How do we move from self-reliance to God’s reliance? In the scripture today the apostles are relying on themselves, and we hear this beautiful passage about Simon, who is out fishing. He’s been fishing all night long, and, if anyone has ever gone fishing, you know that the times that are best for fishing are after dusk, all the way until morning. You never want to go out in the middle of the day. If you didn’t catch anything at night, you’re not going to catch anything in the middle of the day. When Jesus says to Simon, “Put out into the deep,” Simon says to Jesus, “Well, Master, we’ve been fishing all night, but, at your command, I’ll go out.” And, at that moment, he goes out into the deep, and he catches this abundance of fish. He moved from self-reliance to God reliance.
Have you ever found yourself working on something, a problem or some difficulty in your life, and you’re just racking your brain over it and exerting all your energy and your time? You finally feel, I’m not going to get it, and you give up. Then, the moment you give up, that little idea comes to your mind of exactly what you need to do. Have you ever experienced that? That moment is an inspiration of moving from self-reliance, of us trying to figure it out, to God reliance. Jesus wants to help us move to being reliant completely on the Father. When this miracle happened, Peter is afraid at first, and he says to the Lord, “Depart from me Lord for I am a sinful man.”
Another way that we are self-reliant is with our sin. Oftentimes we try to get ourselves out of our sin. We may work at that, and we may find ourselves discouraged and find ourselves frustrated that we keep sinning the same sin, over and over and over again. Why? Because we’re relying on ourselves. How do we move from self-reliance to God reliance? It comes at the command of Jesus. It is that moment of inspiration where we feel like we’re completely exhausted, we’ve tried everything, and that we feel like giving up. It’s at that moment when Jesus says to us, “Put out into the deep.” When we listen to that voice of his, when we hear that little nudge, when we’re given that little glimpse of inspiration to do that thing that we know Jesus is calling us to do, we make that shift from self-reliance to God reliance.
Once this happens with the disciples, once they’ve experienced this movement from relying on themselves to relying on Jesus, they discover the abundance of life that he wants to give to them. They move from the poverty of being unable to catch any fish to, all of a sudden, having so many fish that they have to call another boat over, and the boats are at the point of sinking. Their nets are tearing, there is such an abundance. But then Jesus takes it even further and he says to them, “Leave everything behind and come and follow me.”
He gives every one of us the same invitation. The leaving of everything behind is our self-reliance. He’s saying to us, “No longer rely on yourself. All those things that you’ve tried to do yourself in this life, leave them behind and come follow me.” He takes these disciples, who are fishermen, and he transforms them into fishers of men.
He wants to do something unique with every one of us. Whatever you do for work or whatever your gifts and talents are, he wants to use that to bring other people to Jesus, so that all of our work becomes sacred. Everything we do with our hands becomes sacred. In order for us to truly live the lives and do the work that Jesus wants us to do, there has to be a shift from self-reliance to God reliance.
As we come together here to celebrate this Eucharist, I just want you to think about your life right now. Is there anything in life that you’re frustrated with? Is there any sin in your life that you just haven’t been able to overcome by yourself? Jesus invites you right now to let go of that self-reliance and to rely on the Father. When we do that, when we make that shift to relying on the Father, we will discover those problems that we had, those difficulties that we had, all of a sudden become so easy and so light because it is now the Father who is working through us. As we receive the Eucharist, we become no longer us, but we become united with Jesus in such a way that he’s able to help us lay down our wills, to let go of self-reliance and to rely completely on the Father. May we all move from self-reliance to God reliance.
