SundayGospelReflection.org

Gospel Reflection 20070204

Be true to yourself!
A humbling thought: Christ too struggled with temptation. Because he became like us in all things, except sin, he helps us appreciate that there is no shame in being human. Pride, excessive self-sufficiency, worship of illusory pleasures of this culture— these are the temptations of today's desert. Renew your resolution to be whole and holy as you wrestle with the demons in your life.

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Lessons from the Deep
February 4, 2007

Luke 5:1-11
While the crowd was pressing in on Jesus and listening to the word of God, he was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret. He saw two boats there alongside the lake; the fishermen had disembarked and were washing their nets. Getting into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, he asked him to put out a short distance from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. After he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, "Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch." Simon said in reply, "Master, we have worked hard all night and have caught nothing, but at your command I will lower the nets." When they had done this, they caught a great number of fish and their nets were tearing. They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come to help them. They came and filled both boats so that they were in danger of sinking. When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at the knees of Jesus and said, "Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man." For astonishment at the catch of fish they had made seized him and all those with him, and likewise James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners of Simon. Jesus said to Simon, "Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men." When they brought their boats to the shore, they left everything and followed him.



Saint Luke, in his Gospel, explains that one day Jesus was standing on the shore of the Lake of Gennesaret. There were many people surrounding him and, since there were quite a few, they were pressing in on him. This was because they were anxious to hear him preach the Word. Seeing this multitude, the Lord observed that there were two boats anchored alongside the lake and, for safety’s sake, he decided to embark in one of them. This boat belonged to Simon Peter. He already knew Jesus. He had been with Jesus in other circumstances.
I am sure that it was not by chance that the Lord chose this boat. He was in the process of choosing his apostles. And, clearly, Peter was one of them. He wanted to have Peter by his side. Not only as company and friend. He had already decided to make Peter a fisher of men, his vicar on earth, the head of the Church that he was forming.
Jesus, on that day, was going to perform a great miracle. He had already done many wonderful things on that lake and on its shores. Many had seen him do these things. And that could have been the reason that so many people had gathered there. After preaching, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Put out into deep water, and lower your nets for a catch.” Peter still did not know Jesus well. So he obeyed but with some degree skepticism and very little confidence. They had been fishing all night long without catching anything. This could have been the reason for his reluctance to lower the nets once again. When Peter saw that the catch was so abundant that it did not fit in the boat so that he had to call his partners in the other boat over to help out, he threw himself at Jesus feet and said, “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.” We know that Peter was impulsive and even stubborn. But he was also very humble and he had a big heart. When he saw the miracle he remembered how he had acted. And that was the reason that he asked for pardon. Jesus already knew him and, because he did, he had already chosen him to be his apostle even though Peter did not know this.
The word, “apostle,” means, “Someone sent on a mission.” God calls all of us Christians, just as Peter and the rest of the apostles, from the moment of our conception to carry out a mission. When the Lord calls, some listen and others lend a deaf ear to the call. God chooses us and it is for us to obey or to resist his call. But let there be no doubt that all of us could be apostles if we decided to listen to God when he calls. And we should know that it is not for us to choose the Lord. It is the Lord’s prerogative to choose us, just as he chose the apostles. Let us not be tempted to excuse ourselves saying that we are not worthy of doing what God wants us to do We should remember that God is with us and he will give us the strength we need to overcome the obstacles, failures and frustrations that we will surely encounter

How does a married person react positively to the call of God? By truly loving your spouse. There probably is no husband or wife here that will say, “Well, that’s always easy to do.” It may be easy most of the time but there are times when it’s probably difficult. And that’s the key! God asks all of us to accept our calling and react in a manner that mirrors the reaction of His Son, Jesus Christ.
“My spouse and I had a fight, my parents don’t understand me, my boyfriend wants me to get more deeply involved that we should ......” How we react to those situations determines whether we are truly answering God’s call to us.
“Why do I have to make these difficult decisions? Why do I have to think of God or of other people? Why not just do what I want to do?” are questions we frequently ask ourselves. Paul was called to evangelize the world, Peter was called to martyrdom. They reacted positively to their calling and that is what each of us must do. We are expected to accept the conditions of "our ordinary calling".
For us, answering the call may be the courage to kiss one’s spouse and say, “I’m sorry.” It may be realizing God has given your parents the responsibility to expect reasonable obedience from you. It also may be that you have the responsibility to tell your boyfriend or you friends, “NO.” Is that easy to do? Not always.
The three men mentioned in today’s readings faced many difficulties. At times they were under intense pressure. We may not be as famous as they were but we walk the same walk they walked. The pressures and the difficulties we have are real.


One of the worst effects of sin, if not its main aim, is to make us think that God stops loving us: God is our enemy. Feeling bad about ourselves, we presume God feels the same way about us. And since sin is a regular feature of our lives, we can feel that God is never really happy with us. That “realization” can make us feel even worse: we sense we are almost permanently distant from God. In its turn, this can become resentment against God, the Church of God and the sacraments of the Church: “why is it all so difficult?” we complain. A next step might be simply to pretend there is no sin at all, that it’s all a ploy by “the clergy” to keep us under control. There follows a shift to an outlook on life which either cuts God and Church out completely or transforms them into what we want them to be. That may mean, for example, making religion a spiritual security blanket, or turning it into a pass-time, like going to a concert or a museum. This, of course, is the real aim of sin: it’s not so much the illicit pleasure of the moment (which Satan would deny us if he could) as the long-term break with the true God and the deformation of true religion.
First, He sees Peter’s humble confession: Peter had fallen “at the knees of Jesus” and confessed, “I am a sinful man.” That very confession was the result of giving Jesus access to his boat, hearing the words of Jesus as He taught from the boat, obeying the command of Jesus and accepting that Jesus was the power behind the draught of fishes. Jesus sees all this, and because of Peter’s humility and faith, He responds: “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.” Do not be afraid! Do not fear your sinfulness! Do not focus on your sins! Do not allow your sins to have the first or the last word in your relationship with Me! Do not let sin attain its aim of separating you from Me! Do not let your sin be more important than what I have just done for you! Do not let your many sins seem more than my generosity to you, my desire for you and for the faith and love of your soul! Do not let your sin get in the way of the great things I want you to do for me! It is not sin which determines who you are; it is I! It is not sin which prescribes the direction of your life; it is I! Sin is not the authority in your life; it is I! Sin is not your way, your truth or your life; it is I! Sin is not your God; it is I!
Never had anyone so completely reached into their hearts with such powerful yet tender love; never had they been so overwhelmed in their whole being and their whole lives. In opening themselves to Jesus, despite their sins, they … fell in love with Him; they knew their lives would never be the same again; they knew they would never understand themselves in the same way again; they knew that, although they had sinned, Jesus wanted them, not their sins, and that He would purify them from those sins.
This is Good News! This is the Gospel! To be sure, we cannot deny the pain we feel when we sin, but that pain is nothing in comparison with the joy and solace which pour forth into our hearts from the merciful Heart of Jesus. So as to feel good about ourselves after we sin, there are two options: either we deny that we have sinned and find a worldly happiness we invent for ourselves; or we confess our sins with humility and faith, trusting in the love of Jesus, and find joy in Him. If we try to handle sin and guilt alone, it will eventually destroy us, to the great sorrow of our Merciful Lord. But if we come to Him, especially in the sacrament of reconciliation, He will destroy it and exalt us in the joy of His merciful love. We can live genuine, happy and purposeful lives only if we allow Jesus to approach us personally and unite Himself with us. Otherwise, we may find some moments and experiences of passing jollity, but our hearts and souls will be deeply complaining and lamenting because they remain in the darkness without Him.
It offends contemporary sensitivities to speak of sin, guilt, repentance and confession. Certainly, some Church leaders have been guilty of using the doctrine on sin to instill fear and to manipulate people. It is good that we are freed from false understandings of these matters. However, freedom from false understandings of sin and its minions does not mean freedom from sin itself. Indeed, this is perhaps the heresy of today: a false understanding, not of sin, but of freedom, a freedom apparently disanchored from any responsibility to God. It’s as if someone were to say: “You tell me I’ve sinned, and I’ll take you to court, and if you insist, I’ll take you to the Supreme Court to decide the constitutional meaning of the Gospel.”
But it is Christ alone, and those to whom He has given His authority, who determine the true meaning of the Gospel. It is Jesus Himself, in texts like the one we have read in today’s reading from St. Luke, and many of His dependable teachers of the faith, who teach us the true meaning of sinfulness and freedom, and how Jesus interacts with the sinner to make him truly free. Sin alas has its place, dark and destructive, and must be taken duly seriously. But we need always to deal with sin in the powerful presence of Jesus Christ so that our trust and hope in Him may deliver us from every evil and restore us to the glorious freedom of the children of God. So, put out into the deep waters of the merciful Heart of God and your abundant catch will be the joy of God Himself.


"With that they brought their boats to land, left everything behind, and became his followers".

This is one of those bothersome sentences in scripture. It is bothersome because we tend to think in material terms - and this makes the "everything" sound like we have to sell off the house, the TV, the car, the golf clubs (no! not my golf clubs!!!!), and give away all but the clothes on our backs.

For Peter and his partners in the fishing business, the day of this gospel must have been their greatest success. They were amazed at the amount of fish they had caught - their nets were straining to the breaking point - the quantity nearly sank their boat and another boat. A fisherman like Peter would know the monetary value of this day by just looking at the load of fish. The modem day equivalent would be the worker getting the promotion to their dream job with an unimaginable wage increase, more than enough to take care of all their family finances. This is the big, lottery winning moment in Peter's life.

And then Peter and his partners, looking at perhaps the catch of their dreams, realize that their dreams of material success pale in the light of Jesus Christ. They see in Jesus the answer, not to the dreams of their minds, but to the hopes of their souls. Jesus does not ask them directly to give up anything - they choose the thing of greater value, the pearl of great price, which is life with Jesus which makes everything in their lives secondary to being with Jesus.

I'd like to assume that they kept the boat. I'd like to believe that it's the same boat they use a few chapters later in Luke when Jesus calms the storm at sea. I'd like to believe that they still kept their hands in fishing to earn a bit of a living. The fishing business, however, was no longer number one in their lives - their reason for living. Instead, following Jesus became number one.

So it is to be with us. We are asked by Jesus to make God number 1 in our lives. We are asked to make secondary to God, the "things" of our lives. In our world it is very easy to make "things" so important that they dominate our lives - to the point that our possessions possess us. There are people (and we may be one of them) who bury themselves in their work so deeply that the rest of life may as well not exist. The story line in books, movies or TV series about the obsessive workaholic who spends endless hours at the office and becomes a stranger to their spouse and children is a common theme. That arch-type is not limited to the corporate world. We can bury ourselves in many things. Children can become buried in sports (often with the help of their parents). Mothers can become buried in caring for their children. Ministers can bury themselves in doing good for others.

We can make the "catch of our dreams" as Peter did - we can be standing in our newcomer office with the VP sign on the door, "top of the heap!" ... we can win the game with a basket and get the scholarship we hoped for.. .we can be sitting at a rectory desk with a parish organization chart showing how we've covered all the ministerial bases... and we can feel a vague emptiness inside, like that old song by Peggy Lee saying, "Is that are there is?" Is that all there is? Is that all there is?

Interesting!!! Things which bury us have a common thread - they all involve our own egos and a belief that we are in charge and in control of our destiny. In the end, though, we give up control to these things and they come to dominate our lives, affect our personalities and limit the availability of choices in our lives.

Jesus calls us to freedom. Jesus calls us, as he did Peter and John and James, to make the "everythings" of our lives second to being with our God.

In return for "leaving everything behind" we get something. It is something which, when you receive it, does not leave a vague sense of a hard to define emptiness, of needing something else.

In return, we get love and friendship and peace and hope and joy and compassion and forgiveness.

Sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

posted by Mike Young @ 7:23 PM