One day some fishermen are cleaning and mending their nets after a long night working without any success. As professional fishermen, they were experts in fishing and everything about their lake. They were prideful of their knowledge, experience, and trade. They knew where to fish, when to fish, which nets to use, the best season to fish, what kinds of nets for different types of fish, how much to expect from a day’s work fishing, and what kinds of fish were present in the lake. All of their human skills and knowledge regarding their profession produced nothing that day. They had a complete failure.
Then suddenly, along comes a young, iterant preacher, or rabbi, or teacher, or maybe prophet followed by a very large crowd. This newcomer is from a small inland town located far away from the lake. His trade seems to be carpentry or light construction. Simon Peter may have heard rumors about this preacher in the neighborhood. He may have considered him interesting or not. He may have considered the crowd as religious fanatics or not. This preacher asks Simon Peter to lend him the fishing boat so that he can preach to the large crowd. So, Simon Peter is there for the preaching.
Then something different happens. Something new for Simon Peter. This young itinerant carpenter, preacher from a little inland hamlet asks Simon to go out into the lake and start fishing again after his unsuccessful night shift spent in fishing. This is not an impersonal discourse or a theoretical preaching about God or the moral life. This is personal. This has to do with Simon’s personal experience, life, profession, and scientific knowledge. You can almost hear the superiority and the pride and the irony and the sarcasm in Simon’s response when he says: “Master, we have worked hard all night and have caught nothing, but at your command I will lower the nets”. He is probably thinking certainly nothing will come of this.
But we see that Jesus’ Word turns into reality in Peter’s life despite his human knowledge and experience. The inexplicable and unhoped for happens. And not just in a little way, but it a huge way that is beyond expectations and coincidence or even luck. Jesus inserts himself uninvited into Peter’s life and provides new life. Peter’s irony, pride, and sarcasm turn into astonishment and the beginning of faith.
Jesus is always inserting himself into our lives. He is always there with a new life beyond our imagination. Like Peter, our pride in thinking that we know our life and know what is possible often impede and limit a true experience of God and new life. We tend to repeat old habits. The Word of God today invites us to go out into deeper waters trusting in God. Try something new this week.
“Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.”
For astonishment at the catch of fish they had made seized him
and all those with him.
Image: CANVA CJ Dunn 29 August 2026 AI Generated.