The Gospel of Luke, chapter 5
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I am a terrible fisherman. I just don’t have the patience. Just sitting on the side of the river or floating in a hot old metal boat all day? Never saw the point as a kid.
It sounds like Simon was having that kind of day, doesn’t it? Do you hear how he answers Jesus? Tired, frustrated, disappointed. Certainly out of patience. But he doesn’t want to disappoint the rabbi, so off he goes, again, trying to catch some fish which clearly aren’t there…
…except now they are! So many fish that Simon’s boat nearly sinks, and his father’s other boat too, and they barely make it to shore, and Simon is simply overwhelmed.
From now on, Jesus tells him and James and John, you all will fish for people.
“From now on”: a dividing point. A line in the sand. Artificial, perhaps, as if one could separate one second from another. But still, for our feeble human brains, some artificial distinctions are needed, between the old and the new.
Luke, caught up in a kind of “Grandpa” mode of storytelling, doesn’t really care when these vignettes take place in Jesus’ ministry: he’s introducing these scene with words like “one day” or “once, when.” Each of these stories begins to illuminate Jesus’ ministry: it’s recognizable to those who understand what rabbis, even miracle-working ones, usually do. But Jesus goes off the script pretty often. Finagling some fishermen into your chief disciples is mind-boggling, but more so is actually forgiving sins on top of the healing miracles! I’m pretty sure Jesus was being accused of introducing some radically new teaching into the Judaism of his day and age.
And that’s what makes the final parable so provocative, and hard to understand. There are lots of people who read it and think that Jesus is talking about his own new teachings, that burst the wineskins of the old religion. So you have to read the last verse to really get what Jesus is doing: “The old is good!” No one wants to drink wine that hasn’t aged, not at a really good party, right? You need to drink the stuff with a layer of dust on the bottle, in the back of the cellar, that has been laid up for years! That’s what you bring out for a celebration.
Jesus is reminding folks that everything old is new again: God’s ongoing work of mercy, of healing, of forgiveness, of reconciliation, of bringing the outsiders into the heart of the kingdom. Nothing about this is new! Remember how in the last chapter, Jesus took upon himself the Isaianic ministry of releasing and freeing. You just have to be patient, to remember, to see how God constantly brings back the same kind of ministry, the same grace, the same love.
As Luke understands Jesus, his purpose wasn’t to introduce a new God, a new theology, a new ministry. Why do you think there are so many quotations and allusions to the Hebrew scriptures throughout both the volumes he writes to Theophilus? Jesus is doing the same work that God has always been up to. It’s we who insist on coming up with something new, on being relevant, on trying to give a new spin or “hot take” on God’s purposes and movement. That always gets in the way and trips people up, Jesus says. It’s the original version of “Give me that old time religion!” What has happened in the past flows into the future just like a river continually flows into the ocean. Just like sinners seek forgiveness, just like God seeks out the people who were created to live in the Divine presence.
One of my favorite prayers as an adult comes after the congregation confesses together their sin before God, and then the priest asks of God “time for amendment of life.” As Lent is about to begin, may we embrace the patience of God, who makes it possible for something truly new to emerge out of the Spirit’s timeless grace.
We live in a culture the celebrates youth, novelty, and innovation,
and our consumer economy is built around planned obsolescence:
so what does it mean for us to “prefer the old” ways of God’s salvation?
Read, reflect, and respond in the comments below!
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