“Beaten on his own turf”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Thursday, May 8, 2025
Luke 5: 1-11 (Forward, p. 10) CEV p. 1061
A person doesn’t usually expect to be surprised, thrown for a loop, with something that is very familiar. For instance, farmer or gardeners might well be surprised if something grew up in their fields or gardens that had never been there before, and which the ‘experts’ said simply couldn’t happen because of climate or soils or other such thing. So then, just consider how surprised, and astounded, Peter and his colleagues would have been with the miraculous catch of fish they’d hauled in at Jesus’ bidding. After all, they’d fished all night and caught nary a thing. And here, Jesus tells them to try again—at the worst possible time of the day! I mean, this was Peter’s speciality, his livelihood of many years running. And what did they catch, but a draught of fish so large that it tore their nets and threatened to swamp their boats. No wonder the four partners were overwhelmed, and in Peter’s case, humbled. Here, he felt, was something far beyond normal human doing, normal human comprehension. He felt himself to now be in the presence of ‘the holy’.
I have often wondered just what it ‘took’ for these four fishermen to leave all, nets, ships, and family to follow Jesus and ‘bring in’ people instead of fish. Interestingly, we know that Peter and Andrew, for two, had already met Jesus back at the Jordan River (see John 1:40-42), and so they’d already, perhaps, had time to think about it. Maybe it was just this act of the miraculous that ‘put them over the top’ and made them decide to follow Jesus.
What this says to me is to pose a question, namely, what is it that might ‘put us over the time’, in terms of deciding to follow Jesus? The answer is probably as diverse as the number of people on earth. For some, it might well be the miraculous, for others, simple logic, and for others, some moving event in their lives (a birth or a death perhaps, or maybe some phenomenon in the out-of-doors). Actually, it doesn’t matter what; just
simply that it happens. And to be honest, it needs to happen repeatedly, day by day and moment by moment. That’s how often we need to acknowledge Him as Lord and decide to follow Him, for it needs to be lived and lived always. Thanks be to God.
Forward notes: “Then Jesus said to Simon, ‘Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.’ When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him (verses 10b-11).
“My grandfather, John, was an avid fisherman and sailor. He grew up surrounded by lakes and moved to Long Island as an adult. Boats and the culture that surrounds them were constants in his life. When the weather allowed, he spent much of his free time sailing on the Great South Bay or making his way up and down the Connetquot River. When he wasn’t out sailing or fishing, he built model boats, studied the art of sailing, and did maintenance on his boat. While he may have been employed as an engineer, he was first and foremost a sailor. It took him years of work to become the sailor he was.
“Simon spent his whole life learning to be a fisherman before he met Jesus. He spent the rest of his life learning to live into his new vocation. Jesus seeks each of us out. He calls each of us by name, and we are continually and irresistibly transformed.“
Moving Forward: “When Jesus calls you by name, what is he saying? Are you listening?