A Reflection on Luke 5:1-11
There is a moment in Luke’s Gospel that I think captures something essential about the whole Christian journey. Jesus has been teaching beside the Lake of Gennesaret when he tells Simon Peter to take the boat out into deeper water and lower the nets.
Peter knows the lake. He knows fishing. He and his companions have worked through the night and caught nothing. Everything in his experience tells him that going out again is unlikely to achieve very much.
Yet Peter responds to Jesus. He moves away from the shore and goes out into the deep.
What follows is the extraordinary catch of fish, but I think there is something more happening here than a miracle about fishing. Peter is being invited to trust Jesus beyond the limits of his own experience.
That phrase – “put out into the deep” – has remained important throughout the Christian tradition. The Fathers of the Church reflected upon it, and in more recent times St John Paul II used the image powerfully when encouraging the Church to duc in altum: put out into the deep.
I find it a particularly helpful image for thinking about our own spiritual lives. There is, I believe, a difference between living our Christian life by the shore and living it in the deep. These are not two different Christian lives. They are dimensions of the same journey. The question is whether we are prepared to keep travelling.
From Believing Something to Knowing Someone
By the shore, our faith can quite properly begin with what Jesus has taught. We learn the Gospel. We learn what the Church believes. We come to understand the teachings of our faith.All of this is necessary. But the deep invites us further.
Eventually Christianity must become more than believing the message. We must come to know the Messenger. At its heart, Christian faith is a relationship with Jesus.
This changes the way we understand almost everything else. Faith is no longer simply one part of my life alongside family, work, friendships and responsibilities. Gradually, my relationship with Christ becomes the context within which I understand all those other things.
I am no longer trying to fit Christ into my life. I begin trying to fit my life into Christ. That, I think, is one of the movements into deeper water.
From External Observance to Interior Conversion
There is another movement.
Near the shore, it is possible to concentrate primarily upon the outward observances of faith.We attend Mass. We say our prayers. We fulfil our obligations. These are good and necessary things, but Christianity cannot remain simply external.
The deep asks another question:
What is happening within me?
Why do I do these things? What is motivating me? Am I merely observing my faith, or is my heart gradually being transformed by my relationship with Jesus? It is quite possible to perform the externals of Christianity without allowing them to lead us into deeper conversion.
The outward practice should express something happening within.
From Commandments to Virtue
Something similar occurs with the commandments.
The commandments are indispensable. They give us boundaries and help us recognise those actions that lead us towards God and those that take us away.
But spiritual maturity asks us to go further.
The deeper Christian life is increasingly concerned with virtue. What kind of person am I becoming? Am I becoming more patient? More generous? More forgiving? More courageous? More humble? More loving?
The commandments tell us important things about what we should and should not do. The virtues gradually shape who we are. And it is this transformation of the person that allows our relationship with Jesus to become increasingly intimate.
From Saying Prayers to Becoming Prayer
Prayer undergoes a similar development.
By the shore, we say our prayers – and again, that is good. We speak to Jesus. We bring him our needs, our gratitude, our fears and the people we love.
But deeper prayer becomes less about simply talking to Jesus and increasingly about being with Jesus.
There develops what I would call an attentive presence.
Through baptism we have entered into a common life with Christ. Prayer gradually awakens us to that reality.
There is a saying attributed to St Francis that captures something of this movement: we do not simply pray; eventually, we become prayer. Our whole life begins to be lived consciously in the presence of God.
From Reading About Jesus to Meeting Jesus
The same can happen with Scripture.
We can read the Gospels because we want to learn about Jesus. That is a perfectly good beginning. But Scripture offers us something much greater. We can meet Jesus in the Word. This is why Lectio Divina is so important to me. We do not approach Scripture merely asking, “What information can I learn from this passage?”
We ask: “Lord, what are you saying to me?”
Scripture becomes an encounter. The Word draws us into relationship with the One who speaks through it. We move from information to intimacy.
From Practising Faith to Sharing Faith
There is another important sign of maturity. Christian faith cannot ultimately remain something that exists only between Jesus and me. Pope Paul VI spoke of apostolic initiative. I think that describes something essential about the mature Christian life.
What we have received is meant to overflow. If I have encountered Christ, then something of Christ should become visible in the way I live, speak, work, forgive, serve and relate to others. This does not mean forcing faith upon people. It means allowing the life of Christ within us to become a gift for others. Peter is called into the deep, but notice what happens afterwards: his vocation becomes a mission.
“From now on,” Jesus tells him, “you will be catching people.”The encounter leads outward.That pattern remains true for us.
The Danger of Staying Near the Shore
There is nothing wrong with beginning near the shore. We all begin somewhere. The danger is deciding to stay there.
If our Christian life never develops beyond habit, obligation and external observance, it can become vulnerable. We can gradually become comfortable, then indifferent, and eventually step ashore altogether.
That is why I think the Christian life must always contain movement. The important question is not whether I have reached some imagined state of spiritual perfection.
The question is: Am I travelling? Am I moving towards greater intimacy with Jesus?
None of us lives entirely by the shore or entirely in the deep. Most of us probably recognise something of both within ourselves. And living in the deep does not mean achieving perfection. I prefer to speak about maturity.
It is the gradual development of a Christian life in which Jesus becomes increasingly central to who we are.
We Have to Choose
God provides the grace for this journey, but grace does not remove our freedom.We have to choose. We have to choose prayer. We have to choose Scripture. We have to choose virtue. We have to choose the practices that deepen our relationship with Christ.
Gregory of Nyssa expressed this rather strikingly when he suggested that, in a sense, we become our own parents in the faith. We become the disciple we choose to become.
That does not mean we save ourselves. Everything begins with grace. But grace invites a response. Peter still had to push the boat away from the shore. He still had to lower the nets.He still had to trust. And so do we.
St Paul uses the image of an athlete running a race. The athlete runs to win the prize. For us, I do not think the point is that we must somehow outperform everyone else.
The point is that we should run as though it matters. It is possible to wander through the Christian life. But the Gospel invites something more. It invites us to give ourselves to the journey. And perhaps that leaves each of us with a very simple question:
Where am I today – and am I still travelling?
Jesus continues to invite us away from the safety of the shore. “Put out into the deep.” The grace is there.The invitation has been given. The choice to push out from the shore is ours.
by Bishop David Walker