All are welcome to join us for Church on Sunday, February 9 at 10 am.  Children are invited to join the Sunday school teachers for church school during the service.  Coffee is served after church.

Here are Rev. Marlene’s notes on the upcoming service.

Marlene’s Rev. Notes:

Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.” Luke 5:10

Among the unique features of Luke’s Gospel is the fact that in comparison with the other three evangelists, he delays Jesus’ call to his first disciples.  Luke, it seems, wants Jesus and his reputation to be well established before he calls his first followers. It is this delay and Jesus’ popularity, that explain the large crowd that presses in on him and creates his encounter with (Simon) Peter and his fishing partners, James and John. (After this, Jesus renames Simon, Peter “the rock.”)

In Luke, Jesus has already demonstrated his power through his deeds, but now he employs that power to win over Peter (and eventually James and John as well).  Thus, Peter and the others are to follow, not due to a command or an order, but rather due to Jesus winning over their imaginations and hearts.

Simon Peter’s encounter with the divine makes him deeply aware of himself as a sinner.  And yet, it is Peter’s humble honesty in the presence of holiness that leads Jesus to banish his fear and to entrust him with a new version of his old vocation: from now on, he will be “netting people,” for “I will make you fishers of men,” as the King James version tells us. Ironically, Peter, who asks Jesus to depart from him, saying “Go away from me Lord; I am a sinful man,” ends up leaving everything behind and following Christ.