Sermon Tone Analysis
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The Right Side of the Boat
I took a huge sign of relief last Saturday when I submitted my last assignment for my degree.
I was officially graduated yesterday.
I have to be honest, I panicked a little on Thursday.
In my mind I was still in the education mode and I thought I had homework due.
I had to remind myself that I was done.
My schedule has changed so much over the past almost 3 years.
I was trying to figure out what I was going to do with myself.
Darlene has a long list of things that need done.
It was nice to sit in my office on Friday just contemplating what I needed to do.
Part of what I was thinking about was routine.
What is my new routine going to look like.
I’m going to continue working 4 10 hour shifts at work each week so that I have more time for ministry work through the church.
I’ll have some extra time to work on our retirement home.
Although with the price of lumber and building supplies I don’t think I’ll ever be able to afford to finish it!
There is something comforting and reassuring to have a routine that you go through on a daily basis.
I think we are all pretty much creatures of habit.
Sometimes it almost seems we are stuck in a rut because routine become comfortable.
In our scripture today we see that for Peter and some of the disciples they needed the old routine, the routine that they had before they began to follow Jesus.
After what they had experienced with Jesus crucifixion and death and now his resurrection everything had changed.
Their entire world had been turned upside down and they needed something to hold onto during this time of transition and change.
Peter and several of the disciples turned to the old routine of fishing.
John tells us there in verse 3 that Peter said:
John 21:3 (CEB)
3 Simon Peter told them, “I’m going fishing.”
Peter is saying that he’s going back to what he knows and that is fishing.
You’ll remember from Matthews Gospel what Peter was doing.
Matthew wrote:
As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew.
They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen.
“Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.”
At once they left their nets and followed him.
(Matthew 4:18-20)
Peter and Andrew and many of the others were fishermen.
That is an occupation that they probably learned from their fathers.
It was all they knew.
So after 3 and half years spent with Jesus they returned to the routine and the familiar.
The idea that Jesus had planted in their minds when he first called them must have seemed like a distant memory in light of what had happened to Jesus.
Jesus told them that they would fish for people.
Now that everything had been turned into turmoil they went back to their old lives.
Do we ever do that when life gets challenging?
Do we ever turn back to the familiar, to the routine?
What else could they do?
They should have listened to Jesus.
Do you recall the scripture from last week?
When Jesus appeared to the disciples the first time he said to them:
Jesus had commissioned them as sent people.
They were no longer fishermen of fish, but they were to be fishing for people.
Many Bible scholars speculate that they were being disobedient to the will of God by going out fishing.
Jesus had already told them that he was sending them.
We don’t know exactly in the chronology of these days if Jesus had already given them the great commission.
But clearly Jesus had commissioned them to go.
It is interesting to read there in verse 3 that they spent all night fishing and they caught nothing.
Nothing more disappointing than spend hours fishing and to not catch anything.
One writer put it this way:
They were not the first fishermen to spend a night fishing without success!
They illustrate the uselessness of human efforts apart from divine help, especially in the matter of fishing for souls.[1]
One thing that I have learned the hard way is that when I attempt to do something that it outside the will of God or without consulting and praying about it is this.
I end up making a mess and become a failure.
It is very important that we seek the will of God in everything that we do in life.
Peter and the other disciples had yet to learn that lesson but they were learning it that night.
It is easy to miss what happens next.
Jesus is standing on the shore or the lake.
Peter and the others are still in their boat out on the water.
It’s almost like a statement rather than a question.
Jesus knew they didn’t have any fish so he is asking the obvious.
Have you ever had anyone ever ask you an obvious question?
You’ve probably heard this one.
A guy was changing a flat tire on his car and someone stopped and asked him if he had a flat tire.
The guy looks at him and says “No, I was driving and the other three tires just swelled up on me.”
Don’t call me when you get that.
Jesus asked them “have you caught any fish.”
That too the disciples is an obvious question.
The disciples don’t recognize him as Jesus.
Jesus next says to them:
John 21:6 (CEB)
6 He said, “Cast your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.”
Jesus, the one who created the fish of the seas knew exactly where the fish were and he tells them to toss their net over on the right side of the boat.
I can only imagine how frustrated the disciples were at that point.
They had been fishing all night and hadn’t caught anything and this guy on the beach yells out to them to toss their net out again but on the other side of the boat.
It’s important to remember that Peter and the others were experienced fishermen.
They had grown up fishing, they had spent their early lives fishing.
Two of them were at least second generation fishermen.
They had lived and breathed perhaps their entire lives fishing.
I think it’s safe to say that fishing was in their blood.
They knew all there was to know about fishing.
Some guy that they didn’t recognize is telling them to toss their nets out again on the right side of the boat and they’ll catch something.
I’ve never fished with a net before, but can imagine it must be very tiring tossing a net out and then dragging it back in all wet.
I’d think that would make for a very long night.
For whatever reason they gave it another shot and tossed the net out and they were unable to haul it into the boat because it was full of fish.
I wonder if in that moment that Peter and the others had a flash back of an incident that happened several years before.
Luke recorded it in his Gospel when he wrote:
When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.”
Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything.
But because you say so, I will let down the nets.”
When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break.
So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.
(Luke 5:4-7 NIV)
There is a saying that is used in Alcoholics Anonymous.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
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