Bring What You Have
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John 21:1-14
1 Afterward Jesus appeared again to his disciples, by the Sea of Galilee. It happened this way: 2 Simon Peter, Thomas (also known as Didymus), Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples were together.
3 “I’m going out to fish,” Simon Peter told them, and they said, “We’ll go with you.” So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. 4 Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus.
5 He called out to them, “Friends, haven’t you any fish?” “No,” they answered. 6 He said, “Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.” When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish.
7 Then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” As soon as Simon Peter heard him say, “It is the Lord,” he wrapped his outer garment around him (for he had taken it off) and jumped into the water.
8 The other disciples followed in the boat, towing the net full of fish, for they were not far from shore, about a hundred yards. 9 When they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it, and some bread.
10 Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish you have just caught.” 11 So Simon Peter climbed back into the boat and dragged the net ashore. It was full of large fish, 153, but even with so many the net was not torn. 12 Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.”
None of the disciples dared ask him, “Who are you?” They knew it was the Lord. 13 Jesus came, took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. 14 This was now the third time Jesus appeared to his disciples after he was raised from the dead.
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Trust the Process
Most of the time, when we come across this passage from John, we focus on the miraculous catch of fish. We see mainly the fact that when Peter and the other apostles follow Jesus’ instruction, they suddenly have so many fish they can barely haul in the catch.
And we should focus on this! It is a miraculous occurrence, and one that reaffirms our faith Jesus is who He says He is. But as we did last week with John 3:1-15, sometimes digging into the specifics of a well-known passage can help shed additional light on our faith journeys.
This passage from John is like that. It’s a terrific case study in what living a life of faith actually looks like on the ground. It shows us how to be ourselves while still living in God’s Will. It shows us how to go about our lives without letting our Edging God Out EGOS get in the way.
In this passage, it was after all the excitement of Easter Sunday. The apostles had been with Jesus in Jerusalem. They watched the shouts of “Hosanna!” from Palm Sunday turn into the ugliness of the crucifixion. They were there. Right in the middle of it.
As a quick reminder, here is the timeline of what happens after the resurrection. In Mark, Luke, and John, we’re told that Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene Easter Sunday. Jesus appears later that night to all the apostles other than Thomas, and then again a week later with Thomas.
And remember that just before the crucifixion, Jesus told his disciples as they walked toward the Garden of Gethsemane, “But after I have been raised, I will go before you into Galilee” (Matthew 26:32). This verse is also recorded verbatim in Mark 14:28.
We know from the Bible that this meeting in Galilee did occur in what is referred to as The Great Commission. This passage is in Matthew 28:16-20, and it reads “Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go.
When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.’”
But this happens later than the scene we’re studying today from John. In this passage from John, Peter and six other apostles are all back together in Galilee, where the whole wild ride with Jesus had started. We know why: because Jesus told them he would meet them there.
We know why Peter and the others are back in Galilee. They are following the plan Jesus left them with. But why are they back to their business as usual? Why do we find them, in this passage from John, right back where they had started?
Why have they seemingly just gone back to their old ways, back to their old lives? It’s as though nothing had happened. There they are, out at night, fishing from the same old boats, casting the same old nets. Has nothing changed since their time with Jesus?
For three and a half years Peter and the others had been Jesus' near-constant companions. At the beginning of those years, Jesus had appeared to them, suddenly and mysteriously – to some of them while fishing on that very shore in Galilee.
But then Jesus had disappeared as suddenly and mysteriously as he had appeared. We know that the apostles were deeply, irrevocably changed from their encounters with Jesus. But we have to assume that at this moment, they wondered “Where is all this excitement leading?”
There was a gaping hole in their lives, and they were left wondering how to fill it. Peter and the other disciples may well have had a feeling of unfinished business. With Peter in particular, there may have been a sense of reconciliation as yet unmade, after denying Jesus.
Peter was always a man who liked practical action. He was also a very enthusiastic apostle. “I don’t want you to wash my feet” he tells Jesus. “But I must, or you will have no part in me.” “Then wash ALL of me!” Peter says.
This is Peter. It’s like every time Jesus says “it would be nice if we had…” Peter is there already holding them up, saying “look, Lord: I already got TWO of them!” So we can imagine that after Jerusalem, Peter comes up with a very obvious solution: back to work. Back to what we know.
Back to the practice and the trade he and the others knew so well, that of fishing. It is entirely understandable that the disciples wanted to fill their time doing something positive. Maybe they just needed some money. We don’t really know. But here they are, fishing.
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Servant Leadership (Authority, Not Control)
In business school, I came across a management philosophy that really resonated with me. It’s called Servant Leadership. The term “servant leader” was first coined by Robert K. Greenleaf in 1970 in the essay “The Servant as Leader.” He also wrote a book called Servant Leadership.
Basically, the servant leadership style was based on the idea that leaders prioritize serving the greater good. Leaders with this style serve their team and organization first. They don’t prioritize their own objectives.
Servant leadership seeks to achieve a vision by providing strong support to employees. In turn, this allows employees to learn and grow while bringing their own expertise and vision to the table. It works like an inverted pyramid, with the leader at the bottom, rather than the top.
In servant leadership, employees are empowered, because they are recognized – rightly so! – as the people who will get the job done. But the leader doesn’t just disappear. The servant leader instead focuses on the big picture: setting the strategic vision for the company.
What’s new about that? Don’t all leaders set the strategic vision for their companies? Sure. But this is where the Servant Leader sets themself apart. The servant leader doesn’t try to control everything by themself. Instead, they communicate their plan down to the team level.
But servant leaders don’t tell their teams what to do exactly. Instead, the servant leader hires smart, capable people, and encourages their managers to take ownership to get the job done. They agree on the big picture, but leave the details up to those on the ground.
In servant leadership, that communication goes two ways. The servant leader sets a vision and communicates it clearly to their managers. But then the servant leader must be available to supply the required resources, budget, and skills to allow their managers to be successful.
Servant leaders don’t want to direct the actual work – and they shouldn’t need to. They have hired capable managers underneath them to get the job done. So it becomes the job of a servant leader to simply help those managers be successful.
Servant leaders provide a framework within which their team can flourish. Instead of prescribing specific directions on each one of their duties – “in this circumstance, you will do this” – a servant leader allows people to figure things out on their own.
Servant leadership is all about BOTTOM-UP EMPOWERMENT. This means that a servant leader builds their team members’ self-confidence, decision-making abilities, and collaboration skills. Servant leaders trust their teams, and extend support when necessary.
Servant leadership might seem to make common sense when I explain it this way. But think about how many organizations don’t work like this. Plenty of groups of people are organized around a top-down leadership style, in which you follow orders because you're told to.
Many, many organizations are organized in this top-down manner. Simply because the person above you tells you to do something, you do it. In this model, you’re seen as successful because you carried out the order precisely as prescribed.
Some families even work this way. Plenty of families are top-down. “Do this because I told you” is something we need to tell our children often when they are very young, to be sure. But at a certain age, we want to encourage them to know how to make their own decisions as well.
The difference between top-down management and Servant Leadership hinges on building influence and AUTHORITY, rather than using CONTROL. When we try to CONTROL something, it means we think we have all the answers.
When we act from a sense of control – “I’m the boss, and I’ll tell you how it’s done!” – where is the sense of trust in those doing the work? What is left for those doing the work to actually, you know: do? A top-down leader treats those around them like robots who execute a task.
A top-down manager doesn’t only have answers about what job needs to be accomplished. A top-down manager thinks they also have answers about HOW, precisely, to get it done. And WHEN. And BY WHOM.
To me, being in that sort of control sounds exhausting. A servant leader might give guidance like “work on making these customers happier.” A top-down leader would write out a full script of how to do so. “If this type of customer does this thing, first say this and then that…”
AUTHORITY, on the other hand, is very different from control. The main difference has to do with TRUST. The role of a servant leader starts and ends with trust. A servant leader earns the trust of their team, and they trust their team to carry out the work.
A servant leader derives their leadership from their ability to be trusted, and functions in their leadership role by trusting their teams to get the job done. It’s a virtuous cycle. And it only builds on itself as time passes. The more the leader trusts, the more the managers trust back.
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Wait, and Do What You Know
I have come across a few Bible commentators who describe the fact of the apostles fishing as an act of apostasy. These people say it's an abandonment of discipleship. I think this is a very harsh judgment myself.
The apostles know there is more to come from their commitment to serving Jesus. They know because Jesus told them. That is why they are there in Galilee, waiting. From my perspective, the apostles are doing precisely what they should be doing.
Remember: they have not yet been given The Great Commission from Jesus, what he tells them in Matthew 28, to “go and make disciples of all nations.” That hasn’t happened yet. But, some Bible scholars ask, couldn’t they be doing something beside fishing in the meantime?
To me, Peter and the others are doing what we should always do when we don’t feel a special charge from God: WAIT. WAIT, AND DO WHAT YOU KNOW. Notice what they do NOT do. IT’S WHAT THE APOSTLES DO NOT DO THAT GRABS MY ATTENTION.
They DON’T scramble to grab power in Jesus’ absence. They DON’T fight to take control of the group. They DON’T argue about what to do next, or how to move forward. They might have done all those things, if Jesus had just disappeared without further instruction. But He didn’t.
Jesus tells them just before the crucifixion, as they walked toward the Garden of Gethsemane, “But after I have been raised, I will go before you into Galilee” (Matthew 26:32). This verse is also recorded verbatim in Mark 14:28.
So the apostles go back to Galilee, they WAIT, and they go back to WHAT THEY KNOW. These fishermen were real professionals. They knew what they were doing when it came to fish. That was why they went out at night: experience has taught them this was the most productive time.
But on this occasion they fished with a singular lack of success. When morning came, their nets were as empty as when they'd begun. We can imagine their feelings: tired, frustrated, baffled, hungry.
The simple phrase “they caught nothing” to me is profoundly evocative. It calls to mind all the occasions when we work extremely hard over something and achieve nothing, doesn’t it? I’m sure we can all relate to this.
There is the house that someone spends all day tidying up, only to see it systematically untidied by the small child who trails round after. There is the manager who has worked so hard to secure a contract only for it to be awarded at the last minute to somebody else.
There is the employee with the alcohol problem who seems to be responding to the treatment for which the company has paid, and then all the progress is undone in an evening of wild drinking.
There is the report which someone has carefully written for days only to find it wasn’t saved properly on the computer. The child who after years of our loving care still finds a way to break our heart one day.
What we all experience at times like these is the futility of work. A sense of time, money and energy having been wasted. There is a terrific passage from Ecclesiastes 2:17,22 that perfectly sums it up, and in fact in most translations is titled “work is meaningless:”
“17 So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. 22 What do people get for all the toil and anxious striving with which they labor under the sun?”
Like Peter, SOMETIMES WE CATCH NOTHING. And when that happens, we can find it difficult to understand where we've gone wrong. We think back on what we’ve done. We start creating all the “what ifs,” instead of simply accepting the situation and moving ahead.
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The Gift of Desperation
How exasperated must the disciples have been that night, out fishing? We know how exasperated, actually. You know how we know? Because so completely were they at their wits' end, that they found themselves ready to act on the advice of a complete stranger.
Remember the passage: “4 Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus. 5 He called out to them, “Friends, haven’t you any fish?” “No,” they answered.
6 He said, “Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.” When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish. 7 Then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” (John 21:4-7).
The apostles have NO IDEA this is Jesus when he offers His advice from the shore. At this point in time, Jesus is just a stranger, there on the shore like anyone else, going about his business in the predawn after a long night of fruitless fishing.
This must have been a serious blow to their pride, to take his advice. They might have even thought this man on the shore was poking fun at them. “Friends, haven't you any fish?” Is this man teasing them, out there in their boat, working away?
And yet, the apostles listen. Let me be more specific. The apostles are DESPERATE enough to listen. Notice how this works. Jesus has let them try things their own way, hasn’t He? He doesn’t come to them at the beginning of the night to offer His advice. He waits until dawn.
Jesus waits until the apostles are DESPERATE. Until they find themselves at a point ready to listen. So when Jesus shouts a recommendation, the apostles think “perhaps from the shore he can see something we can’t.”
They cast their net into the water on the right side of the boat, and this time they really do catch something. The realization that it is the risen Jesus who is the mysterious stranger follows soon thereafter.
We can take encouragement from the fact that Jesus makes himself known as the apostles are going about their daily business. Jesus does not criticize the disciples for going back to their old occupation.
They may have had an inflated sense of their own self-sufficiency, but the actual work they sought to do was not wrong. What Jesus does is bring success to their working endeavors, to lead their night out fishing to a marvelous conclusion.
This story raises the question of whether we expect, look for and long for the resurrection power of Jesus to be evident in our daily lives. DO WE BELIEVE THAT JESUS CAN TRANSFORM OUR MUNDANE, EVERYDAY LIFE JUST AS HE FILLED THOSE NETS?
Just as there are episodes of depressing futility in our lives, so there are also moments of exciting transformation. It could be a dreaded meeting with someone that turns out better than expected. Or a hostile relationship turned into a friendly one, with real reconciliation.
It might be the breakthrough at work when months of painstaking investigation and experiments suddenly come to fruition. It may be a sudden influx of traction and success in our lives after a period of deep depression and constant self-doubt.
There is a DELICATE THEOLOGICAL BALANCE to observe here. Jesus' metaphorical presence with us on the shore does not guarantee that everything in the place of work will go wonderfully smoothly. Our faith is not that sort of insurance policy.
In fact, our life in faith is somewhat the EXACT INVERSE of expecting everything to go smoothly all the time. We observe in life that frustrations and setbacks – empty nets – will happen. There will be long nights of fishing where we come up empty-handed.
But does this somehow contradict our faith? Not at all. Why? BECAUSE WE KNOW that frustrations and setbacks – empty nets – will continue to afflict us from time to time, we must operate out of faith that THEY WILL WORK OUT FOR US.
In Jesus Christ there is a scope for transformation, which is relevant to working life as well as to church life. In this particular story, change is effected through listening to a word of advice: “Throw your net to the right side of the boat.”
When we live our lives in faith, WE CAN BE OPEN to similar words of wisdom. WE CAN BE ALERT to hear such advice. When we are living in a state of close relationship with the risen Lord, we may be surprised at the flashes of inspiration which sometimes come our way.
In this story there is a fine sense of Jesus and the disciples being co-workers. Admittedly, Jesus provides the decisive piece of information, but the disciples have to haul the fish ashore, and quite a weight it was too.
Jesus is the servant leader par excellence. He provides the example, he sets the tone and the big-picture strategy. But, crucially, Jesus leaves it up to his apostles to carry out the mission: the founding and expansion of the early church.
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Bring What You Have (and Get What You Need)
My favorite part of this passage actually comes after the miraculous catch. It’s at the end, when the apostles reach the shore. It’s when the apostles are back on land, they find Jesus has been busying himself cooking them breakfast.
The apostles are grieving the absence of their leader, their mentor, their friend. Yes, Jesus had appeared to them back in Jerusalem, resurrected from the dead. But He wasn’t there in the same way He was before. He wasn’t around every day as before the crucifixion.
But now Jesus is back. And He wanted to comfort his grieving friends, to give them peace. He wanted to both comfort and empower them, to feed their souls from his own hand. Just as he had done with the bread and wine at their last supper together.
So, when the apostles come ashore, what do they see? A charcoal fire there, with breakfast cooking. The disciples forgot their tiredness, feeling down about the long hours wasted catching nothing. They marveled at their large catch.
Everything that follows in this passage is utterly beautiful to me. The apostles are there, in awe of the transformation which had taken place with their catch because of the risen Jesus in their midst. And there was breakfast. A fire, “with fish on it, and bread.”
Jesus apparently already had some fish of His own. We’re told specifically that’s what he was gilling there on the shore. Jesus already had all he needed to make a hearty breakfast for his friends. But what does He tell them when they come ashore?
John 21:9-12: “When they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it, and some bread. Jesus said to them, ‘Bring some of the fish you have just caught.’ So Simon Peter climbed back into the boat and dragged the net ashore.
It was full of large fish, 153, but even with so many the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” None of the disciples dared ask him, “Who are you?” They knew it was the Lord.” Do you see what’s going on there?
Through a miracle, JESUS HAS PROVIDED THOSE AROUND HIM WITH SOMETHING THEY WANTED – that they had worked hard to get themselves and failed – BUT WHICH HE WAS ALREADY GOING TO GIVE THEM EVENTUALLY ANYWAY.
In the predawn darkness Jesus gathers together some bread and fish. Then he had gone to the beach, built a fire, and placed the food over the coals just so. While the food was grilling, he watched his heartbroken friends.
In their boat out there are the apostles – AT SEA IN EVERY SENSE – searching for solace in their old ways but coming up empty. Literally. Then Jesus guides them. “If it’ll make you feel better to catch fish, cast on the other side. But I was going to feed you anyway, for the record.”
Jesus shouted to them to cast their net on the other side of the boat. And then he waited as they struggled to drag their abundant catch to the shore. By the time they arrived, breakfast was ready.
Jesus had plenty of fish, grilled to perfection, and still he told them to bring some of the fish they had just caught. Why? Because we always have something to offer. Something the world needs. Because when we are fed ourselves, we are able to feed others in turn.
Because WHEN WHO WE ARE AND WHAT WE DO IS ACKNOWLEDGED AND VALUED, we remember that—whatever our situation or status—we have something to offer. Because WHEN WE BRING ALL OF WHO WE ARE TO THE TABLE, both we and the meal are richer for it.
Because NONE OF US EVER FEELS READY TO STEP INTO THE UNKNOWN. To stride into tomorrow. To start that new job. Or possibly even worse – to keep plugging away at the old one. To become a mother, or a grandmother, or a sister for the first time.
When we first came to Jesus, we felt like He had appeared to us personally, the way He did to the apostles after the resurrection. But then, He seemed to disappear for a while. We went back to our lives – changed, for sure – but wondering “is this it?”
JUST AS WE FEEL ABOUT AS MUCH DESPERATION AS WE THINK WE CAN POSSIBLY FEEL – when we’ve been out fishing all night and not caught a thing – THAT’S PRECISELY WHEN JESUS COMES BACK TO US, standing on the shore, guiding our efforts.
And when we are finally given our catch, we not only realize it was a miracle. We don’t only praise God for the blessings He bestows on us. We sit down to eat with Him, with a grin on our face, shaking our head as we realize He was going to give what we needed to us anyway.
