Summary: This passage from Luke shows in vivid detail how the call of Jesus works in the lives of those who give him their attention. The call comes in the midst of everyday life. It seems to come out of nowhere, but it does not.
There once was a man in the midst of doctoral studies at a prestigious university in Ohio who had completed everything but his dissertation. He had taken the requisite two years of course work and internship. He had gone before his Oral Examination Committee and had not only survived, but prevailed. After a year of searching and testing various waters and envisioning where various scholarly rabbit trails might lead, he had decided upon a dissertation topic, found a dissertation director and was at work on the third draft of his prospectus.
All was going well. He was convinced that he had, in his mid-40s - after years of floundering, stumbles, pitfalls and false starts - finally found what he needed to be about for the rest of his life. First, of course, he had to finish the dissertation. Then, he needed to find a tenure track position somewhere and begin life as a university professor of English. He felt he was born to be on a university campus!
But then ...
The man had been a devout Christian since his late 20s. He had always taken the faith seriously, with daily devotionals centered around the Daily Office of the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, and the occasional retreat. As a graduate student in a major secular university, he mostly kept his faith to himself, but there were times when it came out, even times when it had earned him perhaps a bit of admiration, as well as some low-level animosity. But he had survived that, too. He had initially wanted to center his dissertation upon a widely read, highly educated Christian writer - the emphasis being upon that writer's status as a man of letters, and not specifically upon his religious thought - but he was not able to assemble a committee willing or able to do that subject justice. Truth be told, that rankled a bit, but he had found his workaround and was not simply at peace with it, but completely satisfied with the direction this work would take him.
But he soon began to discern a difficult-to-define hunger within him, a gnawing dissatisfaction in spite of the sense that he had, at long last, found his way in life. After leading a retreat with some committed members of his church, centered around a reading of the parable of the Good Samaritan, the hunger began to define itself, to organize itself around a missing center - another destination that, if he was honest, he had sensed beckoning for years. A month or so later, he announced to his pastor that he was feeling a call to ordained Christian ministry.
He resigned from his graduate program and set out on what would be a nine-year journey to full ordination in the denomination of his youth.
That call may have seemed sudden, on the surface. But it had been in the works for a long time - months. Years. Decades.
This passage from the Gospel of Luke is a story about a call - the call of God, the call of Jesus to lifelong discipleship and service. The tale before us shows us how that call happens. Jesus calls us amid our everyday routine - Simon was fishing; Moses was called while tending sheep; Gideon, while threshing wheat; our presumptive professor, while in the midst of his studies.
And that is how it usually happens. The proverbial big picture demonstrates this. Simon and Jesus have their fateful shipboard encounter early in Jesus' ministry. Jesus' summoning of Simon, and Simon's surrender, may seem to have come out of nowhere, but it has not. In the chapters leading up to this one, Jesus has been busy.
He has submitted to baptism by John, and has been led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness, where he has been tempted by Satan. From there he went on to begin his Galilean ministry in earnest, and "a report spread about him through all the surrounding region."1 He embarked on a teaching tour at various synagogues, even experiencing rejection in his own hometown of Nazareth - Luke reports that he was violently rejected.
Jesus' preaching tour takes him to the synagogue in Capernaum, where people are astounded by his authoritative teaching. He exorcizes a demon from a man at that synagogue service.
Present in that synagogue service is a man called Simon - yes, the same Simon the fisherman that we hear about in today's passage. This Simon is impressed enough with Jesus to invite him to his home, where Simon's mother-in-law is sick with a fever. Jesus "stood over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her. Immediately she got up and began to serve them."2 - yes, in Luke, this familiar story of the healing of Simon's mother-in-law takes place a fair amount of time before Simon ever becomes a disciple.
So when Jesus encounters Simon by the lakeshore in Galilee, he does not come as a stranger with mysterious powers who exercises a charismatic hold over Simon. Jesus' considerable, growing reputation has preceded him, and Simon has encountered him before. Simon knows who Jesus is, and he has some idea of what Jesus is capable of doing. To top it off, he no doubt hears Jesus' latest message as Jesus preaches while he is at work washing his nets after a failed day of fishing. Jesus has not come out of nowhere. Simon has prior experience of Jesus, before Jesus shows up and basically commandeers Simon's boat. He has heard Jesus preach before, in the synagogue in Capernaum. He hears him preach from the boat by the side of the lake.
Now, Jesus suggests that he cast off again, pull out into the deep water, and let down those nets. So, out they go - and they pull in such a haul that the load threatens to sink both Peter's boat and the boat of James and John Zebedee, his partners. This is not the only time Peter will find himself on a sinking ship, with Jesus, on the Sea of Galilee - but that's a story for another day!
Simon's response to all this is, basically, I'm not worthy! This is a typical response, an inevitable response, when in the presence of the Divine, the truly Divine.3
Jesus' reply: "Do not be afraid; from now on, you will be catching people."
In this story, we see how it is when Jesus calls. In Simon's response, we see the consequences of the call - and of responding to the call. They have hauled in two boatloads of fish - a record-breaking haul. And, apparently, as soon as they hit the shore, they immediately leave their father and whatever hired hands are there to sort the fish and clean them and sell them. Right after they bring to shore these boats that are literally full to the Plimsoll line with fish, they leave! Three able bodied men just leave, leaving Mr. Zebedee and some hired hands to deal with two literal boatloads of fish!
And we are left to wonder how that might have gone over. How would it go over today, if a son abruptly left a family business that needed him and in which he was completely invested to go off and follow an itinerant preacher?
Seriously! That is how the call can come. Following the call could put loved ones and family members in seriously strapped situations.
Jesus told Simon, "Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people." Our presumptive professor didn't end up "catching people," per se. Truth be told, he wasn't very good at that. He ended up with a career of preaching to and teaching people who had already been "caught." That is what his gifts best suited him for. Any time he started getting down on himself during his ministry, because he wasn't doing a better job of growing churches and catching people, that voice always came back to him, saying, I didn't call you to this work to help them to build a new gym, or to strategize more clever ways of paying their denominational obligations. I called you because you are really good at interpreting literary texts for people at all stages of education and understanding, and our Bible, your Bible, my Bible, is precisely that: a collection of literary texts.
And he continued to follow Jesus.
And they - Simon, and John, and James - left everything and followed him. Our presumptive professor may not have, literally, "left everything"; but he pretty much walked away from everything he had done up till then - in a manner of speaking anyway. As it turned out, what he had done up till then worked quite well with what his new calling drove him to do.
That is the call. That is how the call works. It may seem to come out of nowhere, but it does not - you are being prepared for it now, here! Perhaps you have felt the call and responded. Perhaps you think you have experienced nothing of the sort.
But you have.
You are.
Jesus is calling, even now. The call may not be to a career change, but the groundwork is being laid for something. Jesus is here at the lakeshore where you are washing your nets, maintaining the tools of your trade.
What does he have to say to you?