The Sunday Eucharist with Father Dave - February 6th, 2022

“[Jesus] said to Simon, "Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch." Simon answered, "Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.". (Luke 5:4-5)

Hi Fighter,

I love this scene on the beach where Jesus encourages Simon Peter and his crew of professional fishermen to try fishing a little further out from the shore. I think it highlights the qualities Jesus looks for in His disciples.

“Master, we have worked all night long and have caught nothing”, says Peter (Luke 5:5). In truth, what sort of fisherman sits for hour after hour in his fishing boat, catching nothing, but keeping the whole team sitting there in the dark, shivering, hoping their luck will change?

9 pm, 10 pm, 11 pm, midnight, 1 am, 2 am … at what point do you say, “this isn’t working” and decide to live with being hungry, rather than being both ridiculously tired and hungry. Fishing necessitates patience, yes, but keeping going with your team for an eight or ten hour stretch, despite getting zero results – that requires something beyond patience! It requires good old-fashioned stubbornness.

Peter’s response to Jesus’ suggestion – that they try going out a bit deeper – is gracious. In truth, if they’ve been there for eight or more hours, they’ve already tried going deeper. Indeed, they must have tired everywhere and everything they could think of by that stage. Even so, Peter will try anything Jesus suggests, no matter how crazy, though I suspect that some of the others in the boat thought he was an idiot.

Peter displays the two essential qualities of discipleship - stubbornness and stupidity. We prefer more noble-sounding terms for these qualities, such as ‘perseverance’ and ‘daring’. I think we should call them what they are – stubbornness and stupidity.

Do we measure up? Are we stupid enough to try things that common-sense tells us can’t possibly succeed simply because some voice inside our heads keeps urging us to try, and are we stubborn enough to keep hammering away at it long after all our friends have gone home? If that’s you, welcome to the team! You officially have all the personality defects necessary for discipleship.

Stubbornness and stupidity! We are going to need plenty of both if we are going to get this country back on track

Dave
http://www.fatherdave.org