We complete our five-week worship series this week on topics we’re not supposed to put on The Table. This week we put Jesus Christ on The Table. Each week we’ve been inviting reflection on how our faith might shape the ways we approach some of the controversial issues of our day. We hope we have been able to create a safe, if at times challenging and even at times uncomfortable, space to reflect on faithful Christian responses to each of these topics. We believe the way and the life of Jesus calls us to address each of these topics through the lens of Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience. We have appreciated being in this with you all over these five weeks.
Outline for On The Table
January 10: Guns (Micah 4.1-4)
January 17: Fear (Romans 12.18-21)
January 24: Privilege (Mark 3.1-6)
January 31: $.77 (2 Corinthians 8.13-15)
February 7: Jesus Christ (Luke 5.1-11)
Reflect on what comes to mind when you hear a person described as a “follower of Jesus.”
Read Luke 5.1-11 .
“Jesus tells Simon to put out into the deep water and let down his nets for a catch. Simon obviously believes this will be a futile exercise…We know what happens next — nets so full of fish that they begin to break, boats so full of fish that they begin to sink. Seeing what is happening, Simon is overwhelmed with fear and wonder, sensing that he is in the presence of divine power. He responds by falling down at Jesus’ knees and begging him, ‘Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!’ Simon is caught by surprise. In the midst of his ordinary daily grind, and in fact, after a particularly lousy night at work, he is encountered by one who changes everything…He sees the overwhelming disparity between God’s power manifest in Jesus and his own mortal, compromised life. Jesus responds to Simon by saying, ‘Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.’ The Greek word for “catching” used here (zogron) is rare in the New Testament, but means ‘to catch alive.’ Of course, fishing with nets was a matter of catching fish alive, but those live fish would soon be dead. Here Jesus calls Simon and his partners to a new vocation of catching people so that they might live, a life-giving vocation of being caught up in God’s mission of salvation for all.” (~Elizabeth Johnson writing for Working Preacher.com)
How do you feel called right now, in the midst of all of your work and life, to follow Jesus?
This week ask for God’s continued guidance and inspiration to follow Jesus and reach in love in your vocation and work.