The Familiar Struggle
Picture this: You’ve been working all night. Your back aches, your hands are raw, and you have absolutely nothing to show for it. Every cast of the net came back empty. Every hour felt wasted. This is where we find Simon Peter and his fishing partners at the beginning of our Gospel reading today—exhausted, frustrated, and cleaning their nets after a night of complete failure.
But here’s what strikes me about this scene: they were doing exactly what they were supposed to be doing. They were experienced fishermen. They knew the lake, they knew their craft, they used the right techniques. Yet they caught nothing.
How often do we find ourselves in similar places? Working hard at our relationships, our careers, our spiritual lives—doing all the “right” things—yet feeling like we’re coming up empty? Like we’re missing something essential?
The Deeper Problem
The real issue wasn’t their fishing technique. The problem was much deeper than that. These men were living their lives focused entirely on the immediate, the material, the things they could see and touch and count. They were “fishers of fish”—and there’s nothing wrong with that, except when that becomes the limit of our vision.
When we focus only on what’s directly in front of us—our immediate needs, our material concerns, our surface-level relationships—we miss the deeper currents of life. We become like people trying to catch fish in shallow water when the real abundance lies in the depths.
Think about how this plays out in our daily lives. We chase after things that promise to satisfy us: the perfect job, the ideal relationship, the right amount of money in the bank, the approval of others. But no matter how much we accumulate, there’s still that nagging emptiness, that sense that we’re missing something fundamental.
The fishermen had been fishing all night in their own strength, with their own wisdom, for their own purposes. And they came up empty.
When Jesus Gets in the Boat
Then Jesus shows up. And he doesn’t just stand on the shore giving advice—he gets in the boat. He asks Simon to put out a little from the shore so he can teach the crowds. And Simon, probably thinking, “Well, why not? We’re not catching any fish anyway,” goes along with it.
But then Jesus does something that must have seemed completely backwards to these professional fishermen. He tells them to go out into deep water and let down their nets—in broad daylight, when everyone knows fish bite at dawn and dusk. These men had been fishing these waters their whole lives, and this carpenter’s son is giving them fishing advice?
Here’s the crisis moment: Will they trust their own experience and expertise, or will they step into something completely beyond their understanding?
Simon’s response is beautiful: “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.”
The Great Reversal
What happens next changes everything. The nets are so full of fish they begin to break. They have to call for help from other boats. These experienced fishermen are overwhelmed by an abundance they never could have imagined.
But notice what happens to Simon Peter. When he sees this miracle, he doesn’t celebrate. He falls down before Jesus and says, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!”
Why this response? Because Simon suddenly realizes he’s been living his life focused on all the wrong things. He’s been a “fisher of fish”—concerned only with what he could catch, control, and count. But in this moment, he catches a glimpse of something infinitely greater. He sees that Jesus is connected to a reality that transcends everything he thought he knew.
This is the great reversal: the moment when our attention shifts from the immediate to the eternal, from the material to the spiritual, from what we can grasp to what can grasp us.
And then Jesus speaks the words that transform everything: “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.”
What It Means to Fish for People
So what does it mean to become “fishers of people”? It’s not about recruiting more church members or winning arguments about religion. It’s about something much more profound.
But here’s the key: we can only become fishers of people after we’ve first learned to fish for God. And that happens through contemplative practice—specifically, through simple, repeated prayer that gradually refocuses our scattered attention: the Jesus Prayer.
Think about how your attention gets pulled throughout the day. Your phone buzzes, your stomach growls, your mind worries about money, craves approval, replays old conversations. Our attention has been stolen away by a thousand small things—bodily appetites, material concerns, the endless chatter in our heads.
But there’s an ancient practice that can help us reclaim our attention: the Jesus Prayer. Simply repeating “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me” is a great way to gently guide our wandering attention back to what matters most.
Martin Laird wrote a great book, Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation, that explains the Jesus Prayer. He tells us to sit still and take a deep breath. After taking a few breaths, add the Jesus Prayer to the breath: “Lord Jesus Christ” as you inhale, and “have mercy on me” as you exhale. He then writes,
“Let your attention rest gently but steadily on the breath as you breathe the prayer word. Eventually the attention, the breath, and the prayer word will form a unity. This will be your anchor in the present moment, a place of refuge and engaged vigilance.”
But, this is easier said than done. He continues,
“Whenever you find that your attention has been stolen by thoughts, simply bring your attention back to the breathing of the prayer word. This is the simple practice. The practice is not ‘never let your attention be stolen.’ It will most definitely be stolen, perhaps every few seconds. The practice is to bring your attention back when you realize it has been stolen, whether it’s every 30 seconds or every three seconds. The habit of gently returning to the present moment is what is being cultivated, and this habit gently excavates the present moment and cultivates dynamic stillness.”
When we practice this consistently, something remarkable happens. We begin to relate to our own thoughts differently. Instead of being swept away by every worry, craving, or distraction, we learn to notice them and then return our attention to God’s presence. We discover that we are not our thoughts—we are the ones who can choose where to place our attention.
And once we’ve been transformed in this way—once we’ve learned to see our own inner life with compassion and clarity—then we naturally begin to see others differently too. Instead of looking at others and wondering what they can do for us, we begin to see them as Jesus sees them—as beloved children of God who, just like us, are hungry for something deeper than what this world offers.
This is what it means to become fishers of people. We’ve learned to fish for God in the depths of our own hearts, and now we can help others discover those same depths in themselves.
When this happens, we don’t just talk about Christ—we become Christ’s presence in the world. Our church doesn’t just point to Christ—it becomes Christ’s body in our community. As our mission states: Healing in Christ, together as one Body.
The fishermen left everything and followed Jesus because they had tasted something that made everything else pale in comparison. We taste that something through our practice of deep prayer.
They had moved from fishing for fish to fishing for people. And in that movement, they found not just a new profession, but a new way of being fully alive. And, we too can find a new way of being alive because that same invitation extends to each of us today.
The question is: Are we ready to put out into deep water?
Amen.