One of my favorite stories is the calling of Simon in Luke 5.  They’ve been out on the Sea of Galilee (or Gennesaret) all night, fishing, and hadn’t caught a thing.  We often read this text as saying something about discipleship and evangelism and extending the Realm of God.  It does have something to say about “catching people” (Luke 5:10).  However, before Simon begins this work he has to first do something else.

“Look, Master, we’ve been out here all night and didn’t catch a thing.  We’re tired.  And there are all those people who keep following you around.  We just want to go home.” 

What did Jesus ask him do?  “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch” (Luke 5:4).  Put out into the deep water.  Let down your down nets, into the depths, for a catch.  And when they did so they had so many fish that their nets almost began to break. Simon signaled for help.  And then these both boats were filled to capacity with fish that they started to sink under the weight.  Overwhelmed by the abundance of the depths!

Jesus’ invitation to let down our nets into the depths has guided my life for decades.  When Jesus tells us to put out into the deep, I can’t help but hear this as a summons to go down and in, to enter into the depths of my being, my soul, my heart, my psyche—they’re all synonymous for me. The sea is a metaphor for the heart, a symbol of the unconscious, that which lives below the surface of awareness.  It’s an invitation to go down and in, to an abundance, an overabundant yield that cannot be contained.

-From the Introduction

Kenneth E. Kovacs, Ph.D., is pastor of the Catonsville Presbyterian Church, Catonsville, Maryland, and has served congregations in St. Andrews, Scotland, and Mendham, New Jersey.  Kenneth studied at Rutgers College, Yale Divinity School, Princeton Theological Seminary, and received his Ph.D. in theology from the University of St. Andrews, St. Andrews, Scotland. The author of The Relational Theology of James E. Loder: Encounter & Conviction (New York: Peter Lang, 2011), his current research areas include C. G. Jung and contemporary Christian experience. Kenneth is also an avid traveler and has led pilgrimages/tours to Scotland, Italy, Turkey, Greece, Switzerland and France.