I am running a nursing home for dogs. Old Benjamin, our chocolate lab, is now 15 years old. He has two tumors, one under each armpit. He has warts, arthritis and hip dysplasia. Each morning, at about 4 a.m., Ben shuffles across the floor of the hallway, huffing and puffing. I hear him start to move and I have the most awful thoughts, lying there in my warm bed. It’s as if a demon takes over my mind. Talk about a bad mood, it’s all that I can do not to murder that old dog.
We can do awful things when we are in a bad mood. We blame our behavior on exhaustion, our mood swings. But does our exhaustion give us the excuse to be awful?
When I was 18. I had my wisdom teeth removed. When I came to from the anesthetic, my head was pounding and I felt exhausted. My mother was so happy that I had awakened, that she started to chatter. It was probably nerves on her part, but she just wouldn’t stop yapping. I could not speak, so I put my hand over her mouth. That didn’t stop her, she didn’t even seem to notice. Maybe she thought that I was delusional or something, so she kept on chatting and chatting, like knives in my head. So I punched her in the face.
It was the first and last time that I have hit my mother.
Peter was absolutely exhausted. He had been fishing all night. That’s how you fish on the Sea of Galillee, because the fish prefer to rise when its cool, in the evening. During the heat of the day, the fish go deeper to escape the heat. The water is fresh, for the Sea of Galilee is really a large lake, stretching 13 miles in circumference and no deeper than 150 feet at the bottom. So Peter and James and John would set out in their boats and dusk and spend the night throwing heavy nets of rope into the sea and then hauling them out again.
Sometimes they would make a good haul by midnight and could go home. There they could sleep, wake at dawn to sell some of their fish. But not tonight. Over and over again, they threw their nets into the fresh, clean water of the lake. Over and over again, they hauled in those heavy nets only to find dirt and weeds. They were soaked. They were exhausted and frustrated. By the time that the sun came up, they must have been mad. I would have been.
Once the night was over, you could not just go home and go to sleep. Fishermen had to clean their nets. Those ropes and knots would get covered with dirt and weeds. It was messy, back-breaking work. And all they wanted to do was sleep.
So there they were, washing their nets by the shore of the sea, when Jesus appeared. Jesus was surrounded by a great crowd, as usual. People kept moving closer to him, wanting to hear him, wanting him to touch them. Their desire to be near him caused him to seek a place where he could speak to them all. And what place would be better than the shore, where the water reflects sound and where Jesus could step out into a boat, get some space, and compose his words.
Jesus climbed into Peter’s boat. I imagine that Peter’s back was hurting, as he bent down and tried to remove the weeds and rocks from his net. Next thing he knew Jesus was standing in his boat. “Would you put this boat out a little bit from the shore?” he asked.
Peter obeyed. He did not say, ‘Hey! That’s my boat! Get out!”
He did not say, “Get your own boat! I’m too tired.”
No, he simply obeyed.
Jesus began to teach from the boat. There was nothing recorded in Luke about what he said. I wonder if Peter could even hear him, or maybe Peter was nodding off in the boat, as he now had been awake all night. Maybe he had that leaden feeling that comes over your limbs when you are sleep deprived and he was just fighting to keep his eyes open.
After Jesus finished teaching, he told Peter to go out into the deep water and let down his nets for a catch. Peter didn’t want to do it. “Master,” he said, “We have worked all night long but have caught nothing…But if you say so, I will let down the nets.”I know that kind of a sentence. The guilt trip kind. “Sure, I will do the dishes. I have been cleaning for hours and hours….But if you say so.”
Oh, how I love Peter! He is constantly putting his foot in his mouth, complaining or saying the wrong thing. You can just hear the implications in his words, “Master, you don’t know how to fish. We have been at it all night…This is ridiculous!” Peter must have been thinking about the fact that he had just cleaned his nets! Now he was going to have to clean them all over again. What a pain.
So he threw those clean nets over the side of the boat one more time. And the fish rose. When Peter tried to haul in the nets, he could not lift them. He called to his friends James and John, the Sons of Zebedee, and together they hauled in nets so full of fish that they were about to break. Never had he seen anything like this before! It was enough fish for a month, for more than that! The boats were so full that they were about to sink. Peter had never seen so many fish, so much abundance. It took his breath away.
When they get to shore, Peter falls down on his knees and he cries out to Jesus Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!
Peter was overwhelmed by the fact that he, in his stupidity and his exhaustion, almost disobeyed this incredible teacher. He began to catch a glimpse of who Jesus was, and he realized what a mess he is in comparison. Peter’s words are so much like many of the great Christian prayers. Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner. Why do we berate ourselves in the face of Jesus? Because when we see God face to face, our petty exhaustions and mundane moods seem so trivial, so stupid. We recognize how broken we are in the face of God. It comes at the same time, the recognition that God is so great and we are such a mess in comparison.
You should not be with me, Peter says. You are too good for me.
But Jesus says, “Don’t be afraid. For now you will be fishing people.”
Don’t be scared or worried or fearful, just come with me. I will show you the way.
I am amazed by how Jesus asked Peter to fish before he asked Peter to do anything else. Why didn’t he just invite Peter to come with him? Why not simply teach Peter about God? No, the first thing that Jesus does is to ask Peter to do once more that which he has done all of his life. The first thing that Jesus does is call Peter to the mundane, the every day, the ordinary. And Jesus makes the ordinary extraordinary.
Most of us believe that to follow God’s will means to do something magnificent, to travel to exotic lands, to start a homeless shelter, to feed thousands or impact the world in some grand way. But Jesus called the founder of the church by simply asking him to fish. When he was exhausted, when his back was aching and his brain was fuzzy, Jesus asked just one more thing. “Get your nets dirty,” he said. “Do it one more time…for me.”
It makes me realize that God calls us powerfully in the day to day inconsequential things just much as God calls us to lofty tasks. God calls us to fix dinner for our loved ones, to get up in the middle of the night to comfort a child. God calls us to give a ride to an elderly neighbor, to help clean the house. God calls me to get out of bed and help my old dog make is way outside.
How strange it is to think that if Peter had not been obedient in the small things, he might never have been a disciple. Even though he was tired and overwhelmed and hungry and moody. Even though he didn’t want to do it and he dragged himself into the boat. Even though he argued and complained. Yet Jesus still called. And look what happened to Peter. From lowly fisherman, he became the rock upon which the church was built. The Bishop of all bishops, the founder of all that we hold dear.
Don’t forget that discipleship begins in the mess of life, with the simple act of being obedient.
