I was probably four or five when I started to learn how to fish. My dad got my sisters and me three neon colored fishing poles—orange, green, and blue. They were light and small enough for us to swing about and somehow always managed to get inextricably twined together whenever they were placed next to one another. But after they were untied and my dad threaded on a worm, we learned how to cast our hooks and bobbers out into the water and wait for the fish. There is usually a lot of waiting when it comes to fishing—watching the surface of the water, wondering what might be happening unseen underneath, hoping for the sudden elation that a fish has favored your line with its attention. Catching, really, is the fun part when it comes to fishing. Starting off, though, I was far more likely to catch a tree or a stump or my own shirt than to catch a fish!
One of the passages from this week's lectionary that we won't see in the service is from Luke chapter 5. In it we find a group of tired fisherman who have worked all night long and had no luck with the catching part of their job. After Jesus commandeers a fishing boat to use as a teaching platform, he tells one of the fishermen, Simon Peter, to put out his nets into deeper water. Peter reluctantly agrees, and to everyone's astonishment the nets that have emerged empty countless times throughout the night rise now teeming with fish. A miracle of abundance and providence after which Jesus tells these new disciples that they shall become fishers of people in the Kingdom of God.
It is a story that I have heard many times, and likely you have too, but sometimes art helps us see these passages anew. The picture above is of a tapestry of the Luke passage, created by Raphael in the 1500s. You can see the well-muscled fishermen laboring to bring in their haul of fish. Peter is on his knees before Jesus stunned by the miracle. In the background doves fly over the water, symbolizing the power of God present at creation and the Holy Spirit that will empower the church in Acts. But in this miraculously still water, present but hard to see, is the reflection of one of the fishermen's faces among the fish and nets about to be hauled into the boat, as if the fisherman has caught himself in his nets. As if this man is being hauled in by the abundant provision of God just like all the fish. I wonder if perhaps Jesus' promise that his disciples—including you and me—will be fishers of people might apply to to our own selves? So often this text has been seen as an image of evangelism and drawing in those who do not know Christ, but perhaps it is also about drawing ourselves in again. Perhaps we need to be invited into the abundance of the Kingdom of God again. Like Peter, do you need to be reminded of the grace of Jesus' attention? Perhaps when we fish for people, we need to catch ourselves with the gospel once more.