Paul Walker, “The Deepest Need”

When you get asked to do the last thing you want to do, you rarely do it happily. Especially when you are tired and see no point in doing what is asked of you. And you feel like you know a lot more about what is being asked than the person asking. You usually make up excuses, don’t you? “We’ve tried this before and it didn’t work. You don’t realize everything that is involved. I just can’t do this right now.”

     Such must have been the case for Peter and his fishing crew in today’s gospel reading from Luke.  I want to focus on 2 responses that Peter gives Jesus in this passage, sticking closely to the text, using illustrations provided by the episode. I believe there is a very interesting segue between the two.

      Peter’s first response comes after he’d been fishing all night long. He’d been skunked – no fish. He was on shore washing his fishing nets. Jesus, pressed by the crowd and needing more room, stepped onto Peter’s boat and asked him to shove away from the shore so he could preach. This must have been a little irritating for Peter. As a fisherman myself, I’ve heard that when you get skunked you are not in the greatest mood. At least, that is what my friend, Tommy, tells me!

     After His sermon, Jesus tells Peter (not asks Peter) tells Peter to “put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” Here, I’ve got to tell you a little about the kind of fishing people did in Jesus’ time. He isn’t asking Peter just to cast a different kind of fly or use a switch up his rods. So much more was involved.

     Peter would have used trammel nets. Trammel nets were large and heavy, requiring 2 men to use. They were woven with so that fish would swim through cords of descending size until they were caught. People fished at night so that the fish couldn’t see the nets. And the nets had to be thoroughly cleaned and mended each morning. Fishing was laborious and painstaking requiring long hours and maximum effort. And when you came up empty, that meant your pocket book would be empty too.

     So, when Jesus the carpenter tells Peter the fisherman to put out into the deep water, Peter would have had to go back to the shore, get his partner, load the nets he’d just cleaned and mended. He must have been exhausted because he’d been up working all night. And he knew that there were no fish to be caught!

     He could have (should have?) said, “I’m tired since I worked all night.” Or, “You can’t use a trammel net during the day because the fish see the net.” “You know how to build a table or preach a sermon, but you don’t know a fool thing about fishing.” Instead, he says, "Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets."

     Peter just “knew” this was a hopeless venture. Can’t you relate? Isn’t there something, someone that you just know is hopeless? You’ve toiled and toiled and toiled and come up empty? And yet, what did Peter find out? What he was sure he knew, he didn’t know.  

     That’s because Jesus was in his boat. They caught so many fish that the nets were about to break. They caught so many fish that he had to call the sons of Zebedee to bring their boat over to pile the fish into. And even then, there were so many fish that the boats almost sunk. The boats were probably 25 feet long and 7 feet wide. How many thousands of fish would fit in two of these boats? So. the first takeaway from this story is this: In a hopeless situation, what you think you know you don’t know. That is because Jesus is in your boat. And with Jesus in your boat, you have no clue what is going to happen.

     So, after this absurd haul of fish – which, by the way, would have had dollar signs shining in Peter’s eyes – what does Peter say and do? The text says “he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!" That is the second thing I want to focus on today. “Depart from me for I am a sinful man.”

     As a Jew, Peter would have been taught that no one can come into the presence of God and survive. Some Jewish sources have reported that the High Priest, entering behind the curtain in the temple to the Holy of Holies to make sacrifices for the sins of the people, would have had a rope tied to his leg in case he died so that his assistant could pull him out. So, when Peter rightly recognizes Jesus’ power over the creatures of the sea, He gets worried. He’d seen Jesus heal his mother-in-law, (which he may or may not have been happy about!) But he wasn’t prepared for this display of power and authority.

     “Depart from me for I am a sinful man.” There is so much to say about Peter’s response. He could have said lots of other things, couldn’t he? Like – “Wow, Jesus, You should come fishing with us more often!” And as I said, he had to have been thinking about his financial windfall. After one quick morning’s work, he could afford a new boat, new nets, and a new wing on his house. And his life would become much easier too! Instead of working all night, He could just take Jesus out for a few hours in the morning and be on easy street.

     But instead, Peter tells Jesus to leave and not to come back again. Even after he’d been given everything he’d been working for. Why? Because Peter must have known that our deepest need isn’t all the things we think we need – success, security, renown. Our deepest need is absolution – the forgiveness of our sins.  Remember that scripture teaches that sin isn’t just what we do; sin is who we are. And, as we read in Romans, “the wages of sin is death.”

     Somehow Peter knew that this carpenter in his boat was also the Lamb of God who takes away his sin, and the sin of the world. That’s why he left everything to help spread this message of absolution. Maybe they used the money from the haul of fish to support the mission? Who knows, but what was true then is true for you right now – your deepest need is forgiveness.

     “Depart from me for I am a sinful man.”  Jesus didn’t depart from him. He did the opposite – overturning the religious rules of the day and coming to sinners. Eating with them, drinking with them, being with them. In the end, it was Peter who departed from Jesus. He fled when Jesus was arrested in the Garden of Gesthemane. Three times, he denied any acquaintance with this man who gave him the biggest fish haul of his life. And Peter was nowhere near the hill of Calvary where Jesus was crucified for his sins, your sins, my sins, the sins of the world.

     I’ve said that what we are sure we know about situations in life, we really don’t know. Not with Jesus in the boat. But what we can know is this. On the cross, He has addressed our deepest need. You are absolved. You are forgiven.

     Amen.