The Great Haul of Grace and Work

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. God is one. Amen.

The Gospel for today from the fifth chapter of the Gospel of St Luke is about how Jesus Christ called Simon and his fellow fishermen to follow Him. When Jesus was in Galilee, on the shore of Lake Gennesaret the land beside the lake was so full of people that Jesus asked Simon “to put out [his boat] a little from the land;” and Jesus then “sat down and taught the people from the boat.” Then, when Christ had finished teaching the people, He told Simon to “put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” Simon was surprised, and he said to Jesus Christ, “Master, we laboured all through the night and took in nothing, but at Your word I will let down the nets.” When the nets had been lowered, “they enclosed a great shoal of fish; and as their nets were breaking, they beckoned their partners in the other boat to come and help them” [Luke 5.3-7].

St Augustine has suggested that the nets are “the Word of God,” and that “the two boats” stand for “the two peoples, Jews and Gentiles [that is, non-Jews], [the] synagogue and [the] Church” [Sermon 248.2]. In that context, the Jews in the first boat had landed so many fish that they needed the help of Gentiles to bring to land all the fish that Simon and his fellow fishermen had caught. Like St Augustine, St Cyril, the fourth century Patriarch of Alexandria, also sees the nets as “the Word of God;” and St Cyril places the fishermen and the nets in our own times, because, and I quote: “the net is still being drawn [in], while Christ fills it, and calls to conversion those who, according to the Scripture phrase, are ‘in the depths of the sea,’ that is to say, those who live in the [midst of] . . . waves of worldly things,” concludes St Cyril [Commentary on Luke, Homily 12].

Let’s imagine for a moment that we are the fish—the people who have been called out of the “waves of worldly things” and into a life of following Christ. Simon does not yet know that he is to become St Peter, and that his faith will become the rock on which the Church will be founded [Matthew 16.18]. But consider the depth and honesty of this man. His immediate reaction is “Go from me, for I am a sinful man.” St Cyril praises the response of Simon, because, and I quote, “he had been taught by the law [of the Jewish people] to distinguish between the holy and the profane,” concludes St Cyril. We too have been taught by the Church “to distinguish between the holy and the profane.” We too know that Christ is holy; and we are sinners in need of His guidance.

So how can we receive this guidance for our own lives that Christ wishes to give us? There are times in each of our lives when we too, like Simon and his fellow fishermen, have “toiled all night and took nothing.” A fifth century Bishop of Turin, St Maximus, points out, that Simon has learned, and I quote: “Now, I will not fish with fishing gear but with grace [that is, love from God], not with diligence acquired by skill but with perseverance acquired by devotion,” concludes St Maximus. That is a profound shift for Simon, and for me and perhaps for you, about how to find God’s will and to follow Jesus Christ. We often seek to have “diligence acquired by skill “—that is, careful and hard-working effort. That can be good; however, that effort has to be followed up with “perseverance acquired by devotion”—that is, the steady striving for some goal that arises out of our devotion, our commitment, to Christ and His teachings from God the Father.

Natural human abilities and God-given guidance support each other. This unity of human free will and divine grace has been called “synergy” [s-y-n-e-r-g-y]. As the Orthodox Christian theologian Stephen Thomas explains in The Concise Encyclopedia of Orthodox Christianity: “On the one hand the nature or essence of God is unknown and beyond human comprehension, [but] on the other hand the energies or operations of God interact with human freedom and raise the human person to knowledge of the uncreated [energies of God]. . . . Orthodoxy understands grace as a deifying energy [that is, an energy that draws us to God and His will for our lives], [with] salvation being the union of the divine energy and the human will or energy in synergy,” concludes Dr. Thomas [John Anthony McGuckin (ed.), article on “Deification,” p. 150].

This idea of synergy is certainly significant and highly mystical Orthodox theology. However, synergy is also quite practical. As Dr Thomas explains: “Even in heaven, the blessed never know the divine essence. . . . What we have instead in heaven is the uninterrupted experience of the energies [of God] which were experienced only occasionally and for a time in the earthly life: in heaven, grace is complete, the divine light shining uninterruptedly, so that the blessed cannot fall back or lapse [into sin],” concludes Dr. Thomas [McGuckin (ed.), article on “Grace,” p. 226]. I find that understanding of life in heaven and life on earth very helpful. As we begin to know God in our life on earth, this prepares us for life in heaven, when we will know Him much more fully. The reality that here on earth we cannot know God fully is part of being human. We are learning to know God; we are preparing ourselves for heaven, but we are not there yet.

Now, in this Gospel reading today, there is certainly a divine intervention by God into the human lives of three first-century Jewish fishermen. Jesus Christ said to Simon and his partners, James and John, “‘Do not be afraid; henceforth you will catching men.’ And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed Him,” concludes the Gospel reading for today [Luke 5.10-11]. So, Simon and James and John stopped trying to catch fish. But note that what they had learned as fishermen would be of great value to them and to Christ as they sought to follow Him. Being fishermen, often all through the night, had certainly taught them to persevere and to search out where they should go in “the deep waters” of the world. Now, because of their trust in Jesus Christ, their devotion to Him, these three men were ready for the next step in their lives. They were ready to help Christ build the Church.

This Gospel passage is about the beginning of the Church. This is when Jesus Christ begins to select His apostles and begins to show how His Church is to be built. Note that when Simon and James and John left their fishing boats behind they did not know where Christ would lead them, but they were ready to follow Him, because they had learned that Jesus Christ Himself was and is “the way and the truth and the life,” as set out in the Gospel of St John, chapter 14, verse 6. That’s a good model for us. We do not know precisely where Christ will lead us in our earthly lives. But we can be confident and calm that if we cooperate, He will guide us to His purposes for our lives. Today Jesus Christ is still building up His Church, deepening our devotion to Him and our perseverance, as well as drawing others to Himself. Let us rejoice then as . . .

. . . we ascribe as is justly due all might, majesty, dominion, power and praise to God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, always now and ever and unto the ages of ages.

Father Emmanuel Kahn