Luke 5: 1 – 11

by Steph Neville

• What are your first thoughts /initial responses to the text?

• What are we asked to contribute to make miracles happen?

• Do you think this is the first time Simon, James and John have met Jesus?

• What difference does it make to how you hear the story if it is / isn’t?

This is one of the versions of how Jesus calls his first disciples. As the story begins Jesus is trying to teach but is getting hemmed in by the crowds. Putting out from shore in Simon’s boat offers a solution. Later, from this same boat, there will be a miraculous catch of fish: but Jesus doesn’t create this miracle from nothing. Whatever Jesus brings to this story, Simon also has to bring something: the boat, the nets. It seems to me like so many of the miracle stories work like this: the wedding at Cana, the feeding of the 5000 … Jesus is only able to work miracles when others in the story also contribute something. I suspect

This is the first time we meet Simon, James and John: and by the end of this short text they have left everything to follow Jesus. I think because it is the first time we read of them, the temptation might be to read this as an immediate encounter and conversion story. Perhaps it is, But there is another possibility: that the upping and leaving we see is, in fact the latest step on their journey to discipleship (which will, let’s face it, continue to have some ups and downs) We have no proof either way but I think the call of the disciples feels very different depending on these two different ways of reading the text.

Jesus insists on Simon going back out to fish: and despite having fished unsuccessfully all night, agrees. The result is an incredible catch: against odds and expectations, perhaps, Jesus invitation to cast the nets again brought in in huge success. The end of the story might have felt different if they still hadn’t caught much! Then again, perhaps it wouldn’t. Perhaps there is something about intention and the boat load of fish was just a bonus. It is, after all, at the point of great blessing, not at the point of empty nets, that Simon asks Jesus to go away and leave him. I wonder if the call to become fishers of people would still have been offered over empty nets, and I wonder if the disciples would have responded in the same way as they did. I guess we will never know, other than from what we see in ourselves and others about a continued response to a call whether or not we seem to see fruits or success.

• Have you ever felt called or compelled (by God or by someone you trust) to do something which seems irrational / illogical? How do you respond?

• Have you ever felt overwhelmed by or unworthy of generosity / blessing… be that from God or from other people? How do you respond?

• How important are the results / outcomes when we reflect on our response to God’s call?