17th Sunday after Pentecost; Repose of St John the Theologian

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. So today's gospel from St. Luke is in a sense a very simple gospel. And it begins, "And it came to pass that as the people pressed upon Him to hear the Word of God, He stood by the Lake of Gennesaret and saw two ships standing by the lake. But the fishermen were gone out of them and were washing their nets." And so what's interesting about this gospel is that virtually everything is symbolic of something else, actually. And so clearly our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ had already come to understand that the Jews and the Pharisees and the scribes and so on, and then also the noble people of Israel at that time, they did not want to receive the Gospel of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ. Or to put it simply, those who were sophisticated and knowledgeable and so on, they found interest in our Savior. They were intrigued by Him, but they didn't receive His message. And so it is our Savior went forth and He went to Gennesaret, which had—it was a very, very beautiful place, and here there was this—they call it in the Gospel a sea. It was probably a sea, but in reality it was certainly like a lake. And here He found these fishermen who were fishing with their nets and they hadn't brought in anything at all. And so our Savior decided to illustrate and to present Himself and to reveal Himself to them as He was the Son of God.

And He saw these fishermen, and there were two boats. And here we go with the symbolism. And one of the Fathers says that the two boats represent the Jews and the Gentiles, who were very different, spiritually very different people. However, He entered into one of the ships, which foreshadows that these two would become one in His Body, the Holy Church. So He's very interested in this—into one ship, and knowing that both the Jews and the Gentiles would be united into this ship. And it says, and so the fishermen were gone out of them and were washing their nets. And so one of the Patristic sources says the fishermen who left without a catch represent the prophets whose ministry ceased to bear fruit after the fall of the First Temple. And this is very interesting. During the First Temple, there were miracles and there was an eternal light and continuous manifestations of God. But in the Second Temple there were no prophets, there were no healings, there were no miracles, there was no light in the altar. It was—during the Second Temple it was very barren. And I think probably for a reason, as a statement, as it were, to the falling away of the Jews. And the Jews of that time fell away from their heritage, that is, they fell away from the spiritual meaning of the heritage, and not all the spiritual meaning, but the spiritual gifts which their heritage had, and they turned their faith into something like a farce. And so it is that it was barren.

And so Jesus entered into one of the ships, which was Simon's, and asked him that he would thrust out a little from the land. And so the ship belonged to Simon who became Peter, the rock, the chief of the Apostles, even before he knew Christ, for as yet Christ was to him a stranger. And he thrust out from the land to illustrate that the people whom He taught were separated from the ark of salvation by the waters of baptism. So the church leaves the shore and it goes out into the waters. And the waters in this case representing the waters of baptism, so that one—so that in order to—and the ship of course is the church. The ship symbolizes the church. And to enter the ship one has to pass through the waters, the waters of baptism. And so it is. He sat down and taught the people out of the ship. And now when He had left speaking, He said to Simon, unto Simon Peter, "Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a draught," or for a catch.

And by teaching, by teaching the people, Christ cast the net of His mystical word, the Word of God, by His preaching. So here He is, He's casting the net through His preaching. And what's interesting is you have a net—it has strings which cross each other, right? And the strings are the warp and the woof, and one represents truth, and the other represents eternal love, which is what our Lord and God and Savior brought to us, is eternal love for our salvation. A love that is, in a sense, imposing—imposing in gentleness and kindness, but nevertheless imposing in that He shines His light and His love upon us to gather us. And so we have this concept of the warp and the woof of the truth representing truth and love. It's also fascinating that, you know, when we look at a net we usually see the squares, but if actually if you look at where the squares intersect, you see a cross. So the net is a net made up of crosses. The crosses which represent the cross of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ upon which He was crucified. And by the power of His cross and these crosses, we are gathered into the ark of salvation. And so it is—the deep represents the realm of darkness and death, out of which we are drawn through the Word of God and baptism.

We think about this prior to coming to know Christ. In reality, that is, for those who are sensitive—the majority of the world does not seem to perceive. But for those of us who have been gifted, given the gift of seeing the truth of our Lord, we see that when we are gathered into the Holy Church by the net of salvation, by His Word and by His love, we are taken out of darkness. And we might not see—we might think, "Well, the sun shines on everyone, so it wasn't dark." But the darkness we're talking about is a spiritual darkness because we know that when we embrace our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ, and we begin to embrace His holy teachings and we participate first through Baptism of course to enter the Church, but then we participate—participation is fulfilled in the sacraments, but particularly the sacrament of Holy Communion. We know that light shines upon us. We see this, we see the peace that comes on us. And even if it's brief, nevertheless, we perceive the light of Christ, we see it in our lives, and we understand that we have been embraced by His love. And so the Savior went out upon the waters of the abyss, and He cast the net of His divine word and sacrificial love into the deep of darkness and death, to fish for men and women who have been swallowed up by the death-bestowing spirit of this corrupted world. May our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ continue to cast His net each and every day if we say our prayers and we remember Him, and to gather us and pull us away from the darkness of the world, which is, I think, visible to everyone at this point, and to gather us into His fold.

So it goes on. "Now when He had left speaking, He said to Simon, 'Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a draught.' And Simon answering said unto Him, 'Master, we have toiled all night and have taken nothing. Nevertheless, at Thy word I will let down the net.'" And here we see that Simon Peter—he doesn't understand clearly yet. So he says, Simon Peter answered, he said unto Him, "Master, we have toiled all night and have taken nothing." So on the one hand he addresses Him as Master, but on the other hand he doesn't know yet what is being revealed to him. And so he obviously thinks that we're talking about fish, you know, little fish that swim in the water. And he doesn't yet understand that we're talking about those who have been called by our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ to enter into this ship of salvation and begin their voyage toward the heavenly realm. And so Simon calls Christ Master. Despite his protest, Peter intuitively understood Christ's authority, and he obeyed the Savior's command. And what does this miracle mean or foreshadow?

So he says—so after saying, "We've toiled all night and caught nothing, but nevertheless, at Thy word I will let down the net." And when they had done this they enclosed a multitude of fishes, and their net broke. And they beckoned and filled both ships, so they began to sink. When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at—upon the knees of Jesus—at Jesus' knees, saying—his knees before Jesus, saying, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man." And it was when the boats were filled to ruin. Remember they had fished all night and caught nothing, and they were on the shore, probably discouraged, and now this whole thing has been transformed into a profound spiritual revelation, and we see that Simon Peter recognized that Christ was the Lord, the eternal Lord, the Son of God. And it was the Lord for whom they were waiting. And he recognized not only that—on the one hand that he knew that Christ was the Lord, but he knew—he understood his own sinfulness in the presence of our Lord. And so Simon Peter reveals that he does not yet understand that Jesus is the Christ of God, the fountain of forgiveness and love for forgiveness and love and compassion. And yet he is astonished. And so for it was—he was astonished and all that were with him at the draught of the fishes which they had taken, and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Jesus. And Jesus said unto Simon, "Fear not, from henceforth thou shalt catch men."

And this parable is very, very simple, but it's very, very beautiful. So isn't it amazing now? Simon Peter—St. John Chrysostom actually has a, I'll call it a mini-tirade, in which he says—it isn't a tirade, really. It's not angry, but he points out that Peter—I mean, they—he's a—these—Peter was—they were common fishermen. They didn't have any education. They weren't even ambitious. Here they were just doing their fishing and and so on and bringing in the fish and selling the fish and so on. And they were very, very simple. And yet through this miracle they have become transformed as those who will proclaim and carry the truth of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ into the world. So Christ recognized the fear of His Apostles in the words, "Fear not," and He ministered to them, and He revealed His total love and His compassion and His forgiveness. For Christ overcomes fear through forgiveness and compassionate love. And so should we—we should open our hearts to our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ, who will give us an eternal assurance in our lives. And then we will understand that with all the confusion of the law—of our lives in the flesh in this world, so complicated and so darkened—that in Christ we have forgiveness and we have His compassionate love.

And Christ revealed that those who were fishermen and who had caught nothing were themselves caught in the net of divine revelation, and by the power of His Word they were gathered into the ark of salvation. They who had been caught in the nets of salvation would themselves become Apostles of Christ and fishers of men, preaching the Word of God to all men to the ends of the earth. And when they had brought their ships to land, they forsook all and followed Him. So here we have in this very short account—I mean, obviously probably the account didn't take more than a couple of hours at most—and they went from being simple fishermen to Apostles of the truth and the love of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ. And I think that all of us need to consider how it might be that we could live a life of prayer and fasting and participation in divine services and particularly in the mysteries of the Holy Church through Holy Communion and through the great feasts of the Church, how we could be transformed. It's one thing for the Lord to cast the net, and we are living in the physical manifestation of the net that He's cast. The Church, in all of its beauty, and all of its truth, is a net. And it's calling to us and calling to those who have not yet found it to participate in the life of salvation. And the Church is often likened to an ark or a boat, a great ship, which is obviously sailing east—that direction—sailing east toward our eternal homeland. May our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ give us the faith and the determination to fulfill our obligations as Orthodox Christians through participation in the life of the divine services and through prayer and fasting in our own hearts and minds, in our own homes, that we might be prepared to receive the eternal glory.