Father Neil S. SullivanTonight after the game, the Eagles, yes the Eagles, will be the proud recipient of the Vince Lombardi Trophy and crowned champs of the NFL Super Bowl. Vince Lombardi was the famous coach of the Green Bay Packers. He was also a devout Catholic and went to Mass everyday.
Lombardi said: The only way to success at anything is to give it everything. And that what really matters is not that you get knocked down, but that you get back up.
A coach will press his players to go the extra yard. A good teacher will drive their students to expand their knowledge and skills. And sometimes that will take us out of our comfort zone or what we think we can do or what we think will happen.
But getting out of your comfort zone can change your life.
For Simon Peter, his encounter with Jesus in today’s Gospel changed the rest of his life.
If we follow Peter’s example, our encounters with Jesus can change the rest of our lives as well.
In particular, this encounter involved Peter moving beyond his comfort zone. Of what he knew or expected.
How does Jesus do it? He tells Peter to Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch.
Peter was an expert at fishing. He was successful enough to have his own boat and his own crew. Peter knew how to fish. Peter knew that it’s almost impossible to catch fish in broad daylight, especially after a night without any catch at all.
But Jesus just looks right at him, invites him, challenges him. He asks Peter to step out of his comfort zone. To put out into the deep. Not just to trust Him with his net, but to trust Him with his life.
There’s something about Jesus that compels Peter to do it.
Peter lets Jesus take him out of his own comfort zone. And it changes his life forever. That takes courage. It means we have to trust.
There is a story told of a great circus performer who stretched a long steel cable across Niagara Falls. During high winds (and without a safety net), he walked, ran and even danced across the tightrope to the amazement and delight of the large crowd of people who watched. Then he took a wheelbarrow full of bricks and pushed it effortlessly across the cable, from one side of the falls to the other. He then turned to the crowd and asked, How many of you believe that I could push a person across the wire in the wheelbarrow? All hands went up. Everyone cheered. They all believed he could do it! Then he asked: Who wants to get in the wheelbarrow? All the hands went down. No one wanted to ride in the wheelbarrow and put their life to his hands. It would take them out of their comfort zone.
What do we do when Jesus invites us – asks us – challenges us to step out of our comfort zone? To take the next step in our relationship with Him, in our discipleship? Jesus wants so very much for us. Has so much in store for us. Jesus doesn’t want our nets to be empty. He wants to fill them. That might mean He’s going to ask us to try it a different way. That means we have to trust Jesus, to climb into His wheelbarrow, to put out into deep water.
What has God been asking you to give Him? What area of your comfort zone has God been trying to expand?
We can look at our comfort zones in three areas:
- our relationship with God
- our relationships with other people
- our relationship with ourselves, our interior life
Jesus is reasonable and gentle. And He usually asks us to put out into deeper water in one part of our lives at a time. Which is He pointing to now for you?
Is it your relationship with Him?
- Maybe we’ve have had a thought in the back of our mind for a long time that we should pray more, or better.
- Maybe God has been nudging us to come to confession, and we just haven’t done it yet.
- Maybe He has been gently inviting us to study our faith more, to get to know Him better, and we have been resisting.
Is it our relationships with others?
- Maybe there is someone we need to forgive, or ask forgiveness from.
- Maybe we need to pull back from a relationship that’s dragging us down or away from what is most important.
- Maybe you need to renew our commitment to someone you’ve been neglecting or taking for granted.
Is it in or with ourselves?
- Maybe we need to leave behind a hidden habit of dishonesty or self-indulgence.
- Maybe God is asking us to discipline or put in order a particular area of our life.
- Maybe we need to leave behind complacency and strive again for excellence in one of our responsibilities.
Jesus is asking each one of us to put out into deep water, to step out of our comfort zone, not in order to torture us, but because He loves us.
We may not understand, but it’s OK, because we’re not alone. He is in our boats, as He was with Peter, strengthening us. He will never leave us, as he proves it over and over again.
Let’s trust Him. Let’s give Him whatever He asks. And just watch what happens. He won’t let us down.
(Father Sullivan is pastor of Good Shepherd Parish in Camp Hill.)
By Father Neil S. Sullivan, Special to The Witness
