I have met many people involved in the
fishing industry over the years. People
who get up at 3:00 am to
set lobster traps, people who worked in processing plants, investors, mongers
and their families. I have respect for
each one. The fishers who encounter
Jesus in our Gospel lesson are a people who fish, not for the love of it, or
the sport of it – they fish to survive. If
they catch no fish they go hungry and so too their families. But this story, a living parable, is not
really about fishing at all.
The last thing a group of hardworking
fishers want to do, after a long night of futile fishing is to cast their nets
one more time. Yet, upon the instruction
of Jesus they do, and not only do they catch fish, their nets burst with
abundance. They have fish to eat, fish
to sell and fish to dry.
One moment they feared walking home to
hungry wives and children; now, the walk home was to the busy excitement of a
bigger than usual catch. That day, for a
few fishers, life was not just something to be survived but celebrated as
abundant.
The fish in the story represent
abundance. As a people of Christ we are
to recognize the abundance of joy, forgiveness, mercy and love that comes to us
through Jesus. Not only that, we are
expected to tell others to cast their nets and receive the same abundance.
Parishes (like ours) would be well
served to celebrate what we have, rather than lamenting what we don’t have. Not only is it simply more fun that way, but
we are more likely to catch more people too.
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