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“Jesus said to Simon, ‘Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.’” (Luke 5:10)
“SOUL-SURFING” – February 7, 2010
Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Luke 5:1-11
Fr. Robert deLeon, CSC
The Monday before Christmas it was, and the hospital was emptying of those patients well enough to celebrate the Lord’s birth on their home turf. Smiles on their faces, even the pale, limping ones, they made their way to elevators and the parking garage hoping never to see me again, at least under such exaggerated circumstances. One gentleman put it nicely as he waved, “Great seeing you, Father. Let’s do it again in heaven, okay?”
But another ailing man swan against the flow. Hit with something sudden and painful, he was entering the hospital on the same Monday so many others were departing. Somewhere in age between mature and early elderly, his white mane and beard suggested that Santa himself had suffered a pre-Christmas mishap. I knew it not to be Santa, though, for this ailing soul, pastor of a church (appropriately enough) in the nearby suburb of Bethlehem, was a friend of almost 10 years standing. His usually bubbly, Santa-like personality was clearly under the spell of pain; I could see it in his eyes, now less sparkly than usual, especially on these days so near Christmas, especially on these days away from his beloved Bethlehem.
As providence would have it, Keenan was to spend a week bound to a hospital bed, an intravenous line pumping antibiotics into him as he lamented having to delegate Christmas services to others. As I sat at his bedside on Christmas morning, I spoke of the holiday card he had sent the week previous, an interesting communication accommodating the usual scripted greeting but picturing Keenan being pulled through his proud garden by a brand new, bright red oversized rototiller. The machine’s primary distinction from Santa’s sled was the absence of reindeer.
Through the frustration of hospitalization and the presence of pain, mention of his garden and the rototiller brought a smile to Keenan’s face. He’d been telling me in late fall what fun he’d been having zipping along the rows of now barren soil aerating and mulching the ground in preparation for a new springtime planting and a summer’s harvest. Indeed, it was clearly plain that this man loved to be close to the ground, tilling, planting, harvesting, and then sharing generously the life he’d called forth. He chuckled on that Christmas morning, “Yes, Robert, pastoring a church and tending a garden are pretty much the same thing.”
Now, though, on this Christmas, he had to leave his church garden to others. As was painfully obvious, this tiller of souls was himself in for some tilling, a week’s hospital stay churning up and surfacing the insecurities we’d all rather keep buried. Giving voice to the obvious, I named his frustration, “Keenan, you’re not the pastor now; you’re the patient.” His frown deepened.
In the gospel passage we hear today, we find Jesus continuing to gather his disciples. Climbing into Simon’s boat moored at the Lake of Gennesaret, Jesus addressed the shoreline crowds before him. Then, as a sign of his divine authority, Jesus insists that Simon and his crew once again put out into deeper water and lower their nets for a catch. Insisting that the attempt will be futile because they’ve been unsuccessful all through the night, Simon acquiesced to Jesus and once again lowered the nets. And, of course, the result is that so many fish filled the nets that they were in danger of tearing apart. Once the catch was safely onboard, Simon expressed both fear and awe at this man who had caused the miraculous catch. Jesus calmed him with the assurance, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” (Luke 5:10)
Yes, Simon and his boat mates were to become fishers of people; that is, they had been commissioned to populate the church with new members through the message of Jesus they were to disseminate. First, though, these fishers of people had themselves to be caught. Before they could be fishers, they were fish. And I’m guessing it’s a terrifying experience for a free-swimming fish to be netted and hauled aboard a craft. Worse than terrifying that they must then undergo death in order to become sustenance for others. Yet, it’s what Jesus is calling every Christian to be: a netted fish willing to die to self in order to secure a deeper experience of life. And more than that, we “caught fish” are to actively ensnare others in the net of faith.
As my friend Keenan, tiller of souls and fisher of people, spent Christmas bound to a hospital bed by an IV line, he was struggling with this very reality. From stories with which he regaled me and so many others, I knew that his past struggles and challenges had formed him into the wise, loving pastor he now was. Indeed, Keenan knew the truth of “no pain, no gain,” and we, his flock, were benefiting greatly from what he’d endured, even suffered, for us.
And now here he was again, illness churning the soil of his life as violently as did his brand new, bright red oversize rototiller to the long rows of earth in his beloved garden. Oh, it hurt alright! But as Keenan’s week in the hospital wore on, I saw the twinkle return to his eyes as he looked ahead to springtime and then summer, the seasons of muddy-kneed planting and rich harvesting that lay ahead. He knew that tilled soil was rich soil.