Painting: The Miraculous Draught of Fish – Peter Paul Rubens
How many of you recall the scene in the “Wizard of Oz”, when Dorothy, the Tin Man, the Scarecrow and the Cowardly Lion approach the Great Oz for the first time. As they draw closer to the Great Oz, they do so with great fear, afraid that they will be squashed by the mighty power and wrath of Oz.
Is this not how we often approach God? Great trepidation and anxiety fills our lives because, acutely aware of own imperfections, the sins we carry with us, we feel that we are unworthy to approach God in all of God’s goodness. We, like Peter in the Gospel, overwhelmed by the goodness and the greatness of God around us, fall to our knees in fear and say, “Depart from me, Lord, I am sinful.”
Jesus does not want our sinfulness and our imperfections to trap us, to prevent us from being in a relationship with God. What Jesus reminds us in the Gospel is that Jesus welcomes us into a deeper relationship with him, in spite of our sinfulness, in spite of all our imperfections. And, in having a deeper relationship with Jesus, we, in turn, are drawn into the love relationship that exists between Jesus and God the Father.
Jesus reminds us, as he does Peter, that as in all relationships, there are expectations on both parties of the relationship, to build up that relationship, to make the relationship stronger and permanent. The expectation that Jesus has of Peter, and the rest of his disciples, is that they build up the Kingdom of God on the Earth. Peter is expected to gather people, as once he gathered fish, only the net that he casts is a holy net that gathers people into a love relationship with Jesus, and in so doing, a love relationship with God who created them.
The expectation that Jesus has of Peter, is passed on to you and to me, today. We are not to stand idly by, but to be active into gathering people into a deeper relationship with Jesus. By our prayer, our words, our presence, our actions, we cast the Divine net of love over those we encounter, and encourage them into a deeper relationship with God. In baptism, we put on Christ; we became the hands, the feet, and the compassion of Jesus. Through us, Jesus continues to teach, to heal, and compassionately touch lives in a significant way.
