Ordinary Time

February 5, 2022

Scripture Reading: Luke 5:1-11

Once while Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, ‘Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.’ Simon answered, ‘Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.’ When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. So they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, ‘Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!’ For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken; and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, ‘Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.’ When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.

How closely linked are our efforts, our good intentions to Christ’s plan? I am sure that Simon and the others with him were fishing according to accepted customs. While this event may be listed with miracles of Jesus or just a metaphor for entering the mission field, it also relates to the need to be in sync with God in all aspects of our lives. It may also suggest that the way we have always done something is not the only or best way to complete the task. I once worked with a computer programmer who hated to do the mundane tasks of transferring massive amounts of routine data to our data warehouse. It apparently was not hard to do, it was tedious and boring, but it had to be done on a routine basis for the people accessing the data warehouse to use the most current data. He preferred to create new programs that enhanced data use. They were generally all good ideas, but worthless if there was no data to access in the system.

We must continually assess and modify our work toward being the Body of Christ in the world today and building the Kingdom of God to make sure our work is hitting the mark toward our purpose. That may include doing the tedious, boring stuff as well as the aspects of our work that provide immediately recognizable rewards. Although a few of those outcomes along the way, help.

Prayer: Lord, give us a song in our hearts when we find ourselves doing the tedious, boring stuff in working toward the Kingdom of God and the joy of seeing, on occasion, positive outcomes of our work.  Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.