many fish that the boats begin to sink (I guess they have to throw some of the fish back into the lake), so many fish that Peter is freaked out and afraid to be in the presence of this person. He has this profound moment of humility when he actually tells Jesus to “Go away!” because whatever is going on is too much for Peter to deal with, and he feels unworthy even to be in Jesus’ presence.
That’s the set-up here for you and me this morning. And it’s frustrating for us, because, yes, we can relate, as the church, to the long night of fishing with nothing to show for it. We can relate to the feeling that, Dude, we have just put our stuff away. Now you show up and get in our boat and say, “Not so fast.” And this does not feel cool to us. Are you kidding me? We can also relate to the reluctant acquiescence to set out into deep water. And even the silent glare from Jesus that says to us, “Do you want to make this harder than it has to be?”
So, yeah, the set-up feels familiar to us. But where is our miraculous draught of fish?
Vastly more churches might be asking that question this morning in frustration than will be calling up the neighboring parish to say, “Hey, we have so many newcomers we need your help. Can you take some off our hands? Maybe we need to throw a bunch back in the water?” There is a disconnect, for the 21st century church, between the promise of the miraculous draught of fish - which suggests to us that if we risk going deep we will be rewarded with growth - a disconnect between that promise and our lived experience, which is the decline of the church.
Ask your child to do a book report about commercial fishing (which is what Simon and the guys were doing), and she will surely include a section on overfishing. Overfishing is when you take too many fish out of the water. Take too many fish out every day, and eventually you won’t have any left. They can’t keep up. (They’re not rabbits!) Overfishing happens when you assume an endless supply of fish, and you take the fish for granted. Overfishing leaves the fisheries depleted and therefore impossible to yield good results after a while. Sure, for a while it must feel great to bring such terrific reports to the shareholders: Look how many fish we caught! And since fishing takes place underwater, you can’t see all the damage you are doing with the naked eye. Though you could detect it if you bothered to check. You’d know about it if you paid attention to the people who do ask about these things. If you overfish, you alter the environment that produced so many fish in such a way that it becomes harder to catch fish. The effect is a negative one for both the fish and the fishermen.
It seems counterintuitive to wonder whether the church’s problem is overfishing, since we are well familiar with the feeling that we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. But this has not always been the case. Overfishing was not what Simon Peter and the boys were doing on Lake Gennesaret. But the church, over the centuries, found ways to overfish.
Allow me to suggest some instances of ecclesiastical overfishing. The Crusades. The Inquisition. Forced conversions. Church-run boarding schools for the assimilation of indigenous children… in Canada, and Australia, and here in the U.S., too. The so-called Moral Majority and the general over-reach of the religious right in the last fifty years. To name a few.
Now, the possibility that the church has been overfishing is not the only challenge we face in our ministry. But is it possible that overfishing by the church has altered the environment (that for a long time produced a great many fish) in such a way that it has now become harder to catch fish. So much of this overfishing feels like it took place underwater; it was hard to notice while it was happening, perhaps. But people are asking now, and it’s important to pay attention. And if you look at big chunks of the church’s history, the church’s experience, you could conclude, from the vantage point of 21st century America, that at this point, the experience has had a negative effect on both the fish and the fishermen.
Now, remember that if we think that overfishing was a problem, that does not mean that fishing in general is bad, and that we will never catch fish again. The whole point of recognizing that you are overfishing is to allow for the possibility that you can have a healthy draught of fish, maybe even a miraculous draught of fish from time to time. But you have to accept responsibility for the damage that’s been done in the mean time.
So, what do you do if you are the church and you realize that you have been overfishing? You care for the fish, and you care for the fisheries. You do what you can to restore the environment that you have altered, so that it becomes hospitable again for fish. And you make sure that you are treating the fish with the respect and dignity they deserve as fellow creatures of God’s making.
Overfishing is one more story, among many such stories, of our insistence on exploiting the abundant resources of this world to a degree that the environment simply cannot tolerate. We do it to fish, and we do it to one another. And it is not kind. It is not loving. It is not holy.
Jesus wants us to set out into deep water, and there he wants us to be able to catch miraculously large draughts of fish, by which I mean to say he wants us to bring many people into his church! - he can make it happen. For the earth is the Lord’s, and all that therein is.
But when we have so polluted the water with our long history of exploitation, perhaps Jesus wants us to pay attention to what we are doing and what we have done. Perhaps Jesus wants us to show that we are capable of caring for the fish and caring for the fisheries. Perhaps Jesus wants us to show that we know that just because the earth is the Lord’s and all that therein is, it does not mean we can do whatever we want to whomever we want. So, we care for the fish. And we care for the fisheries. This should not be a difficult prescription for God-fearing people.
And curiously, Simon Peter models a crucial attitude that we will need if we are to care for the fish and care for the fisheries, so we can joyfully cast our nets again. In his own unusual way, Simon Peter has this profound moment of humility, when he is afraid even to be in Jesus’ presence. “Go away from me, Lord,” he says, “for I am a sinful man.” But Jesus does not send him away. He tells him not to be afraid.
Humility would go a long way to helping us learn to do what Jesus means for us to do in a healthy and respectful way: to catch people in the gentle net of his love, which is woven in such away that all are free to come and go, to hear the voice of their creator call, to respond when they are ready. And this is one of the great challenges that faces the church as we stand here on the shore, having worked all night but caught so few fish: to live and work and minister with humility; to proclaim the Gospel of love with a humbleness of spirit that resembles the spirit of the God of love, who sent his Son into the world to be born in the humblest of circumstances, to work with the humblest of people, but who can still send us home with a miraculous draught of fish!
Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen
6 February 2022
Saint Mark’s, Locust Street, Philadelphia
The Miraculous Draught of Fish by Jacapo Bassano