Introduction
Since it began on January 1, I have been watching as much of the new Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) as I possibly can. This new league, with six teams between Canada and the US, finally gives women a place to play hockey at the highest level, with all the professional perks that come with that–salaries, training facilities, expert support staff in health, nutrition and fitness, even maternity leave. There is also a commitment to full TV coverage.The league is so new, there are no team logos or names yet. Behind the scenes, a lot of work has gone into forming this league. I have watched with interest over the last several months as the organizers secured key financial backers, named the host cities, identified team managers, hired coaches, selected the arenas where the teams would play, and offered advanced season ticket sales. And then things got really interesting, as the team players were selected. Each team was allowed to lock in 3 key players (mostly highly skilled players from that region), then they held a televised draft selection process for most of the rest, and a training camp for a few of those surprise walk-ons that you don’t want to miss. The intent is 6 well balanced teams of the best female hockey players around.
There are so many things to consider when selecting a team. You need a balance of positions–forward, defence, goalies, left and right shots, and a depth of skills–power, speed, finesse and game sense. You want to make sure you scout widely to pull in some of those talented international players. And of course you want players in peak physical form. Then come the intangibles like team dynamics and culture, and how quickly the players can gel as a team. What lines work well together? What combinations are starting to click? Who has that little extra something? It is all very exciting and interesting to watch these teams begin play. Each player brings their own key component to shape the team; already they are producing great passing plays, stunning goals and fantastic saves. Each team has a bit of a unique style or flavour. People have asked me if I have a favourite team yet, and I am not sure I can pick one at this point. At any rate something exciting is definitely happening here. Finally! There is energy, passion and momentum. The crowds have been great! The media are paying attention. There is something to celebrate. And there is hope that this can grow and expand in the future.
Jesus Calls Disciples
In the Scriptures from Luke that we read today we see Jesus inviting people to be part of his team, his movement. There certainly is excitement and momentum around Jesus. Crowds gather. They track Jesus’ movements and follow him around. There are things to celebrate, like healings. This movement is growing and expanding and Jesus needs help. So he calls disciples to help share the load, to spread the good news, and to prepare for when he can no longer be with him.
But unlike highly skilled athletes at the peak of their fitness, carefully selected to create a well oiled machine firing on all cylinders, the team that Jesus pulls together is a messy, mish mash of people. These are strange combinations! Who puts tax collectors like Levi (Matthew), who gather the taxes for the Roman governor, and Zealots like Simon and Judas, who want to overthrow Roman rule, in the same group and expects any type of team cohesion?! Who includes someone from inside the palace like Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward, with ordinary fishermen, who struggle to provide for their families under the heavy hand of the Roman occupation, for which Herod was a puppet ruler? If they don’t catch fish, they don’t have food for the family and community and they don’t have resources to pay the punishing taxes that Levi squeezes out of them. Who puts these people together? Who invites women alongside the men, to be followers, and supporters. This just isn’t set up for success? Is it?! If we were to do a team evaluation at the end of the first few weeks of play, Jesus’ team building skills would get a D-. Jesus’ player selection form would have red X’s all over it!
He seems to be that coach that says, I will take everyone who wants to play! Sure, Jesus is attracting people. But look who it is that is flocking to him, or in many cases needing to be carried to him because they are sick and ailing. Jesus does not seem to connect with people so much when they are at their finest–at the top of their game. He is attracting those who are struggling in some way. Jesus may as well be saying, I am not picking the best players. I am calling the losers, the leftovers, the looked over ones to be on my team. The people with a troubled past. I will put surprising combinations together. I will make teammates out of former enemies! I am casting the net wide, and the team I put together will be diverse, miscellaneous all sorts.
When he is criticized for the company he keeps (for who he allows onto his team) he says; Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance (Luke 5: ?)”
The proper, super religious ones, the Pharisees, who think that they have it all together, they don’t need help. They are healthy. They do everything right. They are pure and holy. They have no need of repentance, of changing their game plan.The Pharisees emphasize gaining righteousness by separating themselves from people, refusing to eat with those who don’t observe certain laws, who are unclean and untouchable. Jesus moves into those kinds of spaces. He touches a leper, he eats with the so-called “sinners” and tax collectors. He offers healing, forgiveness, hospitality and compassion widely and freely. This is how he fishes for people. He casts his net wide, offering God’s love.
Jesus connects especially with people who are struggling, who are hurting who have had tough life experiences. From these he will build his team. His team will include women who have faced, who knows what kinds of stigma for their so-called evil spirits, demons and infirmities (see Luke 9:2). His team will include freedom fighters, like the Zealots, and fishermen like Simon and Andrew who are weary with the grind of their daily life, and need hope for a different future. The response to Jesus is overwhelming. His net fills up quickly.
Deep Callings
In today’s texts we spend some time with Simon, whom Jesus later names Peter. While this text makes it sound like Simon drops everything and follows Jesus right out of the blue, there is a bigger context here. Simon was looking for something in his life. According to John’s gospel, he was already a disciple of John the Baptist, drawn to this prophetic voice in the wilderness, who was calling people to repentance and baptism. Simon was probably baptized by John. And it was John who pointed Simon and his brother Andrew to Jesus, with the words, look, here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! (John 1:29; see also John 1: 35-42). So Simon and Andrew follow Jesus.
And when Jesus comes to Galilee, and Capernaum where Simon lives, Simon is paying attention, listening to Jesus teaching in the synagogue, and watching his healing ministry. Jesus even heals Simon’s mother-in-law. And now Jesus is teaching on the shore of the Sea of Galilee (which Luke calls the Lake of Gennesaret), where Simon and his brother Andrew work their fishing boats. Simon has been listening. He is intrigued, moved, amazed, awed by what he has seen. He is drawn to Jesus, daring to hope, but I suspect Jesus also makes Simon uncomfortable. Who is this? What kind of authority does he have? What kind of teaching is this? So when Jesus climbs into Simon’s boat, Simon is primed for a personal, transformational encounter. But this is not a good day for Simon. He is already off balance. He didn’t catch any fish overnight. He is tired. Cranky. Hungry. He feels like a failure. He is ashamed, embarrassed and stressed. He has to tell his family that he caught nothing last night. What if the tax collectors demand payment today and he has nothing? And then to be asked by Jesus to put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch (Luke 5:4b). That is simply insulting. That is just rubbing salt in a wound. Go out and demonstrate once again his failure as a fisherman? Embarrass him in front of family and neighbours, with that whole crowd watching. What does Jesus know about fishing anyway? It’s the wrong time of day for fishing. I suspect Simon’s protest even came with an eye roll. We have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets (Luke 5:5). I have tried so hard, he seems to be saying. I am doing my best here, but it’s not good enough. I’m not good enough at fishing. I am not enough.
I don’t think Simon would have gotten into that boat for anyone else. But Jesus is just compelling enough for Simon to do what he says, and put out into the deep water, even though he is bone tired, and highly doubtful that anything will come of this. But to have this popular, compelling preacher in his boat….well that might just be worth the effort. This is a moment of vulnerability for Simon. He is at a low point when he gets into the boat with Jesus and puts out into the deep water. But that it seems, is when Jesus does his best work.
One thing we learn about Jesus from this story with Simon is that Jesus meets people where they are at–in the middle of life, work, struggle, longing. Jesus doesn’t wait until we have it all together. He doesn’t wait until we are perfectly fit and finally tuned super disciples. I suspect Jesus actually finds us more receptive, more open when we are feeling weak and wounded.
Wendy Miller, a spiritual director and writer, tells the story of a pastor who had served in ministry for several years, but was finding it difficult to preach. In fact she had come to dread it. She felt tight, anxious, even fearful as she got up to speak. She feared what people in the congregation would think of her sermons. So Wendy, as her spiritual director, invited her into an imaginative exercise. She asked her to imagine Jesus coming into the sanctuary of the church as the congregation was sitting in the pews, and to notice what he might do or say. As this pastor got into her imagination, she watched as Jesus paused at the back of the sanctuary, and then walked up the centre aisle to the communion table. As he did so she began to notice a change in how the people looked, especially those who were most intimidating for her to preach to. Rather than appearing large and strong, these people looked needy, disabled, and grieving. Some wore bandages, one leaned on crutches as he made his way slowly to the communion table. All appeared sad, lonely and in need of care. And then this pastor watched as Jesus offered bread and wine to each one. She was able to see her congregation in a new way, and her anxiety began to fade. She began to see how she might be invited to address the deeper and more hidden needs within the lives of the congregation. She was able to see how God “comes to us in our desolation offering comfort and helping us see the situation with new eyes” (Wendy Miller, Jesus Our Spiritual Director, 102). She was able to see that everyone is carrying something–some sort of hurt, pain, inadequacy, fear, something that blocks their openness to be touched and changed by an encounter with Jesus. Simon too has deeper and more hidden needs. As do we, but so often we don’t see them ourselves.
Jesus’ invitation to put out into the deep water (Luke 5:4), is more than an affront to Simon’s fishing skills. Jesus meets him where he is at, and Jesus also invites him to go deeper in more ways than one, if you will pardon the pun. All through the scriptures we see God drawing people into wilderness and solitude–spaces of silence, like here on the lake. This is where many of us encounter God. When Simon sees Jesus’ divine power produce the miraculous catch of fish, he is overcome by fear. “He feels unable, unclean, unacceptable in the presence of this holy One in his boat (Miller, 86). He falls down at Jesus’ knees and begs him to leave. He wants Jesus out of his life. That will solve his problems. He won’t have to feel afraid, weak, and sinful any more. He wants to feel strong and able.
Simon is having one of his oversized, dramatic reactions to Jesus. He has these quite often. It is a rather drastic response, in the moment, but it sure beats attending to whatever is going on inside–that messy place of his repressed desires and fears that he would rather not face. But Jesus doesn’t leave. Do not be afraid, he says, from now on you will be catching people (Luke 5: 10b).
I can identify with Peter a little bit here. I grew up with a fear of deep water. I was a reluctant, hesitant swimmer as a child. It took me years to get comfortable in the water, especially any water that was over my head. I was left behind in the shallow end of the pool, or lake while my friends and classmates all seemed to learn how to swim easily. Finally as a young adult I took swimming lessons at the PanAm pool when I was going to school in Winnipeg, and progressed to the point where I could swim and enjoy the water, but I still don’t like diving or jumping into deep water. I don’t like that feeling of panic to push back up to the surface before I can breathe again. And I can’t dive into the deep water for one of those rubber rings that they try to get you to retrieve in swimming lessons.
Like my fear of deep water, Simon fears the deep water as well, only for him it is the fear of being fully seen by Jesus. Many of us have an “internal dread” of rejection, abandonment or condemnation. We may also have negative and distorted images of God. “Our perception of God can colour and shape our thinking and responses…some persons constantly need to run from God and hide, frightened of what God might do to them” (Miller, 85). Simon’s story recalls his own need to hide from God.
We don’t want to dredge up anything from below the surface for fear that we will be found unworthy and unlovable. “Ever since Eden all humankind has been living at a lonely distance from God, self, others, and creation” (Miller, 89). Jesus doesn’t condemn, or judge or abandon Simon. He stays. “Jesus comes to us where we are, with our fears and childlike ways of hiding, and speaks reassurance” (Miller, 89). Jesus helps people to “learn the art of discernment”, and learn to know their own inner heart and interior (Miller, 66). This hidden, inner material someone has called “submerged stories.” They are fragments of a story that emerges through the cracks of the larger story (Miller, 54). In the gospels we get to hear the disciples share their stories of receiving spiritual guidance from Jesus, sometimes during “bouts of little faith, dislocation, desire for power, disloyalty, anxiety, sadness, and terror as well as during movement toward trust, insight, and obedience” (Miller, 53-54). With Simon, we can see and imagine what some of his “submerged story” of fear and anxiety looks like. In our fall worship series from Genesis and Exodus, we certainly did a lot of looking at the “submerged stories” of the characters in those stories.
Jesus notices Simon’s fears, brings them to light, and companions Simon. Simon has been watching Jesus, observing how Jesus heals others, now with Jesus so close to him, he panics. What does Simon fear? Change perhaps. The newness and freshness of Jesus’ message? What the Romans can do to people who challenge their systems and structures of power? Perhaps more than that, Simon is loathe to look at his own inner stuff, his own humanness before Jesus. He feels sinful, inadequate, like he is not worthy of being near Jesus. That his failings are too much. Why was it that he sought baptism from John? What is it that he needs to repent? We don’t know. But something has started to open up within that is uncomfortable for him, during his encounter with Jesus. He doesn’t feel like he deserves the goodness, abundance, generosity and love offered to him.
We often assume that the abundant catch of fish represents the people that are drawn to Jesus. Could the fish also represent the healing, the reconciliation, the goodness that is possible when Simon, and when we let go of our fears? When we sit in our boat with Jesus, with our whole self, our whole life, sins and all, failures and all, wounds and all, fears and all, none of that disqualifies Simon, none of that disqualifies us to be disciples. Peter is overwhelmed by the grace, and the generosity, and maybe that scares him most of all.
Remember the parable of the sun and the wind? They have a contest to see who can make a traveller shed his coat first. The wind, determined to succeed by strength and force, blows, and gets stronger, and more forceful, but the traveller simply hunkers down and pulls his coat tighter around himself. The sun applies a different tactic. The sun beams down, getting warmer and warmer, and soon the traveler unbuttons his coat, and takes it off.
What gets Simon to “yes” is not criticism, judgment or condemnation, which he expects (after all he assesses himself as a “sinful man.” He probably has an impression of God as harsh and judgmental. No. What gets Simon to “yes” is forgiveness, acceptance, and an abundance of compassion. When he opens himself to that love, freely offered, he can’t say no. Maybe this is some of the new wine in old wineskins from last week. He expects one kind of response from God, and gets entirely another, with such abundance as to burst his wineskins of old assumptions about what God is like. Jesus invites Simon to trust that grace and that love.
Getting comfortable in deep water is all about trust. For Simon, fishing in these waters again, after fishing all night is about hope and trust too. The fish are in places he didn’t expect. He casts the net wider than he is used to.
What is Jesus Pointing Us To?
What is the call? What is the invitation? Jesus is pointing to our fishing boats. Get in. Let’s go. Let me get into the boat of your everyday life. Let me accompany you. Let me come alongside you. And I want you to come as you are, even after a long night of fishing when you didn’t catch anything. I don’t need you to be polished and perfect. I will meet you there without judgment or condemnation.
Come as you are with your skill set, and your lived experience. I will use those gifts. But don’t be surprised if I call out different gifts within you, if I surprise you with what I invite you to consider. Let me alongside your everyday life. Let my words and my teachings echo in your daily work, your daily interactions, your closest relationships.
How does Jesus’ sound from your boat? What does the gospel look like in proximity to your life, your experience? Like that woman in Wendy Miller’s story, imagine Jesus walking into your workplace, your home, your friendship circle. And simply observe.
What else is Jesus pointing to? The deep water. Go deep. I will come alongside you and accompany you through the painful, difficult stuff below the surface, through your submerged stories. You will be surprised and overwhelmed by the abundant grace filled resources Jesus brings to the surface, to help you live your life to the fullest. You have what you need. You don’t need to be afraid.
And then Jesus points to the nets–let your nets down for a catch. Trust that you are enough. That you have what you need, even if you don’t think this is the right time for fishing, or the right place to let down your nets. You will be surprised by the abundant catch. You will be amazed at how wide Jesus wants you to cast the net. You will be overwhelmed by the generosity of Jesus. It will stretch your nets beyond their capacity and overwhelm your ordinary boat.
The team Jesus has assembled is as diverse as the number of fish in Simon’s net. Your ordinary life won’t be able to hold it all. It will overflow. We can’t control the abundance, even reckless abandon of the Spirit. It might overwhelm our flimsy nets and our humble boats with a catch we didn’t expect and didn’t see coming. Proximity to Jesus changes people.