According to my unskilled and unscientific eye, the deep sea anglerfish has got to be the creepiest looking fish in existence. Most of them don’t get very big, but a closer look at them reveals this giant head, made mostly of a huge, gaping mouth filled with fangs. They have these almost iridescent fins that wave back and forth to make it look like it’s just hovering in the water, and they have a stomach that can distend itself so large that this fish can consume prey over two times the size of their bodies. But the weirdest thing about these fish is how they get their name: they have these poles or rods coming out of their foreheads, and at the very tip of these rods is a bioluminescent bulb that glows in the dark.
It’s an important adaptation, because these particular anglerfish, the deep sea anglerfish, live up to a mile below sea level, way down deep, where there is only darkness, current, and well, not much else. They need these luminescent “esca” - Latin for “bait” - to lure and attract their prey. They carry their own light, and that light is used to bring in other fish, to attract a mate, essentially, to maintain their own survival. These fish are odd, strange, a little terrifying and almost otherworldly. And they’re ancient. Fossils of these fish have been discovered from as long ago as the beginning of the Eocene period - more than 55 million years ago. They call these the “fishing fish” - fish whose entire evolution has evolved around the catching of fish.
These are the kinds of Wikipedia and National Geographic rabbit holes your pastor gets lost in when she encounters the Gospel stories. I like to think that there’s more mystery and awe and wonder and strangeness to our stories than I think we let ourselves really encounter.
According to my unskilled and unscientific eye, we Christians have found a pretty convenient way to dull down the Gospel, make it taste of microwaved chicken nuggets and canned corn. We want palatable. Inoffensive. Or. Worse, we want to serve the Gospel on a plate of either/ors, rigid definitions, and inflexible and unyielding propositions that we either accept or reject, and then face the consequences. But guys, we simply can't just phone it in anymore. Just listen to Nadia: coffee mug faith just won't cut it anymore. We are missing the terrifying, awe-inspiring, light-bearing Gospel of the deep sea anglerfish.
Instead, we keep serving up the same bland meal, thinking that this time will be different, this time we will defy the definition of insanity by doing the same thing and actually getting different results. Maybe this time the kids will eat the chicken nuggets and the GMO corn and get excited, will find life there, will want to join in our "feast." Just keep serving up the same thing and maybe our church will be filled again, and our endowment replenished, and we’ll have enough resources to keep serving those nuggets for generations to come.
But wait. Isn’t this what Jesus is asking Peter to do in our story today?
Jesus tells Peter that he needs to try again, he needs to do again what he has been doing all night long with no success.
Peter, the professional fisherman, the guy who owns his own boat and provides for his family and makes a living as an expert catching fish, is directed by Jesus to keep doing what hasn’t been working. Peter knows it’s not a good time to fish. He’s given up for the day. He’s putting his tools away, cleaning his nets, and looking forward to a nice midmorning nap before he has to go back out and try it all over again later tonight. Jesus wants Peter to do it again, to double down, to do what hasn’t worked so far, keep digging his heels in and keep banging his head against the wall until something different happens. Jesus tells Peter to do what seems insane. And Peter responds with common sense - “Uh, Jesus, we’ve been doing that all night long, and it hasn’t worked. But, ya know, if you say so, I guess I’ll entertain your request.
But, I mean, what do you know about fishing anyway? Wasn’t your dad a carpenter?”
Jesus tells him to try again, but this time, go further. Go deeper.
Ok. Whatever. We’ll entertain the requests of this strange guy and his strange light. We will appease his request just for the opportunity to tell him “see. I told you so.” We will try again. I mean, you can hear Peter’s sigh audibly through the pages of Luke’s gospel.
So Peter goes out further. He goes out deeper. He bangs his head against the wall one more time, he reenacts insanity again, and he throws his nets over the side of the boat.
And maybe he is going insane, because he starts to feel the tug of the nets, he starts to feel the weight and resistance of something in those nets, and he draws them up, heaving and ho-ing, until the nets are about to break. He’s so insane that he has to call out to his buddies for help. He’s so nuts that he starts worrying about the buoyancy of his boat because of all the flopping, flipping, writhing fish collected on deck. He’s so crazy that this encounter with abundance forces him to see what is lacking in himself. He falls down on his knees in front of Jesus, with all those fish flipping and flopping all around him and says, “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man!” It’s kind of a humorous, wild, weird, scene, really.
But this response comes from a place of amazement, of awe, of wonder, maybe even a place of strangeness, oddity; it’s certainly something that Peter, in all of his days of fishing, in his whole life of showing up to the sea of Galilee, day in and day out, doing the same thing over and over and over again until it has the excitement of a plate of microwaved chicken nuggets, has never, ever seen before. And this encounter with the unknown, even in the context of the mundane, gives him a partial vision of who he is. Partial. But still true. The abundance of God reveals in him the lack in himself, and he is completely undone.
But see, here’s the thing, here’s the kicker: It’s not really about the fish at all. Jesus tells him to calm down, chill out, now you’re gonna fish for people! As if upping the ante, as if intensifying the previous experience by telling him that now he’s going experience what has happened with these fish but with real, live, important people, is somehow going to comfort him. "Hey, don’t be afraid, Peter! You think this is a big deal, just wait until you start fishing for people!"
Oh. Phew. Thanks Jesus. I needed something to help bring me back down to reality. Fishing for fish has me totally undone, but fishing for people is going to be a piece of cake! I’m going to stop banging my head against the wall in order to catch fish, and I’m going to start banging my head against the wall for people instead!
But something happens. Something changes. Because Peter gets up off his knees, joins the rest in bringing their boats to shore, and then he leaves everything to follow Jesus. And the other guys do, too. They leave it all. Even the fish. Even the thing that reveals the abundance of God and the lack in Peter gets left behind.
I like to think of this as a catch-and-release exercise. It was an encounter. An experience. It's not about the end result at all.
This passage is all about the fish, and also not about the fish. The fish get left behind. They, hopefully, will get returned to the lake, or handed out to the crowds, or used for a downpayment for a bigger boat. Once Peter has this encounter, this encounter with God’s abundance and with his own lack, he doesn’t need the fish anymore. Even though it was the fish that brought him to this place in the first place.
So often this passage is used to point out our failures in evangelism. And maybe that's what it's about. But this passage isn’t about hog-tying people, roping them in to accepting the Gospel or coming to church, or joining a committee. It's about how when you go deep, you see weird things. It’s about the radical, awe-inspiring, wondrous encounter with this strange abundance, abundance that sometimes feels like it’s coming from a place of insanity, that encourages us into a cycle of going further, going deeper, encountering abundance, and then leaving it behind, so that we can go deeper and further still. It’s about people. About the radical, awe-inspiring wondrous encounter with these weird and creepy creatures called humans, that when we go deeper with each other, reveals a gospel to us more clearly than we’ve ever seen before.
Eventually, our boat is going to wear out. Eventually, maybe soon, in our case, the church is going to close, and our nets are going to break, and we’re going to run out of resources to keep doing what we’ve been doing, keep serving what we’ve been serving. But until then, we’re going to go deeper. We’re going to go further. We’re going to listen for when Jesus is telling us to do something that seems a little crazy, and we’re going to take the risk and do it. Even if it means that we just keep on keeping on, stubbornly serving our brand of chicken nuggets in the hopes that Jesus comes and turns them in to something else. We are going to keep fishing. Because we know that it’s not about catching fish at all. It’s about the encounter. And in the encounter, some weird, but wonderful, shit is bound to happen.
It’s about how when we do what Jesus asks us to do, we experience a kind of abundance, we see a part of ourselves for who we truly are, and then we are sent out to go even further, even deeper, to experience even more encounters, and then, to even more leaving everything behind to go do it all over again.
Following Jesus is catch and release, and release and release and release. It’s going into deep waters, having strange encounters, and being brought to your knees. But do not be afraid, from now on you will be catching people. You will fish for people. Not so that we can tie them to our pews or get them to agree with us or open their wallets, but so that we can have an encounter with something other, something strange, something wondrous, maybe even something a little bit weird. You'll have an encounter with their weird distended bellies or their odd luminescent bulbs. And then maybe, if you're lucky, you'll see your own.
And then we can let it go and search for more - not so we can control or manipulate, but so that we can be astonished by the encounter. We are the fishers. And we are also the fish. This is the way of Jesus. We are the people. And we are also the people-ers. We take the light of Christ and we share it to reveal our humanity to each other, and then we go deeper, we go further, until we all have been fully and completely peopled, drawn in to the body of Christ with the freedom to be and to know exactly who God has made us to be, fangs and all.
Oh. And back to those Anglerfish. They’re so creepy. But they’re also so cool. Remember those light-bulb things that hang from fishing poles from their foreheads? That glow comes from a symbiotic relationship with a special kind of bacteria.
In some of these fish, the bacteria has evolved in such a way as to only glow, or provide light, if it is in relationship with that certain kind of fish. The glowing can’t happen until the chemicals in the bacteria mix with the chemicals in that creepy-looking fish’s forehead-fishing-pole. These deep sea anglerfish are the “fishing fish,” the fish who swim around fishing for other fish, but they can’t do it without the cooperation and interaction with that bacteria. They’ve gone down so far and they live so deep that they can’t do any of it without the light. These fish carry their own light, but maybe, deep down, they know that this light doesn’t come just from themselves.
Thanks be to God.
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