Afraid To Leave The Boat

Years ago I saw a picture in the recently published North Carolina Climbing Guide of Thomas Kelly climbing a route on Looking Glass Rock. It was a long, committing route, and its difficulty was at the top of my ability. It was intimidating, but also strikingly beautiful, and after three partners and four efforts I finally climbed it. I climbed it again about two years ago, and each time I’ve roped up at the bottom of the route the climb felt a little more intimidating and a little more beautiful. 

In Luke 5 we read about Jesus getting in Peter’s boat to create space between himself and the crowds who had cornered him against the shoreline. This allowed Jesus to be heard and seen as he taught the crowds. It’s the same reason that lecterns are ten to fifteen feet back from the front row in most auditoriums. After he finished teaching, Jesus asked Peter to go further out and resume fishing. This was a bigger request than you might think because it required unfurling sails, recleaning nets, and getting home later than they had planned. It was like asking the fry chef at McDonalds to turn the grills back on late on a Tuesday night, after he had cleaned the restaurant and was on his way out the door. Peter complied, which I don’t think was in his nature to do, and they caught so many fish that it threatened to sink two boats. It was like the fry chef selling enough McFlurries in the next hour to triple his income for three months.

I would have been celebrating, slapping high-fives and thanking Jesus for helping me try a little harder. If I had been interviewed by a news crew – and this was definitely interview-worthy – I would have said something inane like “These fish are great, and I want to thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,” and then I would have started talking about the fish again. But Peter is different, he understands what is going on. Instead of celebrating with friends, his focus narrows to just one person and he says to Jesus, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.”

This is Luke’s version of a mic-drop, he is introducing a different type of worship than most of us are accustomed to. Peter understands that this beautiful event is the result of all the gravity in the world bending to this one person in this one place. Peter was exactly where he was supposed to be yet he was still overwhelmed by this uncontrollable power. In the unexamined middle of our chosen, lightened, supposedly controlled lives, grandeur feels like a threat. 

Jesus then takes it a step further saying, “Do not be afraid; I will make you fishers of men.” You don’t feel competent to manage this economic windfall, I’m going to make you competent to manage complete societal transformation. So they brought their boats to land, left everything behind and followed Jesus. One evidence of being with Jesus, and one difference between singing and worship, is a sense of fear and a compulsion to follow, to move forward anywhere he leads. 

“Kal-va-homer” is a Hebrew phrase that means “light and heavy.” The idea is that what applies in a less important case will certainly apply in a more important one. I think this is part of the reason we are supposed to participate in outdoor adventures. The more often I climbed that route the more respect and fear I felt. And the more I climbed it the more I wanted to climb it because each time I saw more of its beauty. May our worship be the same.