Thursday in the 22nd Week of Ordinary Time, September 1, 2022

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 the boats 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.

At first glance, St. Luke’s description of the call of the first Apostles seems to differ from that of Matthew 4, 18-22 and Mark 1, 16-29.  However, we can understand those two accounts as being summarized versions of what the Lord did, leaving out the miraculous catch of fish.  To answer the question of why would Matthew and Mark summarize, we should keep in mind that the Evangelists were summarizing the whole time they were writing.  They could not possibly have included all the details of the Lord’s every encounter, of all his teaching, and of each miracle.  Some miracles we know about but for which we have no details, such as the exorcism of the seven Desmond from Mary Magdalene.  Specifically, Matthew sees the Lord’s preaching and his fulfillment of Scriptures as central to understanding Jesus, and so he summarizes his considerable ministry in Galilee before the Sermon on the Mount with, “And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom: and healing all manner of sickness and every infirmity, among the people” (Matthew 4, 23).  He describes his miracles in detail so as to underscore what the Lord has just preached.  Mark manages to abridge with a single line the temptations the Lord underwent after his Baptism, whereas both Matthew and Luke render very dramatic accounts, so we should not be surprised by his omission of the catch of fish and Peter’s emotional confession of his sinfulness to the Lord.  To answer the question of why Luke gives far greater details to this event, we need to understand that Luke is emphasizing the Lord’s mercy to a Gentile audience, and his love for sinners and outsiders with whom the Gentiles can relate.  

We see this mercy throughout this account.  “While the crowd was pressing in on Jesus and listening to the word of God, he was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret.”  Luke presents this crowd, even at this early point in the Lord’s ministry, “pressing” on him in their desire to hear his words, as though crying out, “Sweet are your words to my taste! More than honey to my mouth” (Psalm 119, 103).  The Lord did not walk away, fearing to be crushed by them, but finds a way to stay, and preaches from Peter’s boat.  Now, we ought to try to see this marvelous act of divine condescension on his part.  The Son of God, equal to the Father in power and majesty, gets into a little wooden boat in order to preach to a crowd of fairly ordinary people in a remote part of the world he himself had created.  Almighty God humbles himself before his creatures in order to practically beg them to accept the gift of eternal life which he holds out to them.

“Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch.”  The carpenter directs the work of the fisherman, and the fisherman yields to him.  The Lord directs him to a place where the fish should not be at a time when they would be difficult to catch anyway.  It is, perhaps, what a carpenter might think a fisherman should do.  Peter has heard the carpenter preach, though, and knows that he is something greater than he seems.  “Master, we have worked hard all night and have caught nothing, but at your command I will lower the nets.”  Just at the point when the exhausted fishermen were ready to go home, they set out again, and they do so on what must have seemed to at least some of them a foolhardy job.  We might wonder what Peter expected.  Perhaps nothing.  Perhaps he was so moved by the Lord’s preaching that he simply carried out his direction without wondering what would happen.  We see mercy here, too.  It would be surprising to Peter and the others if Jesus had told them to lower the nets close to shore and they had pulled up some fish, but the Lord wants to show them a sign of what they shall do later in their own preaching, and also to reward them for their patience with him in their boat that morning.  And so, “they caught a great number of fish and their nets were tearing.”  Peter had to call over to his partners Zebedee and his sons to come and help them, a sign of the numbers of preachers the Lord would require to preach the Gospel to the world.  “They came and filled both boats so that the boats were in danger of sinking.”  Never had such a single haul occurred on the Sea of Galilee.  The men shouted to one another and stumbled about, the breeze blew across the water, birds called as they flew over the sea, and Peter, stunned, sensed who it was who stood calmly before him: “When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at the knees of Jesus.”  His eyes, bleary from tiredness and fear, looked up into the eyes of love.  He would have needed to speak quite loudly to be heard above the noise of the fishermen, the sea, and the sky: “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.”  Here, as on the occasion of the Transfiguration, “he did not know what to say, for [he was] exceedingly afraid” (Mark 9, 6).  The Lord gazed at him steadily and allowed Peter to gaze back at him.  “Do not be afraid.”  And then, “From now on you will be catching men.”  Peter would not have understood that.  What he did know was that this man had done the impossible and filled his boat with fish at a time and place where there should have been none.  He sensed who this must be but could not yet put to words what he thought.  The Lord does not ask him to do so, either.  He knew Peter was not ready, and in his mercy the Lord never demands from us what it is not possible for us to do.  Peter had done what he could and put out into the deep and lowered his nets.  That would do for now.