Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish you just caught.”
So Simon Peter went over and dragged the net ashore
full of one hundred fifty-three large fish.
John 21:10-11
Every time I read a passage about
Saint Peter– and I have read and preached on them many, many times since I was
pastor of Saint Peter Mission Church in Monticello – I chuckle to myself. Good
old Saint Peter has to be one of the biggest “people pleasers” in all of
Scripture. He is always kissing up to Jesus and then proceeding to fall on his
face. You have to love this bumbling old fisherman, who had an almost
insatiable desire to please Jesus whom he obviously loved so very much.
Peter would have made a great clown
for kids. I am sure kids back then loved him because you can’t help laughing at
his antics, and nowhere are those antics more obvious than in the gospel
stories about him.
First, his name was originally
“Simon.” It was Jesus who gave him the nickname “Peter,” meaning “Rock.” I am
sure the other apostles might have thought that “Mr. Magoo,” “Marshmallow Man”
or "Rocky, the Loveable Clown" would have been more like it! He was
always rushing into delicate situations, bragging and making a scene and then
falling on his face at the end.
He and the other apostles, in one
gospel, are out on a lake in a storm. They are struggling at the oars against
the huge waves trying to get to shore, when all of a sudden, they look up and
see Jesus walking on the water toward them. Peter, as always, sticks his foot
in his mouth. “Lord, if it is really you, let me walk on the water toward you!”
Jesus invites him to get out of the boat and walk toward him. Peter, out of the
boat, out into deep water and high winds, begins to sink. “Lord, help me! I’m
going to drown!” Jesus reached out and rescued him at the last minute.
Then there was the day when Jesus
was teaching people along the shore standing in one of Peter’s boats. When
Jesus finished teaching, he told Peter to put out into deep water and lower his
nets for a catch. Peter had quit for the day and was washing his nets in
preparation for putting them away. A little irritated that a professional
carpenter would tell him, a professional fisherman, how to fish, Peter speaks
up. “Lord, we have worked hard all night and caught nothing. We are just now
putting the nets away, but if you insist, we will do what you say.” Peter
started out by “humoring” Jesus and ended up with having to eat his words. When
Peter raised the nets, they held so many fish that they were tearing the nets –
enough fish to fill two boats.
Another time, Jesus had just told
his disciples that they must forgive one another. When Jesus finished
speaking, imagining that another chance to impress Jesus had presented itself,
good old Saint Peter springs into action. Peter knows well that the rabbis had
always taught that people needed to forgive three times. Peter gets out his
little mental adding machine and multiplies three by two and adds one for good
measure. Then he asks his question while answering it at the same time. “How
many times must we forgive? Seven times?” He obviously expected Jesus to say,
“Wow, Peter, how generous of you! You are better than the best! Seven times is way
beyond the call of duty! It is much more than is required!” You can almost see
his big eager grin slowly melt away when Jesus told him to forgive, not seven
times, but seventy times seven times - that is, forgiving without counting the
times.
At the transfiguration, after having
been through a powerful religious experience, Peter does not know how to handle
it except to open his big mouth and make the outrageous suggestion that it be
made permanent. “Wow, Jesus, this is so cool! Let’s set up tents and just stay
up here forever!” Jesus is forced to explain to Peter the whole purpose of their
peak experience was simply to strengthen them for the tough days ahead.
At the Last Supper when Jesus
approached Peter to wash his feet, overcome with humility, Peter began to
protest that he would never allow such a thing! When Jesus explained to him
that if he would not allow it, then he could never be a part of him, Peter threw
it in reverse! “Well, if that is true, then wash my hands and head as well!
Wash me all over – top to bottom!” With Peter, it was always an “all or
nothing” proposition.
When Jesus predicts that he will be
betrayed by one of his disciples, Peter jumps into the discussion to brag.
“Even if everyone else abandons you, I will never abandon you!” Not too much
later, after Jesus is arrested and the heat is on, Peter denies Jesus - not
once, not twice, but three times! “Jesus who? Woman, I don’t know who you are
talking about!”
Today we have the story of Peter out
fishing again after the resurrection. It is so typical of Peter. First, it
tells us that Peter was stripped to the waist so that he could haul the wet
nets back into his fishing boat. When he recognizes Jesus on the shore, he gets
so flustered that it says he puts his clothes on and jumps into the water to
swim toward Jesus standing on the shore. You can just imagine Peter dragging
himself out of the water with soggy clothes, dripping wet, and gushing with
enthusiasm.
Second, it tells us that when Jesus
asked Peter for some of the fish to put on the grill he had just fired up on
the beach, Peter runs back to the boat and drags the net to Jesus, dumping 153
large fish at his feet. You can almost hear him say breathlessly, “There! How’s
that? Is that enough? If not, I’ll be happy to go get some more!” Jesus,
knee-deep in fish, probably shook his head in laughter at Peter’s impulsive
need to please. Jesus, no doubt, saw the big heart inside his clumsy klutz of
an apostle, Peter!
Peter should give us all hope. He
always teaches us a lot about our relationship to God. Reading about him, I
have come to believe that God is more interested in our goodhearted attempts to
do the right thing than our many mistakes, that God wants a relationship with
us, not matter how rocky it might be!
I believe this is precisely why so
many people resonate with the famous prayer of Thomas Merton.
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not
see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where
it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that
I think I am following your will does not mean that I am
actually doing so. But I believe the desire to please you
does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all
I am doing. I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right
road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore, will I
trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the
shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
My friends! God wants a relationship with us, not after we
settle down, not after we are able to get it all right, but now, just as we are,
no matter what!
