I really enjoyed the movie, Hook, as a child. It was fun to see a modern twist on the Peter Pan story where Peter is all grown up. Robin WIlliams plays the grown up Peter who has lost what it means to have the heart of a child and has put behind him the adventures in Neverland. He begins the movie tethered to his cell phone, always on call for work and never truly present to his wife and two young children. The movie follows his adventures as he is forcefully returned to Neverland to save his children, who have been taken captive by Captain Hook.
By the end of the film, Peter has reclaimed the heart of a child and realizes how far he had distanced himself from his family for the sake of his career. In the final scene of the movie, Peter takes the cell phone and chucks it out of a window, a powerful sign that work will dominate his life no more. Free from that overwhelming push towards career success, Peter is freed to love his wife and kids, who he showers with affection and love. Finally, they all end the movie looking out of the nursery window at the sky stretching out before them. Wendy, who is now an old woman, turns to Peter and says, “So your adventures are over?” And Peter replies, “Oh no, to live, to live will be an awfully big adventure.”
We join Peter at the shores of the Sea of Galilee today in the Gospels and he is in a place where he’s probably feeling more than a bit guilty in the presence of Jesus after his resurrection. As usual, Jesus in this post resurrection encounter only allows the disciples to recognize Him at just the right time. They have a conversation with Him from the boat about their disastrous night of fishing and then Jesus instructs them to cast over once more and finally catch a miraculous draught of fish.
Peter jumps over the side of the boat and joins Jesus, dripping wet, beside the charcoal fire. Again, I can only imagine the heaviness of Peter’s heart. The last time he found himself around a fire was a few days before, when Jesus was being tried by the high priest. Peter was warming himself around that fire when people asked him if he was one of Jesus’ followers and he denied the Lord three times. That was after his confident proclamation at dinner where he said he would even die for Jesus. But, just as Jesus predicted, Peter denied knowing Him three times before the cock crowed, and then he went off to weep bitterly. And beyond that, now Jesus has risen from the dead, He has revelaed Himself to them and given them the gift of the Holy Spirit, and yet here Peter is, focusing on his old profession of fishing. He could have been out preaching, baptizing, and forgiving sins through Jesus but instead Peter went fishing. And the others followed his lead. Oof.
It’s not that fishing in and of itself is a bad thing, but that good thing was distracting Peter from the commission that Jesus had given him. Jesus, in His mercy, allows Peter to catch so many fish that the disciples finally realize that it is Him. He provides both for their practical needs and also their spiritual needs. With the fire going and fish cooking, Jesus gives Peter the opportunity to lean into His grace. Where once Peter denied the Lord around a fire, now Jesus invites Peter to profess his love freely and openly. His threefold profession of love sets him back on the path of following Jesus where He wants to lead Peter.
Jesus shows Peter that talk is cheap. If he wants to really live out his love for the Lord, that means more than just saying that He will follow Him, it means carrying out the mission that Jesus gave him: by feeding the sheep. That has been the call for every Pope since Peter. Let us keep the cardinals in prayer this week as they choose a new successor of Peter to carry out that great task of feeding the sheep of the Universal Church.
For Peter in the movie Hook, his love for his family got overshadowed by the dreaded cell phone, which represented everything that was drawing him away from his core identity as a father and husband. For the Apostle Peter, those fishing nets represented his sidestepping of his own identity as Apostle and first Pope, one called to lay down his life in service to the Kingdom of God. All of us have a core identity as Disciples of the Lord, but how easy it is for us to get caught up in those cell phones and fishing nets which distract us from living as the Lord calls us to.
Our life of discipleship is one which will feed those deep desires of our hearts, desires to love and be loved to come to know, love and serve the God who is Love. There is no greater adventure. As Peter darling put it so beautifully at the end of Hook, “To live will be an awfully great adventure.” The Risen Lord calls us to the great adventure of living as His Disciples, and this challenges us to focus on those ways we can love the Lord. Loving involves more than just words. Talk is cheap, as they say. Our actions will show the love of our hearts. Will we let Jesus’ grace flood into us more and more so that our actions can be guided by love of Him?
When Peter leaned into that grace, his loving action in service of the Church changed the world. Because of him, we are gathered here for worship today. Because of him, the cardinals will gather to elect a new pope in just a few days.
I want to draw our hearts to three way of living out the love to which the Risen Lord Jesus invites each of us: priority, time, and communication. First, priority: do we give priority to the things of Heaven, to church, prayer, and the vocation to which the Lord has called us? Or do other things tend to come before God and our neighbor? Then, if we do give priority to God, how much time are we spending with Him? Do we give Jesus quality time each day, time to just be with Him and enjoy his presence, time to listen for the ways He is trying to lead us? And lastly, do we communicate with the Risen Lord. Every day, Jesus poses that same question to us that He posed to Peter all those years ago on the shores of the sea of Galilee: “Do you love me more than these?” All of us have something that is right now trying to distract us from loving the Lord Jesus with our whole mind, heart, soul and strength and our neighbor as ourselves. Unless we take time to talk to and listen to the Lord in that loving, day to day conversation where we give Him our Heart and He gives us His, then we will continually miss His loving voice and the invitation it gives to follow Him.
When we do start to make decisions that concretely give the Risen Lord priority, time and open hearts to converse, that is where the true adventure starts.
+ Heavenly Father, thank you so much for inviting us to the adventure of loving and following your Son. Lord Jesus, help us to listen for the ways you are inviting us to love you and follow you each day. Holy Spirit, help us to lovingly lay aside all that would keep us from following the Lord more fully. We ask this through Christ, our Risen Lord. Amen. +