Fifth Sunday after Epiphany – C4

Years C
Luke 5:1-11

Nets are being washed and readied for the next night's fishing. Jesus is talking to people on the lakeshore. Jesus enters a boat and teaches and then asks Simon to go fishing in the daytime.

Fishing at night might symbolize economic sustenance based on what has become known over the generations. Fishing during the day may represent a willingness to suspend common sense that a new revelation might have room to be welcomed.

Sure enough, after getting the nets back in place they broke their pattern and were nearly swamped with a new catch. Simon, in a boat filled to the brim with wriggling, newly-caught fish, falls to his knees in their midst. (If there isn't some element of humor in a new revelation, it probably isn't.)

If this event was possible, what isn't? Simon Peter asks that question with a fearful, dramatic phrasing to distance himself from even more changes. The culmination of a willingness to suspend more than common sense regarding a routine task leads Peter to hear an important response to his question, "Relax, if you can catch fish at such an inopportune time, I'm inviting you to look inland to fields ripe for the harvesting and few to put their hand to that task." Simon quickly surmises there is more going on here than literal connections between fish and fields and people. Here is a challenge that can't be passed up and allow one to remain satisfied by going back to a previous routine.

May we each hear a more expansive invitation than we were ready for. Ready or not, daylight comes, patterns are broken, fear rises, courage for a new challenge abates that fear, new life goes on.

= = = = = = =

yet, if you say so
I will come to myself
in this very place and time

until every midnight and noon
every fullness of employment - doing
every empty laid-aside - suffering
sings a body electric

yet, if you say so
I will come to neighbors
in their moment and space

until every race and gender
every variation in culture
every difference in orientation
sings a body eclectic

yet, if you say so
I will come to you
in your whim and wisdom

until every call and response
every habit questioned
every opportunity welcomed
sings a body elected

yet, if you say so
I will come to rest
in expectation and trust

until every premise and assumption
every unexpected youngest child
every unentitled eldest
sings a body selected