Commentary on Luke 5:1-11

Jesus’ famous invitation to the men on the boat to become “fishers of people” is often regarded as a metaphor for evangelism. While this is understandable, when we consider the socioeconomic implications of this story, we discover something even more radical. Jesus’ invitation is also about building subversive communities of resistance and resilience in the midst of imperial economies of exploitation.

Fishing for the fishermen

It’s worth noting that Jesus begins recruiting his disciples from among those who work the sea.  These laborers were on the lowest level of Rome’s hierarchy of occupations. They owned no land and were forced to pay for both the right to fish on the emperor’s lake and the right to sell the fish they caught through a toll exacted on their catch. Their work was physically demanding and dangerous, often leaving them with barely enough money to sustain their families.

This does not mean we should regard these men in a disdainful way. On the contrary, their painful familiarity with the Roman extractive economy “made them receptive to Jesus’ subversive word and vital agents of his work,” explains T. Wilson Dickinson in The Green Good News.¹ When Jesus came upon Peter and his companions washing their nets with no fish in sight, he knew that the only thing filling their nets that day was a debt to the empire that could not be paid.

But Jesus sees an opportunity. He tells them to go back out and throw their nets into deep water. Peter’s initial response to Jesus telling them to try again is skepticism. He’s frustrated, tired, and depleted. Yet something about Jesus’ challenge also sparks curiosity. Could something be different this time? What might happen? And, why not? What did he have to lose?

Something stinks!

After hauling in not one, but two boats’ worth of fish, Peter suspects that Jesus’ challenge wasn’t just about the fish. It may have been about his own worth as a person. He declares himself a “sinful man,” lowest man on the imperial roster. He tells Jesus to stay away from him—you don’t want the stink of me on you.

But Jesus knows that the stink isn’t from Peter. It’s from what’s around them—a corrupt and rotting system of exploitation that sullies everyone trapped within its net. So he offers an even more intriguing challenge: “From now on, you will be catching people” (Luke 5:10). Dickinson points out that Jesus is “taking a repeated image out of the prophetic tradition and telling them that they are going to overturn the whole imperial order.”²

In Jeremiah 16:16–17, God expresses disgust at the self-serving practices of the elite by saying: “I am now sending many fishermen … they shall catch them. … For my eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from my presence, nor is their iniquity concealed from my sight.”

A call to revolution

So, fishing for people is not about saving souls for Jesus. It’s a call to revolution, for rising up against those who practice idolatry and take advantage of the poor. Amos, too, uses fishing imagery to describe God’s response to those “who oppress the poor, who crush the needy” (Amos 4:1). They will be taken away “with hooks, even the last of you with fishhooks” (Amos 4:2). Thus, as Dickinson explains, “to be made ‘fishers of men’ is to be agents of justice who will fish out and remove the elite who have oppressed the poor and broken covenant with God.”³

This biblical and historical perspective on Luke’s story may be shocking to some hearers. For those who have believed that being “fishers of people” meant inviting people to church, giving out religious tracts and pamphlets, or creating an advertising line for the church budget, preaching the radical nature of this text could be met with skepticism, discomfort, or even anger.

But there might also be an opportunity for sparking curiosity. What could be different about our ministry if we shifted our focus from saving individual sin-stinking souls to rooting out the stench of the system around us? What might happen? And, why not? What do we have to lose?

Consider your context

This would be an ideal opportunity to consider your context. What stinks about the way business is done around here? What’s not fair and what’s not right? Where is corruption rotting us from the inside out? And how might we use our collective power to change it?

“To follow Jesus was about a shift in relationships and collective action,” Dickinson explains.⁴  Highlighting examples of churches and interfaith groups shifting their relationships and collectively addressing the problems in their communities can be inspiring:

• Faith-based farm-to-table initiatives that subvert corporate food conglomerates
• The interfaith climate movement that confronts fossil fuel corporations extracting both labor and Earth’s resources
• Denominational refugee ministries that provide safety, homes, transportation, job assistance, and education, defying xenophobic rhetoric from politicians
• The Interfaith Worker Justice network (1996–2021) mobilizing people of faith to support worker rights by advocating for fair wages, safe working conditions, and the right to organize.

Making the network!

Peter and his fellow fishermen didn’t need convincing. They knew that the extraordinary haul of fish was not meant to give them just a bit extra for surviving within the net that held them. It was to demonstrate Jesus’ power to flip the net inside out, turn the tables, upend the system, and build something that served their community—not their overlords. They were about to learn how to make the network!

Notes

1. T. Wilson Dickinson, The Green Good News: Christ’s Path to Sustainable Life and Joy (Cascade Books, 2019), 55.
2. Dickinson, 56.
3. Dickinson, 56.
4. Dickinson, 56.

PRAYER OF THE DAY
Lord Jesus of fisher folk,
You taught your disciples to cast a wide net — not for fish, but for people. Teach us the fishing craft. Make our fingers nimble so we may handle hearts and hands gently; make our minds quiet and patient while we wait for those who are not yet ready to receive you; and make our hearts hungry for your word, for the sake of the one who has captured our hearts already, Jesus Christ. Amen.

HYMNS
How clear is our vocation, Lord ELW 580
Jesus calls us; o’er the tumult ELW 696, H82 549, 550, UMH 398, NCH 171, 172
You have come down to the lakeshore ELW 817, NCH 173

CHORAL
God is seen, Alice Parker