Ridiculous

             One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, the people were crowding around him and listening to the word of God. He saw at the water’s edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat.

When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.”

 Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.”

 When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.

 When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon’s partners.

Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.” So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him. (Luke 5:1-11)

 

It’s hard not to like Peter, even when we (in our hindsight) often want to give his brain a solid manual reset. Let’s put this scene into perspective. Andrew introduced Peter to Jesus (John 1:40). The next day, Jesus called Phillip and Nathaniel as disciples (John 1:43-50). On the third day, they went to a wedding in Cana. (John 2:1) This either means the day after Jesus called Philip and Nathaniel or three days after He did so. He changed the water to wine, which John described as the first of Jesus’ signs through which He revealed His glory – His first miracle (John 2:11). After that, He went to Capernaum and stayed there for a few days. These few days are the earliest that Luke 5 can take place because the passage includes a miracle. It has to follow the wedding. This means the disciples had been hanging around with Jesus for at least four days, possibly as many as ten.

Jesus decided to preach, and his method of crowd control was to borrow a boat and get far enough from shore that the audience wouldn’t mob Him. We don’t know how long the sermon was, because people used to spend all day listening to a sermon, then go home and discuss it.

If the fish had been around, Peter wouldn’t have been available to Jesus. Not only had they not been “biting” but it was not the time of day to catch fish when Jesus started preaching. If He had preached long enough for it to be likely that the fish had returned, Peter would not have objected. When the sermon ended, it was still not a time of day when the fish would be around. If it were, Peter wouldn’t have said what he did.

But Jesus gave Peter a ridiculous task. It wasn’t the last one. He later (at Peter’s request) called Peter to walk on water. He asked the disciples (of whom Peter was one) to feed thousands of people, twice. He sent the disciples to cast out demons and heal the sick, twice. He called on Peter, James, and John to pray with Him -after a long day and a big meal at which Jesus talked about being betrayed and killed. And He asked Peter not only to care for His sheep. Later, He called Peter to kill and eat unclean animals and to visit unclean people. Eventually, He called Peter to suffer arrest, imprisonment, and death.           

This didn’t all happen in a week or two. It took years. God – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit – has demonstrated a marked tendency to call people to do ridiculous, impossible things: build an ark, tell Pharoah to “Let my people go,” parade around a city in silence for seven days, go up against an army with 300 men, go preach in Sin City (Ninevah,) marry an unfaithful woman, buy land before being taken away into exile, stay here and the ravens will bring you food…

I write this with “fear and trembling” because the obvious point is that we should expect God to call us to do ridiculous things. It’s one of the corollaries to Murphy’s Law, like “Don’t pray for patience.” If you write about God calling you to do ridiculous, impossible things, God is going to ask you to do something ridiculous or impossible.

And I can almost hear God asking, “Don’t you trust Me?”