“Vocation” is a word that, to most of us, means an occupation, a skill, a trade. Auto mechanics, carpentry, all those courses that were taught in the “Voc Ed” wing of the high school. But if you were raised Catholic, or attended a Catholic school, and someone asked “Do you have a vocation?” you probably would have shook your head and slowly backed away, certain that you did not want to be a nun or a priest. Or maybe you did.
Vocation is what a person is called to be. The Latin root of the word is vocare, “to call.” We often use the word when we really mean “a line of work.” For some lucky people, their vocation is also their job, they actually get paid to do what they feel they were put on earth to do! Artists who can actually make a living at their art, natural born teachers and healers who earn the credentials to work as teachers and healers, I count among the fortunate few. But most people in this world just get to work, hard, at whatever they can do to provide for themselves and the people who depend on them. I don’t believe anyone was called by God to sew T-shirts for Hanes in a dimly lit factory every day. And I don’t think anyone was called by God to go down the mines to bring up diamonds for DeBeers. I could be wrong, but I don’t think so.
I’ve been thinking about “vocation” because this week’s Gospel reading is the story of the call of three disciples, Peter, James and John. They get to appear next week too, in the story of the transfiguration (shiny Jesus on the mountain), but this week we read the beginning of their story, according to Luke, in which they meet Jesus at the end of a hard day’s night. They had been all night on the sea, casting their nets, coming up empty. (Hey, did anyone see that Discovery channel show on crabbing? It’s the world’s dangerous catch.) They are cleaning their nets, and probably thinking about going home to get some sleep, when Jesus gets in Peter’s boat and asks him to take out a little ways. Jesus preaches to the crowds from the boat, the calm sea providing natural amplification, as anyone knows, who has ever sat by the lake on a calm night and heard the fishermen telling jokes they thought no little ears could hear.
Maybe that is why the thought of “going deeper” in the faith is daunting.
Then, when the sermon was over, Jesus told Peter to go out to the deep water, and let down his nets. Which he had just cleaned. After catching nothing all night. I sense a bit of skepticism, but by this time, maybe Peter was just too tired to argue. He let down his nets and brought up the biggest catch ever, so heavy that the nets were fit to burst, and he had to call his partners, James and John, with the other boat, to bring in the catch.
And here’s the really weird bit: Peter, James and John, they quit, right then and there, at the top of their game, after the most successful catch ever. They didn’t even wait to sell the fish. They just left everything, even old Zebedee, and walked away with Jesus. Now that seems terribly unkind and irresponsible. I imagine Zebedee staring, gape-mouthed, after them.
When Peter went out “into the deep” what did he find, besides the fish that had eluded him all night? “The deep” is where creation began. In the beginning, God exhaled over the face of the deep, and called the world into being. When he drew up his nets from the deep, what else did he draw up? A new creation? A new spirit? A new man? One who was no longer Simon the Fisherman, but one who was becoming Peter, the rock?
Maybe that is why the thought of “going deeper” in the faith is daunting. If we go deeper, we may be transformed. And maybe this transformation will mean that we cannot go back the way we came. Perhaps it is safer, just to skim the surface, to take from the faith just enough comfort and hope to get by, but not enough to transform us into followers who give it all up.
