St. Peter’s Fish
April 25, 2010
John 21:1-19 and Psalm 23
The scene in our passage today is lush. It bulges with the fruits of nature and the fruits of the sea. Close your eyes now, if you wish, and let your mind envision these words again:
[The disciples] cast [their nets] and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish…[eventually they] came in the boat dragging the net full of fish…When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread. Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.” So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred and fifty-three of them; and though there was so many, the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.”
This is God’s plentiful earth. This is Mother Nature’s bounteous provision. A catch of seafood bursting the taut threads of a net. Tiny rippled waves advancing and retreating on the sands of the seashore. A small, weather-worn fishing boat platooned in the soft seaside soil. Reunified friends contentedly circled around the flame and smell of a woody, earthy, nose-stinging charcoal fire. Fish sizzling and singeing at the barbecue. Tiny particles of ash and waves of heat billowing and dancing into the cloudless blinding blue sky above. This scene painted in the Gospel of John is as full of the abundance and plumpness of creation as the nets of the disciples were full of fish. It is grand. It is abundant. It is comforting.
Perhaps this scene reminds you of childhood. For the young, middle aged and ultra-experienced men in our congregation, perhaps you are now thinking of camping trips with the Boy Scouts, of hot afternoons fishing with your fathers or other elders of importance from your youth, of bait worms gooily crammed in an old tin can. For the women here, young and older alike, perhaps similar memories have arisen—hiking on the trails of your youth, a rural country upbringing, the feel of the warm, wet composting earth between your toes, unhooking a wriggling, gaping-mouthed fish from the line.
Even for those of us who never did much fishing and camping, the picture in our passage is probably one we can draw comfort from. Of old friends gathered together around a central hearth, of a communal meal, of the abundance of the earth, of limitless friendships, of crisp, tart, seaside air, of the smells of a simple life.
It is from images like this one in John that we often construct our view of the life of Jesus and his disciples. And often we carry this graceful, sublime image into our modern day conceptions of the environment around Israel and Palestine. When I say “Sea of Galilee” what probably comes to mind are images like this one in the New Testament. Of bountiful fish. Of walking on water. Of the basic trade of bartering and selling fish. Of robed disciples and peaceful waters.
But at the present time this image is fiction. It is false. It is an apparition. It does not exist. Instead, it has been replaced by the rising tides of robust population growth, poor environmental practices, international conflict and inadequate long term planning. If we want to know what the real, present day images of the Sea of Galilee and rural Israel and Palestine are, then we must wipe away these ancient pictures of serenity from our minds; we must repaint them afresh because they no longer accurately describe the part of the world that birthed our faith.
In repainting our picture of the Sea of Galilee let us first begin with the fish, or should I say, the lack thereof. The fish population has declined so much from overfishing that just three weeks ago, on April 2, Israel’s Ministry of Agriculture imposed a strict two-year ban on fishing in the Sea. The most common fish in the Sea of Galilee is one called St. Peter’s Fish, a kind of tilapia. It was named after the famed naked fisherman from our passage today because it was supposedly the type of fish that Peter caught with a coin in its mouth from the story from the book of Matthew.
Before 2005, 295 tons of St. Peter’s Fish were caught every year in the Sea of Galilee. In 2009, only 8 tons were caught—an incredulous 97 percent drop in just 4 years. Blame is placed by the fishermen on the government for not restocking the fish fast enough. The government places blame on the fishermen for using nets that have holes smaller than the legal limit, meaning that they catch too many small young fish for the lake to recover. So for the first time since the time of Jesus and the disciples there will be no fishing economy in the Sea of Galilee. If Jesus told his disciples to cast their nets to the right side of the boat today, not only would Jesus face possible prosecution, but there would be no fish for them to catch.
But overfishing is not the only problem the Sea of Galilee faces. Pollution is also a concern. In 2007, 4 public beaches were closed during the high holiday season because of high pollutant levels. The suspected culprits were sewage spills with one company admitting to accidently pumping sewage directly into the lake for more than an hour.
Fortunately, we humans tend to get angry when one gets in the way of our holidays and it seems as if the sewage problems have been alleviated. Though high concentrations of people and industries almost always have some affect on local water sources, the Sea of Galilee included.
Yet one more problem facing the Sea of Galilee is that it provides the main water sources for much of the nation of Israel. A large aqueduct, called the National Water Carrier, siphons water from the Sea of Galilee in order to provide water for both agriculture and in-home plumbing. While it may seem necessary and beneficial for Israelis, it has caused the Sea of Galilee to drain to an historic low level.
Furthermore, the National Water Carrier is controversial for other nearby nations because it drains water that would naturally be flowing into the Jordan River and toward other countries like Jordan. Some in the international community fear that disputes over water like this one could be cause for future international conflicts and wars.
If we’re repainting our picture of the Sea of Galilee, we might as well reform our vision of what the Jordan River is. Its situation seems, in fact, even more perilous than that of the Sea of Galilee. The Jordan is the river that Joshua crossed to enter into the land of promise. This is the river in which John baptized Jesus. This is the river that has been vitally important to so many biblical stories, but little remains of the grand river of history.
Several countries pump so much water directly from the Jordan that what once was a true flowing river has turned into what Don Bolt of National Geographic Magazine describes as a “foamy, coffee-colored sludge at the Dead Sea.” The Jordan River barely even reaches its natural destination. The theft of water from the Jordan is so dramatic that it is currently only flowing at one-tenth of its capacity and because it doesn’t reach its Dead Sea destination, the Dead Sea has dropped by more than 70 feet since 1978.
Just as harmful as water depletion, pollution is so dense in the Jordan that few animals even survive. As Don Bolt writes, the lower Jordan is so drained, dammed, and diverted by Israel, Jordan and Syria, that the “lower Jordan is practically devoid of clean water, bearing instead a toxic brew of saline water and liquid waste that ranges from raw sewage to agricultural runoff, fed into the river's vein like some murky infusion of tainted blood.“
Not drinkable, not useable, not even salvageable. If Jesus were to be baptized in the lower Jordan today, he would be standing ankle deep in putrid sludge as John the Baptist as caked slimy, pesticide and sewage laced mud onto his head.
Our question is this: How do we reconcile our conflicting images of the waterways of the biblical lands? Do we live with our updated versions of the fishless Sea of Galilee and the dirty Jordan River? Or should we try to comfort ourselves with the pictures of the past, with lakeside serenity, with waters that we could actually be baptized in instead of ones we could be infected by?
There is little we personally can do to renew and refresh the Galilee and the Jordan to their pristine conditions, but perhaps their current degradation and former abundance can refocus our eyes and hands on the environmental problems which beset us here in Virginia.
Chesterfield County and Richmond are blessed by an abundance of water that the Bible lands lack. Yet I wonder if our rivers and lakes, our lands and environment are any safer. How many of us today would scoop up a cup of water from the James and savor its flavor tainted by agricultural runoff and storm water drainage? Yearly warnings are issued about using caution when even swimming in the James. Few of us would dare to drink from it.
Not far from here the destination of the James River faces its own problems. Like the Dead Sea that receives from the Jordan River pollutants caused humans, the Chesapeake Bay is the recipient of chemical pollutants from the James that feeds it. According to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, “Top sources of these pollutants include agriculture, sewage treatment plants, runoff from urban and suburban areas, and air pollution from automobiles, factories, and power plants.” Human influence has been so disruptive to the Chesapeake Bay that “since colonial times, the Bay has lost half of its forested shorelines, over half of its wetlands, nearly 90 percent of its underwater grasses, and more than 98 percent of its oysters.”
In our life of faith we must always live with two images of the world. The image of what is and the image of what ought to be.
On one hand we have what is, the reality of present day. We have depleted resources. We have pollution. We have neglect for the earth. We have unsafe waterways and corrupted creations.
On the other hand we have our story from John today. Perhaps it can serve us as the vision of what ought to be. A world of serenity and mutuality. A vision of an abundant earth that humans relate to with care and concern. A vision of pristine waters. A vision of positive interactions with nature.
The hopeful news is that there is a multitude of people working for the past that is described by John, working for what ought to be. There are numerous organizations and groups seeking to purify our community’s waters, to scrub clean the air we breathe, to banish the pollutants that foul our lands—Friends of Chesterfield’s Riverfront, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, the James River Association, and the James River Advisory Council, just to name a few.
But they cannot do this alone. There is always a need for more people to help with the problems at hand. Having tidy lawns and litter free yards on our own personal plots of land is not enough. We must do what we can in our community’s shared land and rivers as well.
As people of faith it is our inherent duty to call for and work toward the redemption and resurrection of the land God placed us upon. On this Earth Day Sunday, this is the simple message. Connect with an organization that cleans our rivers. Speak with a friend who is familiar with environmental issues. Learn more about the chemicals that pollute our waters and air. Understand the limits of nature—that animals are going extinct at a rapid pace, that we humans have the frightening power to cause massive environmental and climate changes.
And all the while, while we work together for the redemption of the earth and nature, let us resurrect and be inspired by the vision of John of what one day will be. The vision of clean waters. The vision of breathable air. The vision of abundant wildlife. A vision beyond the valley of the shadow of death, where new life springs from beside the still waters, and the soul of world is restored. Amen.
Nathan Jaffay, “Fishing banned on the Sea of Galilee,” The Daily Telegraph, April 3, 2010, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/7548606/Fishing-banned-on-the-Sea-of-Galilee.html, accessed on April 22, 2010.
Eli Ashkenazi, Haaretz, “Seven Sea of Galilee beaches close due to pollution, lifeguard dearth,” July 26, 2007, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/886609.html, accessed on April 22, 2010.
Don Bolt, “Parting the Waters,” National Geographic Magazine, April 2010, http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2010/04/parting-the-waters/belt-text, accessed on April 22, 2010.
Chesapeake Bay Foundation, http://www.cbf.org/Page.aspx?pid=433, accessed on April 24, 2010.
