Letting Down our Empty Nets in Humble Obedience: Homily for the Thirteenth Sunday After Pentecost and the First Sunday of Luke in the Orthodox Church

 

1 Corinthians 16:13-24; Luke 5:1-11

           Many people today lack perseverance.  We have become so accustomed to instantaneous communication and access to entertainment and information on devices that we carry in our pockets or wear on our wrists that many quickly now lose interest in anything that does not bring immediate results.  Then they move on to something else.  No wonder so many people report being lonely and not having sustaining long-term friendships.  Relationships with other people require patience and commitment, though we all make mistakes in them.  The same is true of our relationship with the Lord.  Sharing in His life is not a one-time event, a quick fix to a problem, or an opportunity to show that we are perfect, but an eternal journey that all of us have just begun and for which we all need infinite mercy.        

Perhaps many years of frustration as professional fishermen played a role in preparing Peter, James, and John to begin their long and difficult journeys as the Lord’s disciples.  They knew that they could not make fish swim into their nets.  They had surely fished all night and caught nothing more times than they could count and this was another one of those times.  They knew from experience to wash their nets, go home, and try again tomorrow.  But the Lord said, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.”  Peter obeyed with a tone of frustration, saying: “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing!  But at Your word I will let down the nets.”  Then they caught so many fish that their nets broke and their boats began to sink.  This amazing scene helped Peter catch a glimpse of where he stood before Christ, for he said, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.”  The Savior responded, “Do not be afraid; henceforth you will be catching men.” Then Peter, James, and John left their boats and nets behind as they began their long and difficult journey as His disciples.

After leaving behind their fishing nets, the apostles had to keep letting down the nets of their souls time and time again in obedience, despite their lack of perfect faith.  Christ was certainly frustrated with their lack of understanding many times, even to the point of saying “’Get behind me, Satan!’” to Peter. (Mk. 8:33) Those to whom He taught plainly the mysteries of the Kingdom (Mk. 4:1) understood the Savior so poorly that they abandoned Him at His arrest and crucifixion and originally doubted the news of His resurrection.  He never abandoned them, however, and fulfilled the promise that they would draw others into the nets of the Kingdom by sending upon them the Holy Spirit, Who enabled them to manifest Christ’s ministry with power beyond any merely human ability.

If we want to pursue the Christian life with integrity, then we must follow the example of the disciples in struggling to persist in obeying our Lord’s command.  We must “let down our nets” in obedience each day of our lives. That is not something to be tried once and then abandoned if we do not get the results that we want from our efforts.  That is not something to refuse to do because it would be easier in the moment to do something else instead.  That is not something to be abandoned because there are so many direct paths to pleasure, popularity, and power in this world that we could take.  To “let down our nets” is to make obedience to the Lord’s commands a settled habit in our lives, a stable dimension of our character.  It is an absolute necessity if we are going to gain the spiritual strength to persist in following Christ into the blessedness of His kingdom.

            We must be prepared, however, for our faltering steps of obedience to open the eyes of our souls to the truth about where we stand in relation to the Lord.  After letting down his nets and catching that great haul of fish, Peter gained the spiritual clarity to know his unworthiness: “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.”  His reaction should remind us of how the Prophet Isaiah responded to his vision of the heavenly temple: “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” (Is. 6:5) When we attempt even the smallest act of obedience, we open our darkened souls to behold the brilliant light of Christ at least a bit.  The darkness in our hearts will then become all the more evident to us. At that point, we have to choose between enduring the tension of facing the uncomfortable truth about our souls or making ourselves blind to it by refusing to take up the ongoing struggle of obedience. 

 The only way to embrace Christ’s healing is to follow the example of Isaiah and Peter in humbling recognizing that we are sinners in need of the Lord’s mercy.  Theirs is the same spirit conveyed in the word received by St. Silouan the Athonite: “Keep your mind in hell and do not despair.”  For the next fifteen years, he did precisely that, confronting and experiencing the brokenness and sickness of his soul that separated him from sharing fully in the life of Christ. It was only through years of faithful persistence in doing so that he found healing for his passions.  Silouan refused to stop letting down his nets, and that is how he fulfilled St. Paul’s teaching in today’s epistle lesson: “Brethren, be watchful, stand firm in your faith, be courageous, and be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.”

 In order to follow the examples of these great saints, we must take up the struggle of obedience to the Savior, Who said, “If you love me, keep my commandments.” (Jn, 14:15) He spoke those words to disciples who would soon deny and abandon Him, not to people with an unbroken record of spiritual perfection.  Like the disciples did, we wander from the path of obedience with some regularity and often fall flat on our faces due to our weakness before the besetting sins that have become almost second nature to us.  Instead of allowing our pride and impatience to lead us to abandon the difficult way to the Kingdom, we must redirect the energy of our passions to fuel our persistent pursuit of obedience, no matter how imperfect it is.  Instead of despairing that there is no hope for the likes of us, we must humbly accept the truth that our failures reveal about our present spiritual state as we let down our nets time and time again for a catch.  We cannot heal our souls any more than the disciples could make fish swim into their nets, but we can put ourselves in the only place where we can receive the healing mercy of Christ.  That is the place of humility, which we cultivate a bit more fully every time that we see how far short we have fallen in keeping His commandments and call out from our hearts: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

 Despite their imperfect faith and obedience, the disciples gained the spiritual strength to draw people into the nets of the Kingdom.  They did so not by earning a reward for impeccable behavior, but by continuing to stumble along the path of discipleship and returning to it when  they strayed from it.  That is how they learned to see themselves clearly and came to acquire the humility necessary to receive the Lord’s gracious healing mercy.  As Peter once said in response to Christ asking whether the disciples would stop following Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life?” (Jn. 6:68)   Perhaps they had learned from experience that, apart from Him, their nets would always be empty. If we want to learn the same lesson, then we must persist in letting down our nets in obedience, especially when we are as frustrated as those who fished all night and caught nothing.  That is how we too may open our darkened hearts to become radiant with the healing light of Christ.