Fish and Chips for the Soul

Always remember, you are unique and individual. Just like everyone else.

So, every morning, I wake up, have a cup of coffee, and do a thing I like to call '20's in 20 minutes'. This pretty much composes of me reading through the daily scripture readings, and then summarising my thoughts on the readings in a small number of words. I then e-mail my summary to one of my mates up in Sydney, who then e-mails me back his summary.

Today, I'm trying something new. Instead of sending my mate an e-mail with my reflection, I'll be sending him a link to the URL of this blog. What a lucky guy!
A couple of reasons why I'll be doing this:

1. Because today, and today only, I'll be posting my reflection on my blog.
2. Because I like change
3. Because Sam French is currently my only reader, and I think its time to expand the blog by doubling the number of readers. Don't take it personally, Sam. I still love you. Its just that there's sooo much of me available to go around, and I wanna share it with one more person.

Anyhow. Let's begin.

Now, today's gospel (Lk 5:1-11), is the one where some guy named Simon Peter and his mates were fishing on a boat, but catching nothing. So Jesus gets them to lower their nets in a different spot, and when they do, Simon and his mates catch fish in abundance.

This gospel reading (as with all other gospel readings) is very well known. Famous, you could say. So, as I began reading it, I thought 'Oh, this reading! I already know it well'. And my short term arrogance caused me to just skim through the reading at first, and miss all meaning. UNTIL...
I skimmed over the Jesus' final statement to Simon in the reading.

'Do not be afraid; from now on it is people you will be catching.'

This line really caught my eye. I took an evangelistic meaning from the line, and decided to re-read the Gospel from Simon's perspective with this new meaning at heart. It really amazed me at how different  it was reading it the second time around. As I was reading it, a couple of things stood out to me:

'Put out into deep water and pay out your nets for a catch.' (Jesus)

'Master, we worked hard all night long and caught nothing... ' (Simon)

Now, being a YMTeamie, I really enjoyed reading this Gospel, and relating my Team life to that of Simon in the reading. Imagine being up all night, fishing for fish, but catching absolutely nothing. I know that if it was me, I would be soo burnt out and pissed off. And I can imagine that a lot of other people would feel the same way too. So, I'm guessing that Simon and his mates in the Gospel today would have been feeling really shitty the next morning when they docked on shore with nothing to show for a rough nights work.
Anyway, so, imagine you've been up all night on your fishing boat, working your ass off for nothing. You decide to give up at dawn, and head for shore. You get there, and there's a massive mosh pit of people swarming over to the port near you to listen to the Pope teach about Catholicism. Now, imagine how you would feel if the Pope decided to hop in to your fishing boat with you. Personally, I reckon I would pass out due to an overload of his awesomeness.
Anyway, assuming that you haven't passed out from his sheer awesomeness, the Pope asks you to take him out a little from the shore. You paddle out, and realise that you've anchored in the exact same spot that you were at during the night when you were attempting to catch fish, but caught nothing. Personally, if this happened to me, I'd be feeling a little put off by the remembrance of catching nothing.
Anyway, imagine you've just anchored the boat there, when the Pope walks up to you and asks you to chuck your nets in the water and get ready to catch fish.

Now, I'm gonna stop there. If this really happened to me, and I hadn't passed out from the Pope's sheer awesomeness yet, I would be soooooooo pissed off at this stage. Pope or no Pope, this guy has just asked me to go paddle out to the place where I was tirelessly and unsuccessfully fishing all night, and not only that, he actually asks me to start catching fish? Who does he think he is! I mean, I was just there at that exact spot half an hour ago working my ass off, and was able to catch jack shit. Even though I would most likely listen to the Pope and give a final fishing attempt, I'd be pretty fairly certain in my heart that there would be absolutely NO fish in the area. My arrogance and pride would get in the way of the truth.
It sure is a good thing Simon didn't stop in though. Imagine how different the meaning of the reading would be if Simon decided to not listen to Jesus and just give up.

'Master, we worked hard all night long and caught nothing, but if you say so, I will pay out the nets.'

Now, as I was reflecting on this reading the third time, I related it to my personal life and life on Team.
Do we sometimes feel that all our efforts and tireless work are remaining futile? I know I do. On Team Ministry Days, we run activities that theoretically should be educating and engaging kids, yet the kids usually seem to not respond with enthusiasm. We live a seemingly radical lifestyle in order to be witnesses and to advocate the message of Christ, yet the majority of mainstream society is generally going in the opposite direction to us. We speak against the corruption of the media, yet nothing in the media seems to be changing fot the better. Nothing seems to be making a difference. We dont even get to see the fruits of our labour, which sometimes results in us doubting weather there are fruits at all.

Yet Jesus, our loving father, keeps telling us to 'put out into deep water'. And all we can do is trust. Trust, and, like Simon in today's Gospel, not give up. Like Simon and his mates, we can sometimes think that we are experts on the things we do, and our arrogance can have us consider nothing else.

'Do not be afraid'

It can be extremly humbling to go against our every human instinct and listen to someone we can't physically see. But, all we have to do is trust in the Lord, who knows more that we can imagine. Trust, and our nets will catch 'such a huge number of fish that they begin to tear'.