Have you caught anything my friends

There is often a temptation in life to measure the success of our relationship with God on the tangible results produced. We want to know that we are not 'wasting' our time or our money on something or someone who does not produce the goods. Such an emphasis on success can cause us to work hard and endeavour to produce spiritual benefits through our own efforts. There can be an emphasis on working as though everything depended on us and praying as though everything depended on God. In adopting this attitude we tend to yield to a view of obedience which asks God to dance to our tune and to praise us for our own efforts. What we discover is that our lives become hard work and our relationships become transactional where we seek something good on our own terms.

In the midst of this daily story, Jesus calls to us from the shoreline, have you caught anything, my friends? What would often seem so clear to us and to Jesus that the question almost appears to answer itself in the asking? Yet we still adopt the same approach that carried us in our other relationships, God will praise me for my hard work and will reward me for my efforts. Yet what is revealed in this story is that what makes the difference is the willingness to fish on the other side. Literally to turn our lives around to see that what we are seeking is very close to us and within our reach. This is not about profoundly changing our circumstances or about a radical change of our environment but rather a discovery that God is intently interested in helping us discover how fruitful our lives can be. This is not about living a different story but seeing our story in a new light.

This is shown when Jesus addresses Peter and asks him three times do you love me? This is not about humiliating Peter but helping him discover the three degrees of humility to which we are all drawn. In discovering that our lives can give testimony to God in our daily lives we see how we can live the Gospel at the heart of everything. This is the Easter message not just to clothe ourselves in Christ but to allow Christ to draw out of us the words which change how we seek to enter into a relationship with him. In this way no longer is our worth gauged by how hard we work or how much time we spend performing good works but rather how we become present to Christ in all things. In this way, the voice we listen to is that of Christ who changes how we view our story and how we live our lives.