Friday BCP Holy Communion by College of the Resurrection, Mirfield ordinand George Hallam-Attree

St Luke’s Gospel 5.1-11

Suppose that you left work for the day and, at the end of a utterly unrewarding shift, you received the biggest bonus you’d ever seen, by way of cheque. I’m talking about a life-changing sum of money. Now can you imagine experiencing something so momentous, that you not only leave the cheque behind, but do so without hesitation? That is the situation Simon, James and John found themselves in, in today’s gospel.

Simon had already seen Jesus heal his mother-in-law, he had already heard Jesus preaching. Unlike the crowds who were pressing around Jesus, Simon was more preoccupied with work, and understandably so! He had a family to feed, an oppressive foreign government extorting what little money he had, and an entire night’s work had come to nothing.

Then Jesus provided the biggest single haul of fish Simon had ever seen, enough to begin to sink two ships, and seeing God’s sheer generosity first-hand changed everything for these fishermen. Amazed by this display of God’s power, Simon was immediately aware of his sinfulness and unworthiness. He recognised the overwhelming disparity between God’s power,  manifest in Jesus, and his own compromised life.

Yet for all his flaws, Jesus didn’t call on Simon to get his act together and come back when his life was in order. Rather, Jesus called him as he was, inviting him to let go of his old identity as a fisherman and to take on new life as a fisher of people. Everything else would fall into place from there.

So for us today, I invite you to consider the things that you cling on to. Not just possessions, but beliefs, opinions, attitudes, grudges, resentments, fears.  Parts of what you think make you, you. As you identify these sticking points consider:

Are the things you hold onto making you more wholehearted or do these diminish your life and keep you stuck?

Do these connect you to others, or isolate you?

Do these benefit the world around you, or add to the pain of the world?

Simon, James and John could have stayed as they were. With their huge catch they would have eaten well. Perhaps improved their standing with their neighbours with displays of generosity, taken things easy for a time, maybe even invested in a new enterprise.

But Simon would have always been Simon. He would never have known what it was like to befriend the Lord, become a new man, and be called Peter; the rock upon which God was pleased to build His church.