Daily Lesson for September 29, 2014

Today's daily lesson comes from Luke chapter 5 verses 3 through 7:

3 Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon's, he asked him to put out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the people from the boat. 4 And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” 5 And Simon answered, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.” 6 And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking. 7 They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink.

Let's be honest -- when we good, Jesus-loving folks from one church think of the good, Jesus-loving folks at another church one word inevitably comes to mind: competition.

American Christianity has become a competitive business where churches are basically all fishing to beat out the church down the street in the quest to haul in the same folks -- every sea captain's and sailor's dream, those nymphlike beauties we call "young families".  

And on a day when conditions are so unfavorable, and the pond, and the number of nymphs in it seem to get ever smaller, we good, Jesus-loving church folk will resort to whatever bait or hook we can think of to beat out the competition. We strip down the altar, we take off our coats, we dim the lights, we mass-market, we buy our own bouncy house -- whatever it takes to pull in the nymphs. But at some point, it happens to all us good, Jesus-loving folks and our good, Jesus-loving churches -- we realize that the nymphs have quit biting.

The great irony is this -- that's actually the best place to be.  Ashore, washing nets, wondering if there's ever to be any fish caught again - I mean no longer dreaming of catching a sea nymph but wondering if you can catch anything. It's a point of exasperation and a point of desperation. And that is when we are ready -- when we are desperate enough to hear what this Jesus has to say and to listen to it: "Put out into the deep."

It seems that the future of the church in a season when the fish ain't biting and the nymphs have all moved on is to listen to Jesus again -- to push out, to unmoor ourselves and push way out beyond the shallows, out into the deep waters of study, and prayer, and deep, abiding friendship.

That's where the fish are, way out there. And if we dare to go out there, we will discover that it will be just as Jesus said, "The kingdom from heaven is like a large net thrown into the sea that gathered all kinds of fish." 

So many in fact, there will be no competition. We will yell for other boats to come and help. And words will come out of our mouths we never thought we'd say, "You can have all the nymphs you guys want," we'll say, "because our boat is already overloaded."

That really will be the Kingsom of God; but we've got to go a lot further out to get there.