Nets

A Sermon for the Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Today’s reading from the Gospel of Luke presents us with a moving and majestic spectacle: the Creator of the whole world, the beginningless God, the almighty, all-sovereign Giver of every breath, who became like us human beings in everything except sin—sitting in a fishing boat near the shore, in His humble, all-attractive simplicity—teaches the people who stand on the shore of the lake of Gennesaret in a countless throng[1]. Glory to the heavenly Teacher, who came in person to enlighten people who had gone astray and were perishing in the darkness of sin; but honor, too, to the people, who apparently appreciated the worth of such a Teacher and such teaching and followed after Him in many-thousand crowds to hear the word of God. May God grant that in our days, too, the hunger for the word of God not cease but increase; for the word of God is incorruptible food, by which human hearts are nourished and strengthened, and spiritual drink that quenches the thirst of the immortal soul, which, like a thirsting deer, strives toward the fountain of living water.

In today’s Gospel everything is instructive and edifying for us: the Lord’s command to Peter—to put out into the deep of the lake and cast down the nets for a catch; Simon Peter’s answer to the Lord; the miraculous catch that all but sank the boat; the terror of Peter and his companions at a catch such as had never been before, and because of their sense of the all-holy Divinity of Jesus and their feeling of their own sins; his humble entreaty to the Lord to depart from him, Simon; and the Lord’s answer to him: Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people; and, last of all, the self-renunciation of the disciples, their abandonment of all the rich catch, so pleasant and always so desirable to fishermen, and their irrevocable, unregretful following after the Savior. With God’s help, then, let us reflect on in what way and why all this is instructive and edifying, so that we too may in very truth gain benefit and edification from the word of God read today. Jesus Christ commands Peter to put out into the deep and cast down the nets, and Peter answers: Master! We labored all night and caught nothing; but at Your word I will cast down the net. In the Savior’s command the authority of the Creator over the creature is visible. The Lord knew that Peter and Andrew with their companions had fished all night and taken nothing, but, as God, He commands them to cast the net once more—only to cast it, leaving it to His divine power—to give a signal to the creatures living in the water—to fill the nets. And Peter obeys the Master’s command, although just before this he had had the trial of tormenting himself the whole night in the catch and taking nothing; and the fish, at a single signal from the Lord, instantly fill the nets, showing themselves obedient servants of Him whom in heaven the countless hosts of Angels serve with fear; and an evident miracle is wrought—the divine authority of Jesus Christ over the creatures is opened up before Peter’s eyes, together with His infinite holiness and His omniscience; and all his spiritual infirmities present themselves vividly to Peter, and in fear he falls at the knees of Him before whom every knee in heaven, on earth, and beneath the earth bows down[2], and says to Him: Depart from me, Lord! Because I am a sinful man. Who would not be moved to compunction of heart at this sight of the faithful disciple, fallen in fear at the knees of the Lord of glory and in an instant come to know the whole abyss of distance between the all-radiant, all-righteous Divinity and the insignificant creature creeping in earthly dust, sinful and guilty before God! Honor to Peter’s faith, to his obedience, his humility, his repentance! Let us also learn these virtues from him. But here, as everywhere, inexpressibly touching, tenderly moving, and beautiful is the bearing of the Lord—His majesty and at the same time His humility, His extreme condescension, which astonishes the Angels. Nor can I here refrain from crying out: Lord! How everywhere beneath the humble covering of Your humanity Your resplendent Divinity shines and enraptures me! Every word of Yours is divine, authoritative, life-giving, wondrous, just as Your deed is.

Here we are, in this church: we all now stand before the face of that same Lord Jesus Christ, present here invisibly, and visibly—in His life-giving Mysteries. Do we feel, do we touch with our hearts, that we are standing before His face; do we recognize and feel our infirmities and our sins as we stand before the face of God, as Peter felt them; do we acknowledge our own unworthiness, and do we have the saving thirst for amendment, the thirst to be sanctified by the grace of Christ, the thirst for the righteousness of God, for Christian perfection—for the glory of the children of God? Let us learn, then, not to come to the temple of the Lord in vain, but to stand in it with fear and with a sense of our unworthiness, humbly asking for mercy. But what did Jesus Christ answer Simon Peter when, in fear, he begged Him, his Lord, to depart from him? Do not be afraid,—the Lord said to him — from now on you will be catching men. This answer of the Lord is exceedingly instructive and edifying for us all. Here the Lord applies the catching of fish to the catching of men, and compares the one with the other. But while the catching of fish is clear to everyone at first glance, the catching of men by the apostles is, on the other hand, incomprehensible. Here, in these words of the Lord, there is evidently a parable. He often spoke in parables and, as it were, in riddles. This parable means the following: just as fishermen catch fish in the water with a net, or with a hook baited with food, or with a fish spear, so the devil, the enemy and destroyer of the human race, through various enticements or worldly passions, through the various nets set for us everywhere and, as it were, his hooks and his sharp instruments, catches us into sin and perdition, and wants to make all of us his prey and his food, to destroy us and to torment us for endless ages in his insatiable maw:—and, unhappily, he sometimes succeeds dreadfully well in his art of catching and destroying men through various worldly passions.

But the Lord Jesus Christ came to deliver people from the evil cunning and the greed of this fisher. He sent His fishers – the apostles – into all the world, having first taught them themselves the art of being uncatchable and invulnerable to the dread fisher; and also the art of catching people whom the devil had already caught in his world-encompassing net; and, just as the devil catches people for destruction, so the disciples of Christ were to snatch people out of his nets of destruction into eternal life through faith, repentance, amendment, and good deeds. And we know that the apostles, and after them their successors, the pastors and teachers, with the Gospel net – that is, by the saving Gospel teaching – have caught many straying people to salvation, and, having destroyed all the strength of the demons, have carried off and, as it were, wrenched human souls out of the devil’s very teeth as their prize; with the net of faith they have caught all the nations into the knowledge of Christ God. Now it is clear what the words of Jesus Christ to Peter mean: do not fear; from now on you will be catching men, – that is, with your net of the word, made by God, you will be taking people into faith in Me, teaching them repentance, My righteousness, and every virtue, and you will bring them to eternal life. Do not fear, that is, do not tremble, and do not think that I, the All-Righteous One, have come to punish sinners; I have come to save and to show mercy; for I alone know all the weakness of the human creature, I know that the terrible, deadly, foul-smelling scab of sin has covered all humanity, – that by the serpent’s evil cunning all the offspring of Adam are being drawn into perdition; I have come to help the weak, to help the powerless as One Who is strong, and sinners as One Who is All-Righteous; I have come to take upon Myself the sins of the world, to receive its infirmities, to bear its sicknesses; I have come to heal this malignant scab – and to restore to health, renew, fill with fragrance, and deify the humanity that believes in Me; I have come to set against the fisher of men for destruction, that is, the devil, Myself as the fisher for eternal life, and the All-powerful Spirit the Comforter, consubstantial with the Father and with Me; and to set against the demon hosts the host of the apostles and their successors and all My faithful ones. Do not fear, then: you from this time on will be catching men. I have come to implant in people not fear, but love.

Lord! Take us all up, too, into Your saving, divine net; and let not one of us become the prey and the food of the alien one; Savior, Yourself deal bountifully with us! Amen.