When we were growing up we used to sing a song in Sunday School that went, "I will make you fishers of men, fishers of men, fishers of men. I will make you fishers of men if you follow me."
Life during the time of Jesus was extremely difficult. Historians paint a Roman-occupied Palestine where the average life expectancy was under 30, the majority was suffocating in debt, and half of the population was slowly starving to death.
At the bottom of the social structure were farmers and fisherfolk. Nothing has changed. Farmers and fisherfolk remain at the bottom of the social structure today. Approximately 1.5 million families in the Philippines are fisherfolk. The poorest two out of every five poor people in the country are fisherfolk.
In Sunday's lection Jesus calls fisherfolk to follow him in order to fish for people. A carpenter calls fisherfolk to fish. Jesus does not call anyone to worship him. Or to believe in him. Or to accept him as their Personal Savior and Lord. Or even to be a carpenter. Jesus calls us to follow him. To do what? To fish for people.
Many ancient peoples were afraid of the seas. They feared drowning; they feared the turbulent waves; they feared the ancient, eldritch leviathans they imagined lurked beneath the surface. But Jesus does not call us to fish people out of their fear of the deep.
During Jesus's time, the Empire owned and controlled the seas and the fishing industry! Taxes were imposed on fishing, on boats, on nets, on fishing areas, on everything! In our lection, Simon tells Jesus that they were fishing all night and caught nothing.
Jesus's call to fish for people is a call for us to follow him in taking out people from systems and structures that oppress, that dehumanize, that subjugate, that murder.
And who are the people who experience the evil of these systems and structures every single moment of their lives? Fisherfolk. Genuine transformation always comes from below, from among those at greatest risk of drowning, from among those whose only hope is God. The call has not changed.
People, especially the most vulnerable, are drowning in imperial waters. And the situation has gone from bad to worse with COVID-19. Jesus is calling us right now to follow him and fish for people.
*image, "Fishing and Fishermen," Life in the Holy Land (www.lifeintheholyland.com/fishing_fishermen
