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Isaiah 6:1-8
The great Reformation theologian, Martin Luther, once in a moment of despair commented on humanity: "The problem with most of us is that we have lost the ability to shudder. We have lost the ability to feel awe, to recognize mystery, and to fall prostrate at the feet of the holy."1 Luther was as right for our time as he was for his over 400 years ago. Spectacular sunsets, a baby's smile, a flower's delicate beauty, the grandeur of a night sky, the ocean's thunderous roar - all are so easy to miss, when we're too busy working late at the office, or trapped on the phone, or glued to the computer, or mesmerized by mindless entertainment on prime time TV. Too often we're oblivious, blind to the wonders of the world, numb to the nuances of nature. Rarely do we shudder or feel awe. Not so Isaiah. Today as we hear about him in the temple, he shudders, he's in awe of what he's experiencing. I suspect we would have reacted similarly. This polished professional priest has a vision of the holy, and it blows his mind. There in regal splendor is the Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty! - with weird winged creatures flying around in the air. Isaiah is awestruck at the mysterious majesty of God, and he babbles a bewildered, bumbling response, reflecting his feelings of guilt, unworthiness, and a total sense of inadequacy and imperfection when faced with the awesome holiness of God. Of course he knows that no one who sees God up close and personal is supposed to survive the encounter, and this reinforces his feelings of hopelessness. "Woe is me! I am lost, for I'm a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips." His confession includes his personal sinfulness as well as the sinfulness of his people. He senses his smallness in comparison with God's greatness, but his diminishing ego leads to an expansion of his soul. After receiving absolution and forgiveness through the burning coal on his lips - aren't you glad we just use simple Words of Assurance after our Confession? - Isaiah hears God's call, and responds, "Here am I; send me!" quoted in today's concluding hymn. Brash, brawny Simon Peter has a similar encounter out on Lake Gennesaret, more commonly known as the Sea of Galilee. We don't have time to retell the whole story, but we pick it up when Jesus has finished speaking to a large crowd on the shore, while perched on the bow of Simon's boat. "Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch," he says. Simon responds: "Master, we couldn't catch a thing all night long; but if you say so, okay." One of the miracles of the story is that Simon Peter, who had probably fished this body of water all his life, was swayed by this itinerant preacher - perhaps a reflection of Jesus' charisma, the reputation he already had, and the authority he exuded. We know what happens next - probably the biggest catch of Simon Peter's career, so much that the fishing nets are bursting, so much that Simon and his crew have to call for help, so much that it fills two boatloads with fish. It is now that Simon, like Isaiah before him, realizes his own inadequacy, his own unworthiness, his own sinfulness, especially compared to what must be some kind of divine power shown by Jesus in the unbelievable two boatloads of fish. He kneels down amid his wriggling catch and pleads, "Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!" Doesn't this sound like Isaiah? And after his confession comes, not a seraph with a burning coal, but, I envision, a smiling Jesus with a word of encouragement. "Don't you fear, Simon. Today you've caught fish, but tomorrow you'll be catching people." And Simon and the others go back to shore, leave everything, including this huge catch of fish, and follow the Lord Jesus. There are many lessons that can be gleaned from the stories of Isaiah's and Peter's call, but for today I want to focus on just three. First lesson is that at God's initiative, the Word of God usually comes to us where we are, in the ordinary events and places of our lives. God takes the first step toward us - in other words, we don't have to do anything ourselves ahead of time - and this usually occurs in everyday settings. Think of some others mentioned in the Bible. Moses encounters God while he's tending his father-in-law's sheep. David is also doing his job, tending sheep. Gideon is harvesting wheat. Paul encounters the living Christ as he's traveling to Damascus, doing his job persecuting Christians! Likewise, Isaiah is visiting a house of worship, perhaps fulfilling his priestly duties; Simon is doing his job, fishing. All are engaged in ordinary pursuits, and God comes to them where they are. So too for us. God always takes the first step towards us. If we say we are seeking God, we can be assured that God already had planted this desire within us. And God usually comes to us, like Isaiah and Simon, in the ordinary moments of our lives. We may expect to encounter God at special times, like when we gather for worship, or in "mountaintop experiences," and for sure, sometimes we do; but if we don't also expect to meet God in the everyday routine of our lives, we may overlook the divine in the busyness of all that we do.2 And by the way, God meets us and calls us in little ways as well as big life-changing vocational ways. The calling to help a neighbor in need, to be a supportive spouse, a caring friend, a responsible worker in the church - all are callings from God. So, lesson one, at God's initiative, God usually comes to us in the ordinary events and places of our lives. Lesson two, the Christian way of life will make much more sense if we understand our own shortcomings. Not that we can fully eliminate our shortcomings - probably quite impossible - but understand them, and if we can, accept them. The Apostle Paul was finally able to say, "By the grace of God I am what I am." What we're talking about here is sin, a subject that most of us don't care to discuss. Our culture teaches us to be dishonest when it comes to sin. We describe our human condition through therapeutic categories - I'm sick rather than sinful; or sin as an educational problem - I'm a racist because I don't have adequate understanding of other cultures; or sin as an expression of human anxiety - I'm a frail and vulnerable creature who sometimes responds in inappropriate ways.3 There's some truth in all of this, but none gets to the heart of the specifically Christian view of sin, which is really a by-product of our being confronted by God. Put another way, when we say "sin" we're not talking about our natural anxieties about the limits of being human, nor about occasional foibles and slipups. Oh sure, this is part of it, but only a small part. What we are saying is that face-to-face with the awesome righteousness of God, the total holiness of Jesus, we know we're not in the same league. When we understand that we are not in as close a relationship with God as we know God wants from us, when we feel separated or alienated from God, when we understand that our own self-centeredness has sort of eliminated God from our lives, when we understand that we fall short of the mark and cannot save ourselves from the human dilemma, then we are ready to be used by God - in spite of our sinfulness. Isaiah says, "Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips." So God says in effect, "Okay now that you understand who you are, we have some important things to do." Simon Peter says, "Get away from me, Jesus, I'm not worthy to be in the same boat as you." And Jesus says in effect, "Fine, if you didn't recognize this about yourself, you'd be no good to anyone; now we are ready to get to work. Let's put out into the really deep waters, for the challenges of life and the real rewards are out there; that's where abundance abides, not in the shallow waters of the little sins and petty happenings."4 So, lesson two, we need to understand our own shortcomings. And lesson three, belief must be transformed into a lived out faith. To believe is relatively easy. It's giving intellectual assent to propositions, principles, or ideas. It's the crowd standing on the seashore, nodding their heads as they listen to Jesus speak. "Right on; you've got some great ideas. I believe in you." But faith only begins when the intellectual assent is transformed into a changed life. Peter and his buddies may have agreed with everything that Jesus said that day, but only when they put their nets aside and followed him did their faith begin. Faith is not knowing what lies ahead, but moving forward anyway. It's responding to what we hope is the Lord's leading, though we don't know exactly where we're going. The stumbling block of faith is obedience. "It's hard to be faithful, because it is so hard to obey."5 Choosing faith means obediently, personally responding when we hear the words "follow me." It doesn't mean trying to get rid of our shortcomings first; rather, it means bringing them along on the journey, and working to make them better on the way. Faith is not something attained once and for all, a specific moment that lasts a lifetime; it's a relationship with God in Christ that requires constant striving, constant following, constant loyalty, constant loving. We're tempted to say, "But I can't be that constant." Well of course we can't; nobody can. Peter couldn't. But he still followed ... and faltered ... and followed ... and faltered ... and followed, like the rest of us. When we think of following the call of God, living the faithful life, we often take the "leaving everything" part literally - "they left everything and followed him." We think we're being asked to give up our possessions, or our relationships, or our careers, like Simon Peter, and also to a certain extent like Isaiah in his later life. But sometimes we are called to stay put, to let go of all the stuff that holds us down, and to rethink and reshape our energies right where we are. This may mean giving up values, priorities, or commitments that are contrary to those of Jesus. So, there we have it - the three lessons for today: (1) that at God's initiative, God usually comes to us in ordinary times and places; (2) that we need to understand our shortcomings, our sins; and (3) that belief is transformed into a living faith when we obediently follow the call of God. There's lots of symbolism in today's readings, especially in our Gospel story. The sea, in scripture, is always a symbol of God's deep and vast mystery, an ocean of grace where abundance abides. The boat is an ancient symbol of the church, navigating the sea of grace as it moves toward the shores of the promised land. Simon Peter symbolizes all of us - disciples through the ages struggling to respond to Jesus' call. The story ends, for Simon and for us, with a response, a response of trust, risk, and hope.6 It ends with a willingness to surrender to the holy, to change for the better, and to have the courage to say, "Here I am, Lord ... send me." Amen. The Pilgrim Church of Duxbury
1 Martin Luther, quoted in Susan R. Andrews, "Egg Salad Spirituality," Lectionary Homiletics, Vol.
XII, No. 3, 2/4/01, p. 7.
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