I have a confession to make.
I love a good fishing story. I am an avid fisherman. A fly fisherman who whenever my schedule allows will turn to my wife Helen and say…I am going fishing. I have fished all over the US and over the years I have brought my rod and reel with me on business trips around the world and fished beside the Irish near Limerick all the way to the reservoirs of Singapore with local fisherman searching for Peacock Bass.
One thing I have learned is you don’t even need to speak the language of other fisherman who you meet to understand each other. The conversation is the same. It seems we aren’t that complicated.
Hows the fishing?
Have you caught anything? Where?
So when our disciples come back from a night of fishing it is not unexpected that someone would ask the question…how is it going? Did you catch anything.
It wasn’t the first time these disciples, these fishers of fish and fishers of men would be with Jesus and see the difference having him direct their efforts and the bounty they would catch. In Luke Chapter 5 the nets were beginning to tear because of the number of fish once they did what Jesus directed.
Now I know what you are thinking. Those of you who because of no fault of your own do not fish. You see I have a son who doesn’t fish and he tells me that the only thing more boring than fishing is talking about it.
But today is about more than fishing. Although it is a great scene.
Night time on the calm Lake of Tiberius. It would have been a familiar place, a comforting and known activity for them. It was what they were doing when Jesus found them. It was where he had first called them. So it is also a good place for him to appear to them again and renew their mission. They had come to the lake to fish and came up empty.
Jesus appeared and once again told them where to fish and their nets were full. No one could do this they knew but one person. Jesus. So out of a night of darkness and emptiness…came a dawn and a reminder that he is still with them.
And not just to help them with fishing but to help them renew and restart the mission of fishing for men rather than for fish. He was indeed still with them and he would always be near to guide them.
But then Jesus asked Peter the question. Perhaps ever since Peter saw the charcoal fire burning he had been haunted by the last time he saw a charcoal fire like this…where he denied Jesus 3 times. So now Jesus asks Peter three times of his love for Jesus.
He knew Peter loved him but Peter needed to say it … to put aside past denials yes … but also to free the words of love and give them voice so they would take on a life of their own. Words of Love that Christ’s church would be built on.
Jesus didn’t ask Peter if he was ready to roll out his new policy on evangelization for his followers. Jesus didn’t ask Peter if he was ready to develop a position on faith and morals? He didn’t even ask him if he was willing to take the leadership role being offered.
He asked him if he loved him. He wanted to hear Peter say it.
It would take love of Jesus to take on the leadership and mission set before him. As we know they would indeed suffer for this mission.
This mission would take more than obedience to a cause, more than human commitment could even muster. These are fisherman, probably as down to earth a people that ever lived. Their world was not full of complicated theology or philosophical explanations. They were men whose primary question in their occupation was, did you catch anything?
It was simple really. Jesus wanted something more fundamental and basic, something so central to his own being it had a simple logic to it.
Jesus wanted one thing from Peter. For him to say that he loved him. And that would be enough. Enough to take him from the shores of Tiberius to establish a church for all nations.
Many profess a belief in Jesus Christ. Many people intellectually understand his teachings and many have developed books and writings and instructions for how to live. But it is not enough to understand it intellectually. It never was about what one knew as much as it was about how one loved.
Maybe at the end of the day, I too am just a simple fisherman.
But for me hearing that at this dramatic time, this pivotal moment when he kick-starts the church…Jesus didn’t ask what Peter understood, it wasn’t a question of whether he finally got all the nuances of faith that Jesus tried to teach them….at that moment what he wanted was for Peter to confess to Jesus and himself…that he loved him.
Do you love me? And it made all the difference in the world. For Peter, for the church and for the last 2000 years.
Today we come to St Theresa’s Catholic Church not to profess our intellectual understanding of faith, not even to confirm that we are grasping everything we should about scripture
Today we are simply asked if WE love Jesus Christ.
Like all love it takes commitment and discipline on our part to keep it alive. And the commitment to reaffirm our love for Jesus each day.
There is a story about a old man whose wife asked him if he loved her. She asked him every day and he would never say anything. But one day he turned to her and said….. I told you that I loved you when we got married. If anything changes I will let you know.
That doesn’t seem to work in most relationships.
Like Jesus today we too need to hear someone tell us more than once. Maybe the one saying it needs to say it more than once for themselves too. It‘s important. And the words need to be heard out loud in order to connect us to another. For they are more than just words. They are a profession of unity….an affirmation of who we are.
Love…profession…affirmation of identity…
This is the love Peter professed to Jesus Christ. A love a church could be built upon.
We too are asked if we love Jesus so that he is the foundation of our life. Every time we come here hopefully that is what we are saying. I love you.
And we too need to verbalize that ourselves. For it is when words are spoken that they take form and become substance. Are we ready and comfortable saying I love Jesus Christ? If so, have our children heard us say it? Has our spouse?
When we say out loud that it is true we love Jesus Christ a profession…an affirmation. A change inside happens. It sparks an energy and need inside of us to live by those words.
42 years ago I found myself standing at the US Navy Induction Center in Dallas, Texas about to get on a bus to go to boot camp to serve in the US Navy. I was only 18 at the time but I remember how we all looked standing in that stuffy room, mostly young men from all walks of life. We were long haired and crew cut, nice clothes and ragged jeans… a mix of all sorts really. We didn’t know everything of what would happen afterward and certainly didn’t really know what we were in for. But we knew it meant no turning back. It was the first real commitment to anything in my life.
We were asked to take an oath, out loud in public. We were told that while we had signed many documents before then…once we stood there and took an oath out loud we would be committed to serving our country with no turning back.
It was powerful …and as nervous as I was I knew I was committed to moving forward and face all that might come my way. I would do what was asked of me and be the best I could be. It would change my life forever and who I am as a man today was influenced greatly by what would happen to me as a result of that day.
When we say I love Jesus Christ, like Peter, something happens inside us too. An oath is said that there is no turning back. We find a journey has begun, a commitment, love has flared like a spark, a fire begun to burn that will change everything. A furnace has been lit that will warm hearts and bodies.
We will want to reach others. Our calling will be a voice, we can no longer ignore. The words will be the start of our real journey. They will become part of us.
You see this wasn’t really about fishing at all. It‘s about God’s love for his disciples and us and his promise to always be with us. It is about choosing to enter Easter with Jesus Christ by expressing our love for him.
We will soon be given the Eucharist, the body and blood of Christ. To nourish us and bring us once again in communion with Jesus. It is given to us with an unfathomable love.
Hopefully we will receive it with a love that is spoken in our life and words. For like Peter, we too need to say “Yes, Lord you know that I love you.“
Deacon Tony Pynes 
Leave a comment