Ordinary Time

February 6, 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.

“If You Always Do What You’ve Always Done, You’ll Always Get What You’ve Always Got.” ~ Henry Ford.

I thought of this quote when I heard on the news recently that the Ford Motor Company was making a major shift to electric vehicles. Henry would probably be proud that the company he founded remained innovative.

Jesus came to show us a better way that requires us to review our ways of following God to address the wellbeing of the entire world through love. God’s rules of living, many of us learned in childhood, are valid and still provide good guidance for all but they are not the final purpose. Following those rules possibly fostered the attitude of self-righteousness as epitomized by the Pharisees in Jesus’s time who worked hard at being better than others and even each other. They spun commonsense laws into rituals with other rules of their own making from how to wash feet to how to get out of caring for your parents if you donate to the Temple*. That made sense to the faith leaders because they were the ones who benefited from those donations. We have some folks like that today.

Jesus called us back to God’s first law, you shall have no other gods before me. (Exodus 20:3) To adhere to that law, we must invest a lifetime of learning about God and learning how to love like God. God even sent Jesus to model that behavior. It also means we must learn to identify and avoid the temptations of all those other gods that work hard to distract us from the ways of God.

Of course, loving God and working toward God’s goals did not end with the resurrection, we continue to receive guidance from the Holy Spirit and we carry on with finding new and better ways to build a world ruled by God’s love. The miracle in the story above wasn’t the huge catch of fish, it was the Simons and James that caught the fire of Jesus’s message and went on to change the world.  We stand in their boat today.

Prayer: Lord, the world is very discouraging today as we deal with a pandemic, climate control issues, and world discontent. Show us the innovations we need to make and give us the courage to initiate them. Amen.

*See Mark7:10-12

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.