Day: July 4, 2021

“We have taken nothing”

Today’s Gospel illustrates at once the emptiness and the futility of our lives, on the one hand, and the fullness and the purpose of our lives, on the other hand. It suggests something about what it actually might mean to be “all of one mind,”as the Epistle begins, and, then, concludes after showing us exactly that it would mean to “sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts.” It has altogether to do with our attitude and relation to Jesus and to his Word. “At thy word I will let down the net,” Simon Peter says, even in the face of the empty toil and fruitless labour of the night and in the awareness of our nothingness. It is about blessings even in the face of suffering, “if ye be followers of that which is good.”

Our lives are empty and futile in themselves. This is a hard, but necessary and humbling lesson, but it is the counter to our folly and our pretension. Only “at thy word” can we “let down the net” and begin to discover what ‘fulfillment and purpose’ might mean for us in our lives. It is altogether about our being with Christ. And what is our attitude to finding ourselves in the presence of God revealed in Jesus Christ? It is what Simon Peter says, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.”

This must trouble us. Why does he say this? Why doesn’t he rejoice in the sudden abundance of a rich catch of fish, the nets breaking with the fullness of the unexpected harvest? Because of a deep and profound spiritual insight, an insight which belongs to biblical wisdom. Simon Peter is aware of a power that is more than natural and more than human. He recognizes the reality of God in Jesus Christ. He gives expression to the deep biblical insight of the distance between God and man, the distance between God’s righteousness and truth and the unrighteousness and folly of human lives. The language is that of knowing oneself to be a sinner and therefore not presuming to stand on equal ground with God. It is the attitude of a humble yet philosophic piety. It is to “sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts.” You are in the presence of the Holy. It is not an entitlement. It is grace.

The Gospel story suggests that the real purpose of our lives and our lives as being fulfilled, to use the psychological language of our day, is about our being with Christ and acting in obedience to his word. “At thy word” is a phrase which echoes Mary’s response to the Angel Gabriel, “be it unto me according to thy word,” which is the condition for the richness and the wonder of the Word made flesh, the Incarnation of Christ, for us. We can have no fullness apart from Jesus. “Without me, ye can do nothing,” he says (Jn. 15.5). We can only enter into the will and purpose of God in the order of creation, redemption, and sanctification. Our lives, in other words, find their purpose and meaning in his Word. This is, of course, the reason for the Church. It is not by accident that the call of Simon Peter follows from this encounter. “Fear not,” says Jesus to him, “from henceforth thou shalt catch men,” anticipating his statement in Matthew  “that thou art Peter [Petros means rock], and upon this rock I will build my church” (Mt. 16.18).

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