The Story-verse and the Matter-verse
Three weeks ago we explored finding Jesus in the story-verse and the implications of his turning water to wine. As we see in this video of Jim Carrey at the Golden Globes the uneasy reality between our story-verse and the matter-verse haunts even the wealthiest, most influential, most beautiful, members of our society. We are gripped by the story-verse, it takes possession of our lives while at the same time we are haunted by the materialist story-verse that demands that the matter-verse will have its way rendering all story-verses unreal. Our only defense against nihilism is “I don’t feel like it today!”
Bertrand Russell’s eloquence dwarfs “the new atheists” could bring it to a point.
‘I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive.’4 Again, he affirmed his conviction that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius are destined for extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins.5
Stott, John (2012-12-28). Why I Am a Christian (Kindle Locations 875-880). InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition.
Because of this matter-verse–story-verse Jesus’ miracles are both dismissed out of hand as a story-verse violation and of vital interest to our appreciation of who he is. Is the matter-verse really safe from him if he turned water into wine or walked out of that tomb?
Preaching by the Sea
Last week we saw how the residents of his home town synagogue were offended by his unwillingness to allow their victimhood to afford them privilege. We are all victims and perpetrators, none are pure, none are free, none are holy.
In Luke 5 we find Jesus teaching in the open air. Like all spaces synagogues mold, shape and exclude so Jesus here preaches in a workspace, a public space, a place where religious filters don’t shut out.
While his audience might have been mostly Jews whose religious story-verse Jesus showed himself to be the master of, there were likely also Gentiles of many kinds as the region of the Galilee was filled with immigrants from around the empire.
Luke 5:1–3 (NET)
1 Now Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing around him to hear the word of God. 2 He saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gotten out of them and were washing their nets. 3 He got into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then Jesus sat down and taught the crowds from the boat.
The details of the story reflect the practicality. The slope of the lake would create a natural amphitheater. Jesus being in a boat would offer space so that his voices could reach the crowds who were pressing to hear him in the open air.
Luke describes what they had come to hear from him, “the word of God”. Is that how they heard it? Was this like Sinai where the crowd wished that God would not speak directly to them but instead have Moses be their relay?
Master of the Matter-verse
Jesus appears to have another purpose for the boat.
Luke 5:4–5 (NET)
4 When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and lower your nets for a catch.” 5 Simon answered, “Master, we worked hard all night and caught nothing! But at your word I will lower the nets.”
Many have noted the strangeness of Peter’s obedience to Jesus in this moment. The fisherman knows his craft. He’s worked all night, now he cleans his net while Jesus speaks. Now Jesus commands him to do what makes no sense. Peter calls him “master”, lodges his complaint, yet affords Jesus initial authority amid doubt resulting in obedience.
Luke 5:6–7 (NET)
6 When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets started to tear.7 So they motioned to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they were about to sink.
It appears Jesus in his miracles enjoys the dramatic and eschews the pragmatic. For a banquet of soused guests his makes over a hundred gallons of wine. For frustrated fisherman he provides them with a haul that puts the tools of their livelihood in peril.
The miracles in both cases the connection to Jesus is understated. He didn’t wave his hands over the water vessels to dramatize the transformation. The servants carried the what-was-assumed-to-be-water and discovered it was wine. Here Jesus doesn’t stand up like some wizard and with words of power drive the fish into the boat, the fishermen, like the wedding servants, are amazed at what they find in tools they though were under their control.
Pre-modern commentators jump to the end reading this story allegorically with the nets and the boats and the apostles being seen here as hauling the masses into the church. Let’s hold back on this for now.
The Disturbing Presence of Jesus
What happens next should wake us up not to a fictitious, spiritual Jesus that our imaginations employ to rescue us in the ways we think we need to be rescued. To shake us from the kind of useful Jesus the imagination of the Nazareth synagogue cast him in. This is a deeply disconcerting Jesus within whose searing light we are revealed to be as we truly are.
Luke 5:8–10 (NET)
8 But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!”9 For Peter and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken, 10 and so were James and John, Zebedee’s sons, who were Simon’s business partners.
We might be tempted to imagine a prosperity Jesus whose making gallons of wine and offering an abundance of fish for the financial and food security of middle-class Galileans. Shouldn’t Peter and the fishermen be overjoyed at what Jesus has done? Haven’t they not only saved them from the financial setback of the failed catch of the previous night? Shouldn’t they now employ Jesus as a fish-finder, not unlike our Jesus who helps us find parking spaces and who we hope will fix our relationships, pay our bills and heal our diseases.
Yes Jesus has brought them fish, but Peter and the others know that this is way beyond the success or failure of their business. This is about everything, the matter-verse, the story-verse, their ethnic and national identity and every other thing.
The instinct of Peter, likely speaking for himself and the others, is not to bottle Jesus as an economic advantage maker but to flee from him. The irony of course is that we know Peter isn’t so good at walking, much less running on water.
Peter is having his Jacob moment where for a while Jacob imagined he could wrestle with God but in a moment God lames him.
Our Convenient Conventional Jesus Debunked
John Stott in his terrific little book Why I am a Christian helps us see exactly what shook Peter to his core.
We all know the popular image of Jesus. Here John Stott notes that this isn’t just true of the American context but the English as well.
Indeed, there are many people who are critical of the church, yet who at the same time retain a sneaking admiration for Jesus. In fact, I have never yet met anybody, nor do I expect to, who does not have a high regard for Jesus Christ. Jesus appeals to twenty-first-century people like us. He was a fearless critic of the establishment. He championed the cause of the poor and needy. He made friends with the dropouts of society. He had compassion on the very people whom others despised and rejected. And although he was fiercely and unjustly attacked, he never retaliated. He told his disciples that they must love their enemies, and he practised what he preached. There is a great deal about Jesus to admire.
Stott, John (2012-12-28). Why I Am a Christian (Kindle Locations 311-316). InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition.
But there is this other side of Jesus, the one that we dismiss with his miracles, the one that we are skeptical about because if it is true it lays the kinds of claims on us that disrupt our lives and undo the plans we have naturally concocted for the lives we wish to live.
Without doubt the most noteworthy feature of the teaching of Jesus was its quite extraordinary self-centredness. He was, in fact, constantly talking about himself. True, he spoke much about the kingdom of God, but then added that he had come to inaugurate it. He also spoke about the fatherhood of God, but added that he was the Father’s ‘Son’.
In the great ‘I am’ statements, which John records in his Gospel, Jesus claimed to be ‘the bread of life’, ‘the light of the world’, ‘the way, the truth and the life’ and ‘the resurrection and the life’.
But elsewhere too he put himself forward as the object of people’s faith. ‘Come to me’ and ‘Follow me’, he kept saying, promising that if they did come, their burdens would be lifted and their thirst quenched (e.g. Matthew 11:28; John 7:37). More dramatic still were his references to love. He knew and quoted the supreme Old Testament commandment to put God first and love him with all our being. But now he asked his followers to give him their first love, adding that if they loved anybody – even their closest relatives – more than they loved him, they were not worthy of him (e.g. Matthew 10:37–39).
This prominence of the personal pronoun (‘I – I – I – me – me – me’) is very disturbing, especially in one who declared humility to be the pre-eminent virtue. It also sets Jesus apart from all the other religious leaders of the world. They effaced themselves, pointing away from themselves to the truth they taught; he advanced himself, offering himself to his disciples as the object of their faith, love and obedience.
Stott, John (2012-12-28). Why I Am a Christian (Kindle Locations 316-330). InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition.
We would expect Jesus to be full of himself like a pampered or a spoiled Hollywood actor. We see, however, that in him his humility AND his beyond-this-world claims rest together in perfect peace. He is master of the matter-verse, master of the story-verse, and what is perhaps most unusual to find in a human being master of himself.
This is the paradox of Jesus. His claims sound like the ravings of a lunatic, but he shows no sign of being a fanatic, a neurotic or, still less, a psychotic. On the contrary, he comes before us in the pages of the Gospels as the most balanced and integrated of human beings. Consider in particular his humility. His claims for himself are very disturbing, because they are so self-centred; yet in his behaviour he was clothed with humility. His claims sound proud, but he was humble. I see this paradox at its sharpest when he was with his disciples in the upper room before he died. He said he was their lord, their teacher and their judge, but he took a towel, got on his hands and knees, and washed their feet like a common slave. Is this not unique in the history of the world? There have been lots of arrogant people, but they have all behaved like it. There have also been humble people, but they have not made great claims for themselves. It is the combination of egocentricity and humility that is so startling – the egocentricity of his teaching and the humility of his behaviour.
Stott, John (2012-12-28). Why I Am a Christian (Kindle Locations 431-438). InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition.
Misery-Deliverance-Gratitude
Right here we find with the great catch of fish, the undoing of Peter and the fisherman the key insight of Christianity.
Peter had been listening to Jesus, considering him, comfortable to be religiously close to him before Jesus’ request. Peter’s cost/benefit, risk/reward calculation at Jesus’ request to go out into the water was small enough to take a chance on Jesus. That is often where we start.
Jesus then, as he will do with Peter, and us, time and time again will be to take us beyond what we imagine into deeper waters, into a space where he will reveal himself as so much more than the religious figure or spiritual leader we hoped might be useful to us.
Jesus’ revelation of himself exposes Peter to his own poverty and misery. Before Jesus he is naked in the garden and he wishes to flee.
The boat full of fish is Jesus’ deliverance. It is far more than Peter’s risk/reward calculations had accounted for. At hearing Peter’s cry of exposure Jesus comes in with a word of deliverance and a pathway to grateful service.
Luke 5:10–11 (NET)
Then Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.”11 So when they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.
When Jesus tells Peter “don’t be afraid” is it not that Peter isn’t a sinful man. Peter’s confession was the truest confession he could have uttered. It was not that Peter’s sin wasn’t great, but rather that Jesus ability to save sinners is greater. Jesus will now use Peter, all of Peter, to catch people.
Leaving Fish on the Beach
Peter’s response reveals the depth and truth of his confession. In whatever way Peter imagined Jesus might be useful to his life as a fisherman is now destroyed. He now wants no other life than Jesus. The fish that he was unable to catch the night before, the ones now filling the nets and boats, were nothing to him. All he wanted was Jesus and that would change his life, and change the world forever.
Leadingchurch.com 