About today
Readings
Colossians 1: 9-14. The Lord has made His salvation known – Psalm 97 (98): 2-6. Luke 5: 1-11.
They left everything and followed him
Two captains headed the class on a mild June morning. The rest of us sat in gym gear, crammed together on a long wooden bench near the floor – much like everyone’s mind – waiting for the selection process to begin. The game was soccer. One captain looked at the range of soccer skills offered to the seated. A quiet moment passed. And then this particular captain made a particularly strange first choice: me. This is still astonishing today: Objectively, I was not the best footballer in my class, let alone a particularly good footballer. Certainly not good enough to rank first choice. In physical education I was always selected in the middle when the really athletic kids were selected for teams; when the collective pool of skills was largely exhausted and it didn’t matter who was chosen next. On that day I can’t remember whether we won or lost. But in this game I played with an anger that I rarely had to look for, let alone find. I wanted to prove to the captain that I wasn’t a bad choice. This is what I remembered reading Luke 5. A captain was walking down a beach and selecting a team. When Jesus made his first choice, Simon Peter replied that he was not good enough. May we see with the eyes that think we are more than good enough.
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