Scripture readings for the Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time:
Isaiah 6:1-2a, 3-8
Psalm 138:1-2, 2-3, 4-5, 7-8
1 Corinthians 15:1-11 or 1 Corinthians 15:3-8, 11
Luke 5:1-11
What’s remarkable, said St. John Henry Newman, about this story from Luke, is Peter’s “instant obedience.” Really, it’s remarkable Peter was obedient at all, that he would have given Jesus even the time of day. It is indeed something when you stop to think about it; we should probably just call it miraculous.
Think about it. Here’s the story: Jesus is preaching by the Lake of Gennesaret when he sees two boats that had come in from a long night of fruitless fishing. The crew, undoubtedly exhausted, were washing their nets and probably just wanted to go home when this preacher comes who sets himself inside one of the boats.
“Put out into the deep and lower your nets for a catch,” Jesus says. An astounding thing to say, Jesus doesn’t seem even to acknowledge all the failed hard work they had already done; he doesn’t seem even to acknowledge their past at all. He just gets in their boat and basically says, “Let’s go fishing.”
I’ve always wondered at the near absurdity of the scene – of a preacher telling fishermen what to do. It’s like if I were to walk into a doctor’s office or a lawyer’s office and immediately start telling her or him how to practice medicine or law. What does a carpenter-turned-preacher know about fishing? Who’s he to tell these fishermen what to do? You see what I mean? It’s a scene that could pass for comedy.
But it’s the near absurdity of the scene that underlines the exceptional quality of Peter’s reply. I mean, instead of saying something like, “Carpenter, what do you know? Get out of my boat!” he says, “but at your command I will lower the nets.” That’s what impressed Newman, what he called “instant obedience.”
Peter didn’t dismiss Jesus out of hand even though doing so would have on the surface been perfectly sensible; rather, he obeyed Jesus. He faithfully followed Jesus’ss command. And, of course, what followed, Luke is sure to report, was clearly miraculous: “When they had done this, they caught a great number of fish, and their nets were tearing” (Luke 5:1-11). That is, Peter’s obedience paid off.
But the lesson is about obedience, not abundance. At least, the lesson is that obedience must come first. Later in Luke, Jesus will put would-be disciples to the same test. “Let me go first and bury my father,” one will answer. “Let me say farewell to my family at home,” another will say. Jesus’s answers to these almost-disciples seem to us harsh, but the spiritual point is nonetheless clear. “Let the dead bury their dead. But you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God,” he says to one; and to the other he says, “No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:59-62).
Whatever we think of Jesus’s answers here, whether we wished he were gentler, it is what it is; Jesus does indeed make these kinds of demands, Luke is telling us. Which again, that’s the lesson; and it’s the question: Are we okay with a Jesus who not infrequently demands obedience like that?
Remember, we are in the early weeks of Ordinary Time, which, as I’ve said before, is a season of following. We have only just begun our walk with Jesus, a pilgrimage that will lead us all the way to Calvary. And for me, it just makes sense that early on in this journey, the Church would give us a story about obedience. It’s like the Church is telling us that if we really want to follow Jesus, if we want to do more than merely hear the story, then we must do what Peter did – and that’s to practice obedience sometimes even against our better sense.
But, of course, these days obedience is not an altogether popular virtue. Even many Christians today don’t quite know what to make of it. But that doesn’t mean it’s no longer a necessary virtue; in fact, its absence among us may explain so much of today’s bad Christianity. Perhaps we’ve all become but a gaggle of willful individualists and less a communion of servants who glory in their obedience to God and neighbor. Maybe that’s what’s gone wrong; I don’t know. Maybe that’s too harsh; maybe I’m only telling you about myself.
Whatever the case, I think there is deep wisdom and spiritual opportunity in this story about Peter’s obedience – a lesson I need to learn, each of us perhaps. St. Benedict wrote in his Rule that “unhesitating obedience…comes naturally to those who cherish Christ above all.”
That, I think, is simply true. Thus, the questions are blunt: Where am I disobedient? Why am I disobedient? Is it because I think I know better? Is it because I refuse to let Jesus get into my boat or walk into my office or my home and tell me anything? Where in my life do I need to be obedient to Jesus? These are hard questions. But they’re questions each Christian will have to ask and answer at some point. Because, to be honest, are we really following Jesus at all until we do?
Father Joshua J. Whitfield is pastor of St. Rita Catholic Community in Dallas and author of “The Crisis of Bad Preaching” (Ave Maria Press, $17.95) and other books.
