Is 6:1-2a, 3-8 / 1 Cor 15:1-11 or 15:3-8, 11 / Lk 5:1-11
A man was sitting at his desk one morning, when his partner came running into the office, all out of breath. “You won’t believe this,” he says. “I was almost killed a minute ago. I had just walked out of the deli, where I buy my egg sandwich every morning. A police car with its siren and lights on was chasing a car down the street.
“The police rammed the other car, then everybody jumped out and started shooting. And I was right in the line of fire! I could hear the bullets whizzing overhead. Windows were shattering, cars were careening onto the sidewalk, and everybody was running for cover. Let me tell you, I’m lucky to be alive!”
The other fellow was quiet for moment and then he replied. “So,” he said, “you eat an egg sandwich every morning?”
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He missed the whole point, and that qualifies him very nicely as one of us. Because missing the point, not seeing and not getting at the core of life is a problem we have every day.
As life tugs and pulls us in a variety of directions hourly, we forget what really matters; we bring only a part of our best selves to most moments; we are blind to the loveliest things around us and tone-deaf to what could make our souls sing.
At the bottom of it all is our failure to see what the whole of creation — every single piece of it — is straining to show us, and that is the awesome presence of God, Who is the ground of our being, the ground from which we spring anew at each moment.
That is what Sunday’s gospel is about: Learning to see and to recognize what has been here all along. Peter and his partners had looked for fish all night and had found none. Their nets are empty. So Jesus shows them where to look and how to look, and within minutes their nets are full to bursting.
Awed by the sudden, massive catch of fish where before there seemed to be nothing, Peter gets the point: This isn’t about fish at all. It’s about how vast, how awesome, and how close God is.
Peter sees through the details of the event, through those masses of fish, and gets the point: He is in the presence of God, God who was always there, God whom he’d hardly noticed before, God whose presence, if seen, can give every moment light and make every day a blessing.
The whole of creation is straining to show us what Peter saw that day. Look at the sunrise, the cool rain, my hand, your heartbeat, that flower, this sleeping infant, the vastness of space. They are all whispering the same message, the message of their maker: “I am good and beautiful and powerful beyond all understanding,” whispers the Lord through His creatures, “and yet I am here, beside you and within you, sustaining you, and offering you light and life, joy and peace now.” So speaks the Lord through His creatures.
Listen closely to His creatures, and you will hear Him. Look closely at what He has made and you will see His reflection. Take Him in and walk with Him, and His light and life, joy and peace will be yours this day. That is His promise!
