Homily

You have to wonder if Peter knew Jesus before this miraculous catch of fish. I’m thinking maybe he did. Maybe he had heard Jesus speaking and he liked what he heard. That would explain why he let Jesus into the boat in the first place, and why he’d be willing to go out fishing again at Jesus’ request. They end up with the best fishing day they ever have in their whole lives and then, they leave it all behind on the shore and follow Jesus, this Simon, James and John. What a surprise! And I wonder whether I would have done the same. And what do you think you would have done?

Now, if Simon Peter could see how his life would end because of this choice to follow Jesus—that he would die being crucified upside down—do you think he still would have followed Jesus and left his fish and boats behind?

Now it’s true that at one moment in his life Peter denied Christ three times. But shortly after he repented, and it never happened again. Apart from that brief moment Peter followed the Lord for the rest of his life, following Him in the flesh and then, after Pentecost, following Him in the Holy Spirit. But if he had seen how it would end for him would he ever have left his boats and his family behind that day to follow Jesus?

I think we tend to kind of like to see the future as something that we have planned for ourselves. We’re making choices today that will shape what happens tomorrow, and the acceptable choices we have made in the past are also guiding us today. If I do this, if I don’t do that, my life will be better today and tomorrow. If I choose well, I will be well. If there is no pressing danger in my life it’s easy to live in a kind of delusion that I can pretty much control my life and how things will turn out for me, by making the right choices. And that’s where it can become dangerous, because instead of choosing to follow Christ and trusting Him I can always choose to trust myself first.

If, that day on the beach, Peter had seen how his life would end I don’t think he would have followed Jesus. Danger, danger, danger! But he did follow Jesus, and he learned, day by day by day, to put his trust in Him. Because he learned to keep putting his trust in the Lord, he was able not only to face crucifixion as his own death, but to ask his executioners to crucify him upside down because he was not worthy to die in the same way his Lord died. He learned to trust Jesus in all things, even as he faced a gruesome execution. Imagine that. He trusts in the Lord not because he is dying peacefully at home surrounded by family and friends, he trusts in the Lord not because he expects a miraculous event to spare his life; he trusts in the Lord even facing crucifixion because he believes in His word and he believes in the Lord’s loving care for him and he believes His promise of eternal life.

Of course, we all need to make choices for our lives. The question is about how we make them. Do we make them as genuine followers of Christ, do we ask the Lord to show us His will for us, or are we simply guided by our own wisdom in everything we do? Do we find that Jesus is only a part of our life, or do we try to think and act as though He is our life? If we knew that because we are Christians our lives would end with us being nailed to a cross, would we still want to follow Him today, and standing before that cross would we still bless His name?

The temptation is to try to run our own lives, to trust in ourselves above all others and make decisions that will seem to bring about the most good with the least amount of trouble and suffering, because trusting in ourselves has always produced the best results for us, right? Lord, have mercy when I really stop to think about it I am amazed at how many wrong or bad choices I have made in the past, and I think if I could remember them all it would be overwhelming. And to be honest, I think we have a certain amount of self-protecting amnesia when it comes to remembering many past mistakes and bad decisions. Granted, we are only human and we will fall into error because we are far from perfect. But I am talking about those choices made that were contrary to Christian life, and important decisions that were made without seeking the guidance of Christ in prayer.

The temptation is to live as we see best and throw in a little bit of Jesus on the side if it’s not too much trouble to do so. But that is not what it means to follow Jesus like Peter, James and John did, and that does not allow us to put all our trust in the Lord. They left their families, they left their business, they left their futures and their lives into the Lord’s hands. It is amazing and it is wonderful.

For us, as it must have been for them, it can be very difficult to follow Him with our whole heart, our whole mind and our whole soul. We have to struggle against ourselves and our foolish self-centered inclinations to do it.

But, my friends, no other path is worthy of our lives. No other hope can give us such a peace, no other life can bring us into that blessed Kingdom. Let us press on and follow.