"Follow Me:" Jesus calls Peter in 2022 as well (Luke 5, John 21)
CLIMATE BIBLE STUDY: FEBRUARY 2022
Miraculous Draught of Fish, Raphael (15151)
You may be familiar with the story of Jesus calling Peter and those of his disciples who were fishermen. They had been fishing all night with no success. At Jesus’s command, they cast their nets one last time. The nets are suddenly full to the breaking. Peter is amazed. Jesus tells him, “Come, follow me.”
If you are thinking I’m referring to the beginning of Jesus’s ministry and Peter’s discipleship as recorded in Luke 5:1-11, you would be right, of course. But it is important. . .
for us who have just finished praying for climate action in the run-up to COP26, an event that was gavelled close on November 13, 2021;
for us who contemplate the beginning of 2022, another year in the Paris Process, another climate summit on the horizon, namely COP27 in Sharm-el-Sheik, Egypt, 7-18 November;
for us who started in climate action years ago. (Do you know that An Inconvenient Truth is 15 years old?!). . .
. . . it is important that we recognize that this whole event in Luke 5 is recapitulated in Peter’s life following the resurrection of Jesus, as recorded in John 21. Same seaside backdrop. Same unsuccessful night of labour. Same intervention of a command by Jesus. Same miraculous catch of fish. Same amazement. But most importantly, the same words: “After this Jesus said to Peter, ‘Follow me’” (Jn 21:19). For Peter, for Jesus’s disciples, for us who just concluded COP26, for us whose first calling to climate action may feel old and worn by now—there is a NEW calling, a SECOND calling, a FRESH calling, regardless of how much our circumstances have changed, regardless of how much we may have changed.
There are enough similarities between the Luke 5 and John 21 texts that those who are skeptical about miracles in the first place will argue that it is the same story used by two separate authors in two separate ways. But there are enough differences between the two accounts to suggest that they are two separate events that occur at two separate but significant times in the life of Peter. If you want to read a pastoral examination of this debate, instead of an overly scholarly one, let me suggest a sermon preached by Charles Spurgeon on April 6, 1862 entitled “The Two Draughts of Fishes.” Either way though, my point stands: there is always a fresh calling from Jesus for the NEXT stage in your growth and ministry, if we have ears to hear it. His words “Follow me” are always in the present tense.
Much had changed for Peter in the three short years before Luke 5 and John 21. Most significantly: Jesus was risen from the dead, having put to death sin and death! More practically: Jesus was physically departing, the Holy Spirit was coming, the gathering was growing, and the gospel was opening to the Gentiles. Most personally and immediately: Peter had changed, having been humbled by his denial of Jesus at the moment of crisis.
Climate Intercessors, as a network, traces our calling to 2020 in the year when COP26 was postponed because of the pandemic. Our first prayer meetings were scheduled in those two weeks when COP26 was supposed to happen in 2020. We “stood in the gap.” The launch of Climate Intercessors was very much tied to COP26, the moment when the Paris Agreement was due to go into full effect, the moment when the nations were supposed to bring in their revised carbon reduction targets (NDCs.) Now that COP26 has come and gone, now that the Glasgow Climate Pact is fresh on the scene, now that you and I and others in the network have had this powerful shared experience, we are still discerning what has changed. Nonetheless, what hasn't changed is our sense of calling: Jesus, please lead us in 2022; we intend to follow you.
Before we leave this reflection, look at this gem from Spurgeon's sermon "Two Draughts of Fishes." When it comes to the calling to intercede for climate action, Spurgeon advises us:
Let us remember that we have done nothing until we have prayed over what we have done, let us consider that all the seed we have put into the ground is put there for worms to eat, unless we have dropped into the soil the preserving grain of prayer to keep that other grain alive. We shall have harvests if we wait on God for them, but after all our sowing, if we look to the soil, the seed, or the sower, we shall see nothing for our pains.
You are very dear to God,
Lowell Bliss
on behalf of the Climate Intercessors Leadership Team