We are now a week and a half into our Lenten journey through the wilderness. Eleven days into whatever Lenten discipline we’ve taken on. Each day presents us with a choice – do I keep going with this discipline, or do I let it go? Each choice is a step we take, enabled by grace, in the journey toward God, the journey toward love.

Even before we take each step, I think there is a prior choice – and that is, what voice in my head will I listen to?

“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” These are the words we hear as the mark of the cross is made on our foreheads, a mark made with ash, with black dust. It is a sobering statement, and something of a morbid act, if we are honest about it. “You are dust.” This proclamation is about much more than the simple fact that we all will die, though it is most definitely that. It is a statement about the future, and it is also a statement about our present.

One moment, they are top of the mountain, Jesus is transfigured before them, shining in the radiance of God’s presence and assurance.  Moses and Elijah are there, too, though only for a moment.

The next day, they are in the midst of a crowd, confronted by illness and a desperate father seeking healing for his only child.  Jesus responds with a rebuke -- of the crowd, his disciples, and then of the demon.

An ethic of vengeance demands an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.  Do unto others as they have done unto you. The outcome of such an ethic, as the saying goes, leaves the whole world blind and toothless.

The Golden Rule demands we treat others in the way we wish they would treat us.  The King James translation reads, “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you: do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.”

Last week Jeff invited us to risk putting our nets out in deep water, even when it seems like those nets will break. He reminded us that despite the fear and the risk, this is what Jesus calls us to. He reminded us that the nets haven’t broken, and that where and whenever we have gone out into the deep water, whether in this church community or in our personal lives, we have been okay.

God does not call us to play it safe, to stay near the shore.  Quite the opposite. God calls us to risk everything, to go to the deep water. The miracle of the large catch of fish appears in this version in Luke, and another in the Gospel of John.  There are some significant differences between the two versions. In Luke, it happens near the beginning of Jesus’ ministry and involves the calling of Peter, James and John. In John, it occurs after the resurrection.