A homily for the Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, February 6, 2022
Is 6:1-2a, 3-8, 1 Cor 15:3-8, 11, Lk 5:1-11
We who used to be children probably grew up with Dad Jokes and Mom-isms.
(There were Dad-isms too, but they mostly were some variation of “Listen to your mother!”)
Mom-isms were deeply concerned with what kind of underwear to wear and when, where to cross the street and when, who to play with and when, and homework.
And Mom-isms weren’t always straightforward or direct. For example, when Mom might happen upon a filled-up kitchen sink, she’d say, “Those dishes aren’t going to wash themselves.”
And we got the hint.
Our calls to evangelize, which run through all three Scripture passages this weekend — a rare three-fer — seem straightforward, but one element is not.
How.
Our translation of Luke’s Gospel eschews the play-on-words versions that have Jesus telling fishermen that they will be fishers of men, but it nonetheless makes clear that Jesus wants his followers to grow in number and in the depth of their belief.
Jesus is challenging his earliest Apostles to build his church on Earth and continue the salvific work that will guide women and men toward the homes Jesus promised to create for them in Heaven.
“Go out there and get ’em, guys! Haul them in as you would a full net!”
The catch is (no pun intended), you can’t catch people with nets, not really and probably not legally in most cases.
But somebody had to do it, bring more people closer to God, invite them to meet Christ. So, as we learn elsewhere in the New Testament, the disciples spread out far and wide to proclaim the Good News and baptize with water and the Holy Spirit. To gather two or more in Jesus’ name, knowing that he would be among them.
To use the power of Truth and Wisdom, of Faith, Hope and Love, of God’s Peace and Justice to shine a light into the darkness that surrounded the world’s lowly and oppressed people.
And they accomplished much, bringing children of God together as Church.
But 2,000 years later, the work remains incomplete, and those women and men who don’t know Jesus and the Law of Love aren’t going to catch themselves.
Which brings us back to How. And Who.
The Who part is simple. Us. We, the baptized daughters and sons of our Almighty Creator, are challenged to spread the word about God’s Word.
Surprisingly, the How part can be even simpler. We can and must live the Gospel so that others can see how we Christians love one another, to borrow a classic phrase.
We have the Two Great Commandments — Love God and Love your neighbor as yourself. What a great start! Suitable for a bumper sticker or a meme, even a TikTok.
And should the occasion arise that someone asks us why we’re living this way — seeking out and caring for people on the margins, standing up for underdogs, raising our children to cooperate and compromise instead of fight, caring for our fragile planet, and in every way possible leaving everything better than we found it — should that occasion arise, then we can tell someone we’re doing it because Jesus wants us to.
But we should let our actions speak first.
We should learn where other people are on the journey of their lives, and be gentle with what we tell them. God is still heard best in the kind of whispers and gentle breeze that the prophet Elijah experienced.
We are called to evangelize, to spread the Good News, not to proselytize. How many of us have been thoroughly turned off by people clearly and aggressively proselytizing? Talk about do unto others…
Jesus asked his fishermen friends to catch the way they knew best.
Jesus uses a Mom-ism to ask us to catch the way we know best: We can catch more with honey than we can with vinegar.
And, no, they’re not going to catch themselves.
