Christ Church

“Thou shalt catch men”

Today’s Gospel illustrates rather wonderfully the Epistle reading from 1 Peter. We meet within Petertide, in the Octave of St. Peter and St. Paul, the twin pillars of the Apostolic Church. In a way, today’s readings provide a kind of commentary on the Church and our life of Faith. “Be ye all of one mind,” the Epistle begins and ends with the command to “sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts.” And in between? A way of facing suffering and hardship.

The Gospel begins with the people pressing upon Jesus to hear the word of God. It ends with Jesus saying to Simon Peter “from henceforth thou shalt catch men,” and he and James and John, his fellow fishermen, “for[saking] all, and followed him.” And in between? Nothing but an image of the futility of our lives, it might seem. “Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing,” Simon Peter says to Jesus. Nothing. The point is clear, I think. The ultimate end and good of our humanity is not found in the riches and abundance of the world and in our human endeavours and labours. In and of themselves they are nothing. Something more is wanted and looked for.

The Epistle shows us what that something more is. It is our communion with one another through our communion with God, “having compassion one of another,” blessing one another because we are called to blessedness, to an end that is beyond the world. But does that mean forsaking the world? It might seem so from the conclusion of the Gospel. But that would be to overlook what lies in between the opening lines of the Epistle and the Gospel, each of them a commentary on our lives as lived in the world but not of the world. In the Epistle, it is loving as brethren, forsaking evil and doing good, seeking peace and following after it, being followers of that which is good even in the face of evil and suffering. And why? Because of Christ.

In the Gospel, it is in what follows Simon Peter’s statement of futility: “nevertheless, at thy word I will let down the net.” The point is not that there is suddenly wealth and abundance materially speaking, “a great multitude of fishes” so much so that “their net brake,” an image of what is more than we can handle or need. God does provide, to be sure, but in different ways. No. The deeper point is that “apart from me ye can do nothing” (Jn. 15.5), as Jesus says. The deeper point is about our abiding in him and he is us in his body the Church. Apart from him we are nothing and our lives are empty and nothing.

The context of Jesus’ word is the last of the so-called “I am” sayings of Jesus in John’s Gospel about our abiding in his life. “I am the vine,” he says, “you are the branches, abide in my love.” How? By his word abiding in us. Only so, he says, “shall we bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples” (Jn. 15. 8).

Our life in Christ is primary and it cannot be measured simply by the world and our lives and experiences in the world. God in Christ is the measure of our lives always and everywhere. This is to reclaim the meaning of our lives as lived in the communion of Christ in his body the Church. Such is the witness of both Peter and Paul seen as complementary in their witness to Christ and his Church.

All this runs counter to the nihilism of our age, to a felt sense of emptiness and futility, and to the attempts to make something ourselves out of the emptiness of ourselves in the ideological agendas of our day. They rightly signal a sense of despair and anger and outrage at the various forms of human injustice and suffering but wrongly think that the answers lie within ourselves and the projects of our own sense of righteousness and action. This inevitably leads to self-righteousness and division and discontent; in short, the very nihilism which we think we can overcome in ourselves. It is the very air you breathe today, the American writer Flannery O’Connor observes. “If you live today, you breath in nihilism,” she says. And so we do unless, unless, we breathe in the words of Christ and let his word rule in our hearts and minds.

That is the purpose of the Church in the proclamation of the Gospel and the cure of souls, the counter to the emptiness of our lives apart from God in Christ. Throughout this week in the morning offices, we have been reading Proverbs with its constant and repeated, though varied, refrains about the wisdom of God seen in contrast to the folly and emptiness of our lives.

Our vocation is about catching one another in the net of Christ’s love in whatever form of worldly labour. Whatever form of calling or life we are in, we are called to our life with one another in love and faith. It is the counter to our nihilism and despair. What that means is illustrated in the Gospel in two ways: first, Simon Peter’s fiat mihi, his “at thy word,” the complement to Mary’s “be it unto me according to thy word”; and secondly, in the confession of our own limitations and sinfulness as expressed by Simon Peter. In the face of the abundant grace of Christ, he does not presume upon himself and his advantage but recognises instead his sinfulness. “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.”

This is to say more or less the same as Paul says in the readings from Romans this week: “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”(Rom. 3.23) Yet our unfaithfulness, our sinfulness, as he says does not “nullify the faithfulness of God” (Rom. 3.3). It is actually in the awareness of our sinfulness that we are being turned to God. God makes our way to him through our sins and follies. Such is the Cross, such is redemption, “redire ad principia, a kind of circling, our returning back to him from whom we have turned away in our sins” (Andrewes).

What that means is signalled here in terms of sanctification: “Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts,” Peter tells us in the Epistle. “At thy word I will let down the net,” he tells us in the Gospel, but only to discover that “henceforth thou shalt catch men.” It is really all about our being caught up in the net of Christ’s love.

“From henceforth thou shalt catch men”

Fr. David Curry
Trinity V (Petertide) 2024