a sinful man

I've probably said this before, but of all the people in the Gospels I most readily associate with Peter. Peter, whose desire to do the right thing often came out wrong. Peter, who seemed to say whatever was in his head. Like me, the filter between Peter's brain and mouth didn't always work. When I think of Peter, I think of a guy who tried hard but didn't always get it right.

But the thing is, when he gets it wrong, I can see myself doing exactly the same thing.

This morning, I read in Luke 5 the story of the disciples' nets being so filled with fish they started to break. This came after an unsuccessful night; the disciples, experienced fishermen, knew there wasn't any point but out of respect for Jesus they put their nets back in the water. And, against everything they knew about the lake and about fish, Jesus brought them a spectacular catch. 

Peter's response?  Luke 5:8 says, "When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus' knees and said, 'Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!'"

You see, that is totally me! Every time I'm reminded of Jesus' Lordship, I feel unworthy. That's fine. But then I jump to the wrong conclusion, that because Jesus is the very standard of worthiness that I'm not meeting, I have no place with him. He won't want me around. The most honest thing I can to is to tell Jesus, "Lord, I'm not your kind of people. You don't want to be seen hanging around with me!"

In Peter's day, a sinner could literally make holy people unclean, in the sense that they could become ritually impure and therefore not permitted to take part in temple life. That's what I feel like. I feel that I'm just going to soil Jesus' brilliant white robe with my grubby sinner's hands.

But that's because, like Peter, I forget why Jesus was here in the first place. Jesus intentionally put himself in the middle of mankind. He made his life with us, part of the sweating, pushing crowd with their dusty feet and stained hands and smelly armpits. And equally grimy and off-putting thoughts and habits. He did it because he loves us; he did it because for whatever reason, this relationship we have with him is valued by him.

When scripture says, "God so loved the world," the Greek word use for world is "mundus." Centuries later, our word "mundane" has its roots in the same word. Mundane, ordinary. God so loved the ordinary, the normal, the average Joes and Janes, that he sent his son.

It's precisely because Peter was a sinful man that Jesus was there. Peter's response was to push Jesus away; Jesus response was to hold Peter close. And he would always respond the same way, no matter how badly Peter blundered.

There's a lot of comfort there for me. Oh, I'm going to keep trying not to be that guy that puts dirty handprints all over Jesus' clean robe. But I can see now that my dirtiness isn't a reason to stay away from Jesus, it's a reason to go to him.