
Lutheran Church of the Palms
Sunday, February 9, 2025
Fifth Sunday after Epiphany
Introduction
The fifth Sunday after Epiphany continues to highlight unlikely instruments and circumstances appointed to reveal God’s glory. “Who will go for us?” God asks. A person of unclean lips, a former persecutor of the church of God, and three fishermen who couldn’t catch a thing. More surprising still, perhaps, is that we are also called.
Scripture Readings
-
Isaiah 6:1-8 [9-13]
Isaiah says, Here am I; send me
-
Psalm 138
I will bow down toward your holy temple. (Ps. 138:2)
-
1 Corinthians 15:1-11
I am the least of the apostles
-
Luke 5:1-11
Jesus calls the disciples to fish for people
Hymns:
413 Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty
574 Here I Am Lord
414 Holy God, We Praise Your Name
Anthem:
Nets of Love
Communion Hymns:
491 Come Let Us Eat
471 Let Us Break Bread Together
Commentary
God’s Imperfect People
“Go in peace, share the good news.” Week after week Christians gather together, hear the word proclaimed, share a meal, and are sent out to bear the good news of God in Christ Jesus to a hungry, needy world. Inside though, we wonder why God has entrusted such an important mission to people like us.
God’s prophets and apostles carried the same anxieties. Isaiah declares, “I am a man of unclean lips.” Paul asserts, “I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.” Peter responds to Jesus’ miracle of plenty by saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” Yet, without question, God used these flawed and fragile human beings to proclaim God’s mercy and love.
In a world where we are constantly being told that we are insufficient—that we do not have enough, know enough, or matter enough—God’s trust in our capacities seems imprudent, even irrational. But notice, Jesus precedes a call to discipleship with a miracle pointing to God’s abundant provision, signaling that we will be given all we need.
Martin Luther writes in The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, “What I accept, I accept not on my own merits or by any right that I may personally have to it. I know that I am receiving more than a worthless one like me deserves; indeed, I have deserved the very opposite. But I claim what I claim by the right of a bequest and of another’s goodness” (Martin Luther’s Basic Theological Writings, ed. Timothy Lull [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989], p. 302).
Jesus meets us at the shorelines of our own lives, going about our daily work, and calls us to lifelong discipleship. Caught up in God’s abundant grace, and fed out of that bounty, we are commissioned to go catch others.
Prayer for Epiphany
God of surprises and gifts, you revealed yourself as a newborn baby and, with a star, you led the peoples of earth to worship Jesus, your only Son: lead us to see you face-to-face, and help us to discover our gifts and talents so that we may offer them up to you and your service. Let us be Jesus’s light in the world today.
O God Among Us, may we be visited by angels, may we follow stars and embrace the journey and travel in love. May Christ bless our homes and find a home in our hearts throughout the year.
Jesus, you revealed yourself to the world so that all people might look to you and be saved: may we know the wholeness that you bring. Guide us by your true light through the dark that we may not stumble, and lift us up again if we fall.
O God of steadfast love, at the wedding in Cana, your Son Jesus turned water into wine, delighting all who were there: Transform our hearts by your Spirit, that we may use our gifts to show forth the light of your love as one body in Christ. Amen.