A few weeks ago, I mentioned that when I was away from the Church, I always figured that I'd start going again some time.

It brought me back to a conversation that I had with a roommate back in college. He was saying that he wanted to quit smoking one day, but didn't know which day it'd be. He said that he didn't figure he'd smoke when he had a family, that it wasn't a good thing for a father to do around his children. He said that he didn't want to be one of those old guys who have to pull their Oxygen tanks wherever they go, that he didn't want to have a wheezy laugh that ends in a sloppy wet cough. He said that he always knew that one day he'd be a former smoker, but he also knew that that was for some day in the future, not for that day back in 2002.

That same conversation was the first time that I admitted out loud that I figured I'd be a churchgoer again someday, but didn't know when. He looked away into some near distance and said that he didn't think he'd ever be a regular in a church again; that he didn't think he'd ever really be accepted at a church after the stuff that he'd done.

I didn't know exactly what he meant and didn't ask. I couldn't figure out if he wanted me to ask or not. It doesn't matter.

My roommate said that he grew up "Evangelical Methodist" (I didn't know that such a thing existed), but that it was his parents church back home. When he first got to college, he was big into the Christian scene, but then he found out about bourbon and it pretty much ended his time with his plastic-fish-on-the-trunk-of-the-car crowd.

This story also pops into my mind for a different reason.

I was reading Good Father Zuhlsdorf's blog, What Does The Prayer Really Say?, and saw at the end that his blog, he notes that it is:

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I have changed his Luke 5:1-11 link to the New American Bible translation. It's not the best translation available, but it's quite readable and does not detract from the point of this section of the bible. Go read it. It's short, I'll wait. Luke Chapter 5, Versus 1 through 11.






Have you read it? Seriously now, go back, click the link and read the first 11 verses.






Good job. Thank you.

Here we've got Jesus starting to assemble his apostles--essentially recruiting men to begin His Church. It's a crucial scene to the history of human history, one that would ultimately be part of THE STORY of Western Civilization for the next 2000 years (and counting). Jesus sees these three fishermen who were starting to clean up from a long day's work. Simon and his partners James and John have been at work all night. These were men who made their lives' income by doing work the hard way. Dragging huge fishnets out at sea, in the dark of night and the heat of the open sun; a Midwestern guy like myself might compare it to a construction worker today. You've got to be big and strong and work when you're hurt and tired. Simon was gruff and impetuous, headstrong and stubborn. He was basically illiterate and would be the kind of guy today to have a "School of Hard Knocks" bumper sticker on his pickup.

So when this Jesus guy--a person they hadn't met--shouts out to their boat to go back out and cast their nets on the other side of their boat, they had every reason to ignore Jesus. Jesus was not a fisherman, he was a carpenter--a lowly job for a poor and lowly man. What did he know about commercial fishing? Objectively, probably little. Simon barked back to Jesus that they're tired, they've caught nothing all night. They were professionals, they knew their trade.

But they did it anyway. Strange, isn't it? We don't know why Simon and his fishing partners did what Jesus said, but they did anyway. And of course, they caught so much fish that their nets were strained to the breaking point, their boats were so full that they barely stayed afloat under the weight of their catch.

That's an amazing story, and if it ended there, we've seen enough to understand that Jesus' first apostles where hand picked, that they followed His directions from the very start and that we've beheld the simple power of Jesus. Good tale.

But to me the most interesting point is what happened next, in verse 8. Simon got back to shore, fell in front of Jesus and said "Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man." Those are awesome words. We know that Simon instantly knew he was in the presence of an incredible man. Lord might not just mean "God". It might have also meant "Sir" or "Boss". Except that Simon notes he is not worthy of even hanging around Jesus--that his sins make him unfit to be with Him. That's not the kind of reaction you have to your boss. It's the kind of reaction you have to your God.

Jesus told him to get up, he looked at these three fishermen and told them to come with Him--that from thenceforth, they'd be fishers of men. They brought their boats to shore, left everything and followed Him.

I doubt these guys knew that they were rewriting their life's stories in that moment. That John would spend most of his later life imprisoned and alone, that he'd die in Ephesus after a life of torture and rebuke. That James would see Jesus tortured and crucified, that he himself would be have his head sliced off at the order of the king. That Simon would later be picked by Jesus to be "the rock", the petros, that his name would be changed to Peter and that he'd be the first bishop of Rome, the first pope, and that a life dedicated to Jesus would ultimately end up resulting in his own crucifixion, hung upside down on a cross, a painful and humiliating death.

They couldn't have known it at the time. They also couldn't have known that by walking away from those fishing boats, they'd carry the good news of Christ to all the land, that they'd feed his lambs and tend his sheep, that they'd offer peace and salvation to billions and billions of people in the still-continuing course of history. That thousands of years later, people would still name their children after these simple fishermen, that the gospel they preached to the Jews and Gentiles would be a part of the gospel in every continent on Earth and to every nation under the sun.

They couldn't have known. Indeed, Simon Peter denies himself to Jesus, saying that he wasn't fit to be in his company. He was a sinful man and it was better for all if Jesus just left Simon alone.

And I think about my roommate. Saying that he wasn't fit for church anymore. That people would know him and reject him. That it was just better for everyone if he just left church alone.

I'm not saying that this guy was going to re-write the next two thousand years of history or that he'd eventually be executed by crucifixion. I kind of doubt that, actually.

But I read those words again: "Do not be afraid".

Wise words.

When I walked back into church, I was very afraid. Afraid of getting funny looks from the "regulars" who'd wonder what I was doing in their pew, afraid of altering my Sunday mornings irrevocably--that I'd have to get up early every week without any exceptions. I was afraid that someone would talk to me, afraid that no one would talk to me, afraid of doing the wrong thing, afraid to not do anything. I was afraid of things I couldn't identify and fully conscience that none of my fears were justified at all. That part doesn't matter.

"Do not be afraid".

And when they brought their boats to the shore, they left everything and followed him.