Year C
Luke 5:1-11
The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn
God Calls the Unworthy
An Episcopal priest parked his car in a no-parking zone in a large city because he was short of time and couldn’t find a space with a meter. Then he put a note under the windshield wiper that read: Look, I have circled the block ten times. If I don’t park here, I’ll miss my appointment. Forgive us our trespasses. When he returned, he found a citation from a police officer along with this note: I’ve circled this block for ten years. If I don’t give you a ticket I’ll lose my job. Lead us not into temptation. Each of the two professionals, while working within the laws, their limits, they acknowledge the ultimate source of law and grace, God, who encounters us not to give us tickets, but to offer forgiveness, to transform and call us.
This is the good news we celebrate during this season of Epiphany, that despite our limits, God calls us flawed human beings to show God’s power and presence throughout the earth. Scripture is pretty clear, that regardless of our limits and sin, we are called to go and to speak. Those called in today’s texts are aware of their limits, yet they respond with passion, and spend their lives participating in extending the kingdom of God. We go out into the world because the message we bring, despite our inadequacies, is not our own. Rather, it is the message of the God who is holy and glorious; the God who comes into our world in Jesus Christ; the God who dies, and rises, and teaches us to fish. And this news of God is for the world.
Yet, in order for it to be shared, this news needs messengers. Messengers can include visionaries, like Isaiah, ordinary workers like the disciples, artists like the psalmist, and even reformed sinners like Paul. Messengers like you and me. Yet, there aren’t many of us who aspire to be prophets. Perhaps that is because we don’t think we have the courage, or faith, perhaps it is because we feel unworthy. Isaiah felt unworthy. He didn’t understand why God might be calling him. I am pretty certain he worried whether he had the courage, stamina and faith to become a prophet.
His experience of the presence and power of God in the Temple gave him a profound sense of awe of the majesty and power of God. And the angels burning coal brings him the knowledge that he is worthy to serve God. He is forgiven, emboldened, and given a word to deliver to God’s people. His mission is to speak to a people who will not even listen to his words. The overwhelming vision he has brings with it the knowledge that his people will be all but destroyed, and that he is perhaps the only one who will understand what God is doing. Yet, his response to the request of the Lord was “Here am I. Send me!”
Peter’s response to his call, in the gospel text today from Luke, is very similar to Isaiah’s, though the setting could hardly be more different. The scene is set at the Lake of Gennesaret, a name for the Sea of Galilee. Jesus, standing by the sea with a crowd pressing in around him, saw two boats of fishermen. He decides to get into the boat owned by Simon Peter. He asks him to put the boat out into the lake, and then he begins teaching a crowd on the shore. When he was finished, he directs Simon to proceed to deep water and cast out the fishing nets. As we heard, many fish were caught. Peter’s first reaction much like Isaiah’s, is to know that he is in the presence of something that he is wholly unprepared for.
He is immediately struck by his unworthiness. He says, “I am a sinful man!” Yet, Jesus gives Peter the confidence he needs by the fact that he is asked to do something. He is not to fear, Jesus tells him because there is important work ahead. From now on he will “be catching people.” Likewise, James and John, sons of Zebedee, Peter’s partners are reported to be amazed. They return to shore, leave everything, and follow. They see God, and are grateful to be allowed to be involved in God’s work. Following Jesus and doing his work will mean a complete life change but they accept the task that God gives them.
By the time Paul wrote to the Corinthians, Paul had already become “by the grace of God” a powerful proclaimer of the gospel among the Gentiles. But, just like Peter and Isaiah, Paul knows that he has not been given God’s work to do because he is the best person for the job. His encounter with the risen Christ produced in him a continuing awareness that he was “unfit to be called an apostle.” It seems that knowing you can’t do it is high on God’s checklist for applicants. These are the very people God chooses as all three of our heroes today demonstrate. They know they have little to offer, and they accept the task that God gives them.
Although Christians officially agree that evangelism is part of the Christian faith, there is a lot of hesitancy about doing it among American Christians. According to a 2019 Barna poll, almost half of the millennial generation, those born between1981-1996, 47% of them feel it is a problematic practice. Among Gen Xers born between 1965-1980, 27% of them have a problem with this, while 19% of boomers born between 1954-1964 and 20% of pre-boomers are hesitant about doing evangelism. And it is still difficult to this day for many people to think of themselves as ones who are sent to share God’s good news with others. They feel they do not have what they need to speak of God and their faith. They are very happy to leave this to the clergy or those few laity on the evangelism and outreach committee.
Yet, the texts witness to God’s call to all sorts of people to be messengers. The problem may be that many of us do not know what this looks like in our own context. We may have images in our minds of door-to-door visitations, but can’t imagine what we would say. Being “fishers of people,” does not mean we go out into the world with all the answers because we don’t have all the answers, or that we have the perfect message to deliver. If we think that way, it is certain we will fall short. What we do have is what we know to be true in our own lives. How has the love of God been experienced in your life? We tell others our testimony to what God has done in our lives, despite our inadequacy and unworthiness. Our mission is to share the news that we have already inherited by our baptism, God’s steadfast love and faithfulness. No one is worthy. I certainly am not. I encounter that knowing every day.
Martin Luther said Christians called to go out into the world should think of themselves “as beggars telling other beggars where to find bread.” Story after story in the scriptures we hear of inadequate persons, just like you and me, whom God called and used. Through the story of the visionary, Isaiah, the former persecutor, Paul, and the fishermen, we see all types of people dropping their nets to become God’s messengers. God calls and equips us imperfect, finite human beings to go out and announce God’s abundant love for everyone. There is an urgent need to bring to the world this glorious and sometimes difficult message from God. The question is: are we willing to go despite our inadequacies and are we committed to speaking not because we have the qualifications or all the answers, but out of “the grace of God that is with us”. “I’m here, send me!