The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Luke. (5:1-11)
The Lord wanted to do a great miracle in the life of St. Peter, who in today’s gospel is called Simon. He was often called Simon Peter. This miracle that the Lord wanted to do was not for the sake of Peter. It was also for the sake of the other disciples who would come to believe. But it was not merely for Peter or for those other disciples. The miracle was meant to be a blessing for all people. How so? Through this miracle of the great catch of fish, the disciples would begin to understand that the One whom they were listening to, the One whom they followed was no mere man but something greater. They would be convinced that He is the anointed one, the Messiah. They would be convinced that their lives and their mission and purpose should in fact change in light of this knowledge.

Our Lord began this special event on that morning by sitting down in Simon Peter’s boat and beginning to teach the people. First he fed the people with His word. Later He would feed them with a great catch of fish, more than any of them had ever seen in their lives. But there is an order to things. The first is the word of God, the teaching of Our Lord who is Himself the Word of God. First they receive spiritual food and later, they will receive physical food. Likewise this is the pattern for each of us if we want to have a balanced life in Christ. Each of us starts the day with overwhelming hunger. Not hunger for a bacon egg and cheese biscuit (although those are very nice). Starting with a hunger for the word of God, for the reading of scripture. And this daily reading, even 5-10 minutes, even one chapter of the gospels, is a light for us in the middle of darkness. Those short minutes set a compass for our hearts and minds throughout the day. We waste so much time. We aren’t ashamed that we spend days of our life scrolling through nonsense, but then we say that we have no time left for the Word. But our lives are an open book before the Lord.

Even in the case of the disciples they spent the whole night working and sweating and they probably wished they had been asleep in their beds, near their families, but instead they worked. Yet at the end of the work, they had nothing to show for it. “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing!” You can hear their frustration. Yet after all of their hard work, even they gained nothing. In a way this is true in the grand scheme of life. You work hard and afterwards, it’s gone. A mother works all day to clean the home and the next day they find that the kids have undone all the work. A man works hard to become wealthy and then he passes from this life and he finds that all of his work evaporated as his soul departed from his body. He couldn’t take any of it with him. So he enters into eternity in the same state as when he entered into the world as an infant. He is broke.

But something has the potential to be different and that is the wealth of the soul. My soul can be full of unlimited treasures. Likewise, in our lives we are often like the fisherman, toiling, working, sweating, slaving away to get by. Some days it feels like nothing is going right. Yet the Lord was actually preparing the disciples for something better. He uses these difficulties and trials to prepare our hearts for something greater, for Himself!

Had the fishermen been successful all night, perhaps they would have had little need for the Lord. Perhaps they would have felt no deep hunger or pain. But here they are, listening intently as they are frustrated and tired and questioning themselves. And now the Lord, after speaking and softening their hearts and preparing them, makes a request that might have been more than they could handle at that moment. “Put out into the deep and let your nets down for the catch.” You can hear their frustration through the words of Peter “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing!” But we can also see their humility, “But at Thy word I will let down the nets.” They are frustrated and exhausted, but they are humble and obedient. God rewarded their obedience. Our Church fathers have so much to say about the topic of obedience. Here is one example: St. Maximos the Confessor writes, “Just as the result of disobedience is sin, so the result of obedience is virtue. And just as disobedience leads to breaking the commandments and to separation from Him who gave them, so obedience leads to keeping the commandments and to union with Him who gave them.” St. Maximus the Confessor, Philokalia, 2nd century on Theology

Obedience was a starting point for the calling of the disciples. The Lord picked a moment when they should in fact be most irritable and least likely to cooperate, and yet, they did cooperate (perhaps under the leadership and example of Peter). In cooperating with the Lord they were accepting an invitation to draw near to Him. He gave them an opportunity that anyone in their right might would jump at, but they didn’t know it at that moment. It was hidden behind something that looked difficult, even annoying. What difficult things might God be calling us to in our own lives? What is God asking us to do that might feel like it is beyond our abilities or strengths?

My brothers and sisters, you will have many day when your life feels like Peter did after catching no fish. When you are at your wits end. Start those days by preparing your hearts with the word of God. And since you don’t know which days will be like this particular day, then you have to prepare your hearts for this every single day! And be prepared to obey whatever the Lord tells you in your heart and in your conscience. Don’t silence that quiet voice, lean in and listen closely. Be prepared to obey the teachings that the Lord gives you on a daily basis, to the best of your abilities for those teachings are our treasure if we save them in our hearts. Sometimes we even feel that the commandments are difficult. We don’t understand that they are an invitation into a deeper relationship with God.

Understand that the Lord is not distant or cold or uncaring. He sees and He knows and He understands our lives. Continue to obey Him without losing hope. Continue to obey Him with full confidence that the Lord is with you and He will give you what is needed today and every day of your life. His calling to go deeper in our relationship with Him is often cloaked. It might not always appear for what it is. The Lord didn’t need fish. The Lord didn’t need the disciples to go fishing. He wanted to test them and because they accepted the invitation, they opened new doors through their obedience. They went in further. The saw a wondrous thing and this was nothing compared to what the Lord would show them for the next three years.

Our task is not only to obey but to obey from a loving heart for God, because we know that God loves us and wants the best for us. This will allow us to unite with God and that is the goal of life. This is the path to union and communion. Christ our God has a plan to fill the nets of your life. Moreover, He has an even greater plan to fill the nets of your soul, because you are His inheritance and His people.

Source: Sermons