LECTIONARY READINGS
First reading: Isaiah 6:1-8
Responsorial Psalm: 137(138):1-5, 7-8
Second reading: 1 Corinthians 15:1-11
Gospel: Luke 5:1-11.
Link to readings
Luke’s Gospel, unlike those of Matthew (4:18-22) and Mark (1:16-20), defers the call of the first disciples until Jesus’ own ministry has got under way to this extent. In this way it allows Jesus to “model” the ministry for which they, as his “apprentices”, will be involved.
So, as we read in today’s Gospel, the call comes to Peter (5:1-11) in the context of Jesus’ preaching to a crowd eagerly pressing around him to hear the word of God. Peter helps Jesus by allowing him to use his boat to avoid the crush of the crowd. One has the impression that Peter himself is not even listening to the sermon. He’s busy about his fisherman’s task of washing the nets.
PROFOUND CONVERSION
But Jesus has further plans for Peter. He doesn’t call him immediately to a new way of life but challenges him precisely in his own area of expertise: catching fish. Peter resists – perhaps thinking to himself, “What does this fellow know about fishing?”. Eventually he does go along with Jesus’ instruction to put out and try for a catch. The catch of immense proportions that results, where all night there had been no fish, becomes for Peter a sign of the presence and power of God. The conversion he undergoes is profound: “Leave me, Lord; I am a sinful man”.
In this connection we can appreciate the aptness of associating with this gospel the First Reading set down for today, the call of the prophet Isaiah (Isa 6:1-8). Confronted with a sense of the presence and holiness of God in the sanctuary of the Temple, the prophet becomes aware of his own sinfulness and inadequacy. He knows God and he knows himself. It is a moment of painful and deep conversion: “I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips”. Precisely at the moment of this realisation he receives healing as an angel purifies his lips with a live coal taken from the altar. There follows his own prophetic mission: “Whom shall I send?”…. “Here I am, send me”.
DO NOT BE AFRAID
The call of Peter told in the Gospel follows this pattern closely. It is just when Peter recognises that he is confronted with the presence of God in Jesus, when he owns his own sinfulness and unworthiness to be associated with him (“Leave me, Lord, ...”), that the call comes to him: “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people”. Only those who has plumbed the depths of their own sinfulness and unworthiness, who have come to “know” both God and themselves in this way, are apt to be servants of the healing and life-giving word.
The boats overladen with fish – too many not only for Peter’s boat but for “the other boat” as well – become symbolic of the Church. Founded on the ministry of Peter and the other apostles, and obedient to the command of Jesus, the Church will brim with “fish” caught for the Kingdom.
The actual Greek word Luke uses for “catching” bears some examination. When people catch fish, whether for livelihood or for leisure, the fish necessarily end up dead. Luke seems to be sensitive to this negative implication in the “fishing” image. So, in moving from the everyday sense of “fishing” to the symbolic sense that applies to the mission of Jesus, he employs a special term, zogrein, that means “catch alive”. It is used in connection with the catching of wild animals not for killing but for keeping in some protected way, like netting fish for an aquarium or fishpond. The language wonderfully conveys the sense of “capturing” people with the word and bringing them to the more abundant life of the kingdom of God.
WITNESSING THE RESURRECTION
The Second Reading, 1 Cor 15:1-11, as is usually the case, stands apart from all this. In fact, it can be seen as the most important passage in the New Testament since it provides the earliest bedrock foundation for faith in Christianity’s central tenet: the resurrection. In the face of some at Corinth who have either forgotten or fallen away from the belief in the resurrection in which he had instructed them, Paul recalls that teaching. He quotes what seems to be a very early Christian creed that lists in order all the key witnesses to the resurrection. At the end he locates himself – the most unexpected witness of all. His life had been going in the very opposite direction, he was actually a persecutor of the Church, when, as he says elsewhere, Christ “captured me” (Phil 3:12). The risen Lord appeared to a variety of witnesses at different times and occasions. But, as Paul says, what resulted was a common conviction and a common witness: “what I preach, they preach, and this is what you all believe” (v. 11).