By Nicholas Soellner
Special to The Message
We all have a story that shapes what we believe about ourselves. I almost always chuckle when I hear parents tell their children, “Back when I was cool …” and then describe how their life used to be 15-20 years ago. But what changed? Obviously, things happened between those two periods of time that altered that parent’s self-perception. Sadly, this also tends to happen to our overall sense of self-worth. We might find ourselves asking, “When did I stop feeling as though I was good enough?”
There’s a pain in that question, I know. But at the bottom of it, there’s a wound. Somewhere along the way, it arrived through an experience of sin. And from that wound, there has been a lie that the devil has repeated over and over and crept into our minds until we were led to believe that it was true. From this experience, there come times when we disqualify ourselves from the love of God or the love of others. We see this in the case of Peter in the gospels when Jesus first calls him to ministry. When Peter encounters Jesus, bewildered by experiencing the miraculous catch of fish, “he fell down in front of Jesus, saying, ‘Depart from me, for I am a sinful man’” (Luke 5:8). While it was true that Peter was sinful, he mistakenly objects to Jesus’ approach, identifying himself with his sins to disqualify himself from being chosen to serve. How often do we find ourselves doing the same?
The gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke present this story as a model for how Jesus confronts our self-disqualification. Like Peter, we often identify with our sins and failures, stemming from our wounds. But Jesus’ first words in responding to Peter’s objection, depending on the gospel, were “Follow me” (Matthew 4:19) or “Do not be afraid” (Luke 5:8). In each case, Jesus then offers the fishermen a new way of life: “henceforth you will be catching men.” (Luke 5:10). It is as St. Thomas Aquinas wisely notes, “Grace does not destroy nature, but perfects it.” Jesus is not asking Peter to deny who he is but rather seeks to make him more of who God created him to be.
You may have heard the saying, “Jesus loves you enough to meet you where you are, but too much to let you stay there.” We see this play out in this episode as well. Peter rightfully admits his sinfulness before God, but mistakenly asks Jesus to leave. If there was ever a time Jesus would have been justified to defer to Peter’s free will, it was then. And yet, Jesus insisted, knowing Peter’s reluctance stemmed from a belief in a lie about himself: that he was unlovable, useless, or beyond hope because of his sin. As Catholic therapist and author, Dr. Bob Schuchts writes, “Suffering that is not transformed will be transmitted.” But the transformation of wounds is a fundamental part of Jesus’ mission — it is reflected even in the wounds from his crucifixion, which remain even after his resurrection (cf. John 20:24-29). Jesus accepts Peter’s brokenness, symbolically represented in his failure to catch anything despite fishing all night (cf. Luke 5:5), and presents Peter with the hope of new purpose and wholeness, “Do not be afraid, henceforth you will be catching men” (Luke 5:10).
For our part, our discipleship as Christians demands the imitation of Christ: not condemnation, but invitation. But invitation to what? Freedom, as Jesus said: “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not continue in the house forever; the son continues forever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.” (John 8:34-36) So much of human suffering is due to the perpetuation of sin, stemming from human woundedness. Attachments to pornography, homosexually active lifestyles, masturbation, adultery or promiscuity are all symptomatic of our desire to fix our wounds ourselves. So in place of judgment, we ought to ask God in prayer for the ability to see one another as he saw Peter. Not in his broken sinfulness, but with compassion. As St. Julian of Norwich said, “When God sees sin He sees pain in us.” But freedom is not all that is offered in Christ; we also invite others to the promise of the Gospel. When Jesus says, “Follow me,” where is he going? Where does he want to take us? To where “he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore.” (Revelation 21:4). When we recognize hope in Christ, we then dare to discard our sinful habits and attachments. We are free to do as the first disciples, who left everything behind and followed him.
Nicholas Soellner is program manager for the Diocese of Evansville Office of Catechesis.