Fishing from the Other Side

John 21:4-14

Under stress, most of us will retreat to the familiar. There is comfort in doing something we have done many, many times before. Confidence comes as we do something and see it turn out the way we planned, or if it does not go according to plan, at least, we more or less understand the mechanics. So it is with the disciples on Easter. They hit a real crisis point on Good Friday, watching their hopes and dreams crumble in a single, terrible afternoon. So, Peter leads them back where they started, back before they had met Jesus, back before any of them had any illusions of a transformation of the world, but before it hurt so much. That they catch nothing is unimportant. They settle into knowing what they are doing.

It is our default position in a time of crisis. We do not understand what is happening. We do not see any familiar handholds to latch onto. So we retreat. We all back into old patterns, old habits, and desperately try to make the world a place we still know. We see this in everything from the current election cycle to our own dinner table conversations. When everything seems to be falling apart, we suddenly act like its thirty years ago. We try to fool ourselves that we are back before whatever crisis came existed. Besides, since the crisis completely rattles and confuses us, we’ve no hope anyway, right?

Then Jesus stands on the shore. The disciples have no idea who he is. How could they? They’d witnessed his death. Dead people don’t come back. 

That fits. Lost in resignation, we lose sight of the Lord, seeing only our sad and sorry predicament. Even as we try to recreate the world before the crisis, we can’t. It traps us. It blinds us.

Jesus makes an absurdly simple suggestion—try the other side—drop your nets on the other side of the boat. 

Is our redemption as impossibly complicated as we assume? Is it something truly out of reach for us to even contemplate? What if the assurance and the hope we need for the future was actually the application of something simple? What if it was as simple as embodying the love we declare revealed in Jesus as we work, live, and interact with the world? Try the other side…

Notice that Jesus does not change a single thing in the basic work being done—it is still fishing in all the ways fishing with nets is fishing with nets. All that changes is which side of the boat from which to cast the net.

Oh. 

Maybe salvation is as simple as believing it possible. Maybe release is as basic as seeking help. So many times, we fear our prayers are ignored by God when, in fact, God is right there, right then. We are looking for some Vegas display of miracle—a great spectacle that shatters creation—when grace comes in a quiet voice from kindly friend. God works through us, so redemption comes through us. It arrives in our presence with and for one another. 

A woman lost her job and was on the brink of eviction from her apartment. Her church knew of her plight. One person after another arrived with food, counsel on how to manage the process of government assistance, an offer of a spare bedroom, and a promise of clothes should the need the arise. The woman, though, complained that God was doing nothing to help. Where was the answered prayer? Where was the miraculous bounty to end her plight? Finally, one friend gently said, We’re the answer. A light burst in the woman’s heart—yes, yes, there it was, right there, her friends!

The truth is that we are forever complicating the Gospel. We drape it in high theology. We shroud it liturgy that is now incomprehensible. We lock it away in mighty fortresses of churches grown defensive about the outside culture. We cover it in layers of moralistic codes of behavior that immediately draw lines within the community of the children of God; i.e., the seven billion people on the earth right now. We wonder our nets are empty. We wonder why we work and work, and nothing much happens. Jesus meets us. You caught no fish on the left side of the boat; try the right side! You have not built huge communities of Jesus with all that stuff, try simply living what you believe.

As the disciples choose to listen to Jesus, letting go of how they’d always fished—BANG!—they got more fish than they ever imagined! Aligned with Christ, they suddenly realized the power of Christ to radically transform their world and ways. 

That promise is ours to take. We need to reassess where we stand with Jesus. Do we take his way as our way? Are our objectives his? To see these things, we need to delve deeply into scripture, looking to see exactly how Jesus spoke to people, what he did with them and for them, and how he engaged them. We will find a practice of radical hospitality—everyone was welcome to be with Jesus. We will find compassion that led to self-emptying. We will find mercy that allows everyone a place at the table. Do these things, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.

It can be that simple.