Luke 5:1-11
My brother, Philip, and his wife, Angelina, have six daughters, all adopted out of foster care over about an 8-year period. The first two to arrive were Contessa and Andrea, who were 8 and 6 years old at the time. As it happened, my dad and I had planned a trip out to California just a couple of months after the girls moved in. Philip and I were going somewhere in the car with the girls in the backseat chattering away, occasionally calling out to “Dad” for something. I asked him after a little while, “So when did you start feeling like a Dad?” He answered, “When I started hearing Mama’s words coming out of my mouth.” “What do you mean?” I asked him. “Well, things like, ‘Because I said so, that’s why!’ I swore I’d never say that to a child of mine, but I do!”
“Because I said so, that’s why!” Most of us have said that to a child or a grandchild who has asked “Why?” once too often. I’m sure I heard it often enough when I was a little girl! Sometimes we do things our parents tell us to do, just because they said so, and for no other reason. That’s what it means to be obedient and well-mannered children.
The same can be said about obedient disciples. Sometimes we do things just because Jesus says so, and for no other reason. Sometimes we do things just because Jesus says so, even when they make no sense to us, even when they seem crazy or risky or costly. We do them because Jesus tells us to do them.
That is what happened one afternoon on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. Jesus had been standing there teaching the people who crowded around him listening to the word of God. These people had heard about the things he had been doing, healing the sick, and teaching with authority, and they wanted to hear what he had to say. Jesus noticed two fishing boats at the water’s edge, left there by the fishermen who had come in after a night’s work. The men were nearby washing their nets. Jesus went over and got into a boat that belonged to Simon Peter and asked him to put out a little way from shore. That way Jesus could teach and have some distance between him and the crowds, so that he could see them and they could see him better.
After a while, when Jesus finished with what he wanted to say to the people, he told Simon Peter to go out into the deep water and let down his nets, and he would catch some fish. Carol M. Bechtel, a professor at Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan, captures the scene perfectly when she writes: “We can hear the weariness and skepticism in Simon’s voice when he answers, ‘Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing.’ One imagines a shrug prior to his next words: ‘Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.’”
Simon Peter was willing to do as Jesus asked, because Jesus said so. That was it. Simply because Jesus told him to do it. Simon had no expectation of catching any fish; the fish weren’t there; they hadn’t been there all night long. He was exhausted from his work, ready to go home and rest, but because Jesus told him to, he put his nets out into the water one more time. What would make Simon Peter do such a thing? Why would he have any confidence in Jesus’ words? Jesus wasn’t a fisherman! He was a carpenter! What did he know about catching fish? But as Bechtel writes, “Simon must have reviewed what he has witnessed Jesus saying and doing in previous days. Simon has seen Jesus healing people and casting out demons with a word. Jesus has cured Simon’s own mother-in-law of a fever. Simon has heard Jesus preach and teach with unprecedented authority on more than one occasion. In light of who is giving the orders, Simon abandons his skepticism and obeys.”
Simon Peter did what Jesus said, because Jesus said so, and because he knew enough about Jesus to believe that what Jesus said was reliable. He knew something about the character of Jesus, enough to trust him, even when it seemed a lost cause, even when it seemed impossible. And the results were miraculous! He caught so many fish that his nets started to break. He called in James and John with their boat, and between them they filled both boats so full of fish that they were in danger of sinking.
And Simon immediately fell down and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” He caught a glimpse of who it was that he was really dealing with. As Bishop Howard K. Gregory of Montego Bay, Jamaica, says, “Simon becomes aware of his own unworthiness and diminutive stature in the presence of the Divine; so he underscores his sinfulness and asks that Jesus depart from him …” When Simon understood the significance of who Jesus was, he knew that he was not worthy to be in his presence. And he was afraid.
But Jesus right away told Simon, “Don’t be afraid. From now on, you will catch people.” And Luke tells us that right away, Simon Peter, his brother Andrew, James and John, pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed Jesus. They had their boats full of fish, the catch of their lives, and they left it all behind, just walked away from it all. To put it in perspective, think of it this way. Gary Peluso-Verdend, President of Phillips Theological Seminary in Tulsa, Oklahoma, writes, “Imagine walking away from the biggest deal, from the greatest offer of promotion you will ever receive, from a lottery jackpot – because you have just received a better offer.”
I’ve always been amazed by this incredible act of commitment and trust. These men, Simon Peter, Andrew, James and John, walked away from their homes, their jobs, their families, and followed Jesus, literally walked with him, through Galilee and Judea, into Jerusalem and to the cross, and then to the empty tomb. They put their lives on the line for him and for the sake of the Gospel. They had their assumptions challenged, their stereotypes blown away, their understanding of what it meant to be a faithful Jew totally reinterpreted and were sent out to teach the message of Jesus to others. They were given authority over demons and power to heal people of their diseases. And many of them, in the end, were put to death for their allegiance to Jesus Christ.
Gay L. Byron, Professor of New Testament at Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School in Rochester, New York, writes, “… ‘they left everything and followed him.’ This is the heart of discipleship … Not only are the disciples to leave the big catch of fish they have just hauled in; they are also to renounce and leave everything else, to embark upon an incomprehensible mission. With the presence of God and the willingness to trust wherever this ‘Master’ and ‘Lord’ who orchestrated the great catch may lead, Simon Peter and the other disciples are ready to embark upon the journey.” And all because Jesus said so.
Have you ever done something in your life just because Jesus said so? Have you ever taken a chance because Jesus said so? Have you ever risked something because Jesus said so?
When I first felt called to ministry, I had all kinds of reasons why not to do it. I only knew one woman who was a minister, and she was the associate minister of youth and education at my home church. I knew that ministers didn’t make a lot of money. I could make a list as long as your arm of reasons why not to say “yes.” But I did say “yes,” just because Jesus said so.
While I was in seminary, I discerned that my calling was to be a pastor. I was a woman attending a Southern Baptist seminary. I didn’t know a single woman who was a pastor. I knew that the Southern Baptist Convention had passed resolutions against women pastors. In my classes in the School of Theology, there would be 95 men and 5 women. Most of them were going to become chaplains. But because Jesus said so, I said “yes.”
When I came near to graduation, I began to feel Jesus calling me to leave the Baptist Church and become a United Methodist minister. The Baptist Church was my home, and my home church had been very supportive of me in my calling and in my seminary training. They had ordained me to ministry while I was serving as a youth director in a Methodist church. I felt I owed something to the Baptists. But I left because Jesus said so.
When I had spent 15 years in the South Carolina Annual Conference serving miserable appointments, in churches that didn’t want a woman pastor in the first place, fighting the same uphill battle over and over again, I began to feel that I couldn’t do that work any longer. I thought about just quitting it all and going to work at McDonalds where there was no pressure. But then I got the crazy idea of moving to New England, where things were different for women pastors. I had a list of reasons why that was a bad idea: it’s cold up here, and it snows a lot, and people are not very friendly in the north, and it’s full of Yankees. But I left in 2002 and moved to Massachusetts because Jesus said so.
I have found, as Bishop Gregory writes, that “the most profound and significant experiences of God and life are not to be found in the safe ways and places.” Instead, they are found in the risky and adventurous paths. They are found in the places where you have to depend on God and follow Jesus in order to navigate safely through to the other side. They are found where trust is essential and taking chances unavoidable. But the results of following Jesus, of doing what Jesus says because he says so, are always miraculous catches of one sort or another. If I had not taken the chances I did, if I had not done what Jesus told me to do, my life would have been so different than it is today. I am so grateful that I was able to scrape up the faith and courage to say “yes” to Jesus. Sometimes it took me awhile to get to that point – sometimes it took me years – but I have never been sorry that I said “yes.”
Sometimes congregations are called to do things that seem crazy or risky or challenging. And sometimes we have to screw up our courage and hold on to our faith and say “yes” to Jesus and do what he says, just because Jesus says so. When we do that, I can’t predict the results, but I can tell you that they will be miraculous. Because Jesus always rewards our faith with results beyond our wildest imaginations.
