January 9 | Luke 5:1-11, 27-32

by Dan Kidd

I come from a family of recreational fishermen. My mom's dad bought the family a houseboat when my mom was a kid. They'd spend summer nights sleeping out on the lakes and rivers that wind through the hills of the Smoky Mountains. Later he would build a house atop a hill overlooking one such lake, and a long wooden staircase that led to the dock and his boat below. In my late teens, my parents built a house at the other end of that same lake, where they continue to live today. When I was young, we spent many a day bobbing around the lake in his little speedboat, with an arsenal of fishing poles extended in 4 or 5 different directions at once, casting out worm-hooked lines and slowly reeling them in, hoping to entice some unsuspecting fish to bite down and be hooked in. In almost every case, we'd be out there for hours catching only a handful of bass, Bluegills, and a rare catfish, capturing them long enough to snap a picture (or, to "measure" for the stories we'd tell later) before returning them back to the water to pursue food that hopefully wouldn't have a hook attached to it. Even now, fishing that lake is a routine summer activity when we visit my parents in Tennessee.

That said, no one who knows me well would mistake me for a tried-and-true fisherman. The boat, the pole, the tackle, the hooks, and lures, and bate—even the spare lifejackets are all items I borrow. And so my imagination can only take me so far into the scene we encounter in today's passage., where Jesus meets and calls his fishermen disciples.

In our initial passage this week, Mark 1:1-20, we heard Mark's story about Jesus walking along the shore of the Sea of Galilee and there calling Simon (Peter), Andrew, James, and John to follow him as his disciples, and to "fish for people." "At once," Mark tells us, "they left their nets and followed him." In today's passage from Luke, we hear a Luke's stereo account of calling Simon Peter and his partners, James and John.

 If you're like me, you may have only a few points of reference for what it might be like to have been Simon Peter as Jesus approached him that morning and sat down in Simon's boat, asking to be taken out into the water. That said, it doesn't hurt to stretch the imaginative muscle once in a while. Consider reading vv. 1-11 again, putting yourself into the scene—feeling the coolness of a lakeside morning, the perfume of saltwater and sea life drifting in the air, and the hear the sounds of the fishermen and their boats at work. Notice how Jesus interrupts that with a peculiar request, first to go out fishing again, then to join him in fishing for people. What was that like?

And while you're at it, you might lend your imagination to vv. 27-32, joining Levi in his tax booth, and then following Jesus to his house to host a great banquet of fellow tax collectors and neighbors. What might that be like?

Jesus met these disciples amidst the normalcy of their work, and he called them to be fellow workers of the Kingdom mission he was on. The Lord continues to do this now. In the ordinariness of our days, the Holy Spirit seeks to meet us, even interrupt us, as we go about our routines and rituals, in order to follow him and do his Kingdom work. Let us, today, amidst all the ordinary things we have planned, have our hearts and our eyes open to the missionary, people-fishing work the Lord has for us.

Lord, we are so very grateful you invite us to be your disciples. We pray that you would continue to call us and lead us into your Kingdom work around us this very day. Give us your perceptive eyes, to notice the needs, desires, and hopes of the people we see today. Lend us your heart that we would be moved to share with others the generous gifts you've given us, including and most importantly, the good news of you, Jesus. Teach us, Lord, to be interruptible and to anticipate your Kingdom as it comes on earth as it is in heaven.