Sunday 9th February 2025 – 4 before Lent

As you’ll be aware, I’m an angler. I’ve been fishing since my mid teens.

Over the years I’ve learned to ‘read the water’, to be able to tell see where fish might be hiding, look for signs of feeding activity, to assess what might be the right approach.

Generally there are two techniques that I use to catch fish. One is the trusted float, hook, piece of sweetcorn, the other is a swimfeeder with a hair-rig. Most of the time, these two simple techniques are all that I need to catch fish.

There are days when I seem to daw a blank, with nothing apparently taking the bait. At these times I have to think differently, try a different technique, a different part of the lake or river, a different rod, a change of reel.

Peter was an experienced fisherman. He’d followed in his Dad’s footsteps, watching and learning as he grew up. He knew how to catch fish, where to catch them, and the best time of day or night to catch them.

He and his friends had been fishing all night to no avail when Jesus comes along and says, ‘Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.’

With, I think, immense self-control Peter replies:

‘Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything.’

But then he adds:

‘But because you say so, I will let down the nets.’

The result is a miraculous catch so large that he has to get help to bring in the net.

There are times when we think that we’ve got this church thing sussed. We use this or that particular liturgy, these set of hymns or songs, meet in this sort of building.

And then Jesus says:

‘Put out into deep water, and let down your nets’.

Maybe there are times when Jesus is calling us to do it differently; a different liturgy; a change of hymns or songs; to try

silence; change our building; a new location. Have we the faith, the courage, to follow Peter’s example and say, ‘Because You say so, we will’?

Maybe there’s a miraculous catch waiting for us …

Rev Phil