Isaiah 6:1-13 Luke 5:1-11
Good morning! What glorious readings we’ve had today. The call of Isaiah and the call of Simon Peter along with James and John the sons of Zebedee.
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple.
Today’s first reading begins with a vision – Isaiah’s vision as he beholds the Lord enthroned in the temple. Imagine waking up to that. The description is worthy of staging that might have been concocted by a Hollywood director. Seraphs were in attendance above God; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. And one called to another and said: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory." The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke.
Images such as these are often used in the Bible to describe an appearance of God. Our God makes a grand entrance. And we’ve heard stories like this before. In Exodus, we have God appearing as fire and tempest. Unfortunately, hearing about these visions and seeing them in person are two very different things. Think about it. If we were to see them, they would certainly strike terror in our hearts. Cringing seems like an appropriate reaction, and while Isaiah must indeed have been terrified, his response, though one of fear, is not fear expressed as we might have expected.
And Isaiah said: "Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!"
The profane, the unclean (that’s us), has come face to face with the Divine, and it has put into focus the difference between life as we know and live it, and life as God wants us to live it. It shows Isaiah, and us, how uncleanliness looks when faced with purity, what imperfection looks like when faced with perfection. Isaiah’s fear comes, not in reaction to the spectacular effects which come with a manifestation of God, but from the realization of his true state as a sinner.
Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: "Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out."
God cleanses and forgives the human He is calling to be His prophet – and the Lord asks, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" [And Isaiah says,], "Here am I; send me!" Notice it is “here am I”, not “I Am”, for the latter is the Name of God.
Our reding does not tell us what went through Isiah’s mind as he spoke those words of surrender to God’s will. He must have known that the life of a prophet would not be easy, and God immediately confirms He is sending Isaih to a people who will not see and do not hear. And when the new prophet asks, “How long Lord?” - God responds, “Until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without people, and the land is utterly desolate. There is joy in surrender to God’s will, but that doesn’t mean the work will be easy.
Once while Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets.
The fishermen are not having a good day – otherwise they wouldn’t be on the shore washing out their nets and probably preparing to mend them. These are men who have no control at all over their livelihood. A bad day out and they suffer, because when there is no haul of fish, there’s nothing to sell at market.
Jesus calls across to one of the fishermen, called Simon, and asks permission to go aboard and use the boat for a podium. The Big Fisherman agrees. We can imagine him grumbling that the work is being interrupted. The nets have to be cleaned and coiled and the partners given time to rest before night arrives again. Nevertheless, Simon consents. The teacher sits down and teaches.
Then the Teacher, the Rabbi, gets to meddling. He orders fishermen who know their trade, to throw their newly scoured nets into the lake. One expects a rabbi to offer advice on living virtuous lives. What on earth would a carpenter's son turned preacher know about professional fishing?
Simon and his companions were faced with a choice. Did they refuse, politely, or do as they were asked? If they did as they were asked, they would certainly face the ridicule of all who came to know of the incident, a ridicule they would probably share with the Rabbi. Goodness knows what Zebedee would say to them when he heard the story!
Simon, James, and John decided to obey the Rabbi. Simon wanted the order confirmed though. "If you say so, we will let down the nets." They pushed their boats out and threw out the nets. Pretty soon the nets were so full there was a danger they would break. We can imagine them struggling to bring the nets on board and then to get them to shore. At least they had enough customers to buy the fish in the warmth of the day before the catch became spoiled.
Simon fell on his knees when he saw their catch. Why? First Century Jews didn't kneel to worship. Not only that, worship was something due to God and there's no hint that Simon, at this stage, had any awareness that Jesus was any more than a "Master", a Religious Teacher, a Rabbi. Perhaps Simon was so agitated by the phenomenon, and perhaps very embarrassed that he may have misjudged the young teacher, that his legs gave way under him? We just don’t know.
And equally amazing, along with his actions is what Simon says to Jesus, "Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!"
Like Isaiah, Simon, who will become Peter, has come face to face with God. Thrown into contrast is the life and person of a simple fisherman, filled with all the daily good and evil we all experience, and the life and Person of all that is pure and holy.
In today’s readings, Simon, the strong and sturdy fisherman, is simply wrapped up in what needs to be done. Isaiah, the daydreamer and poet, was preoccupied in a world of his own. It took something extraordinary to catch their attention, something that would call them to become truly holy people, something so unexpected it would change their lives forever.
We listen to these stories and wonder how they could possibly relate to us, we who have never experienced a theophany, which is the visible manifestation of God. If we define an encounter with God as the walls shaking and angels flying around us, then by no means have we experienced His Presence. But coming face to face with Him is something we do every day.
In today’s lessons the very first response of both Isaiah and Simon is to see themselves as they truly are, see their world as it measures up to true holiness. They both acknowledge their sinful natures and their unworthiness. It takes only a moment, and the lessons do not dwell on these admissions of guilt and sin, but move quickly on to God’s response.
One reason we don’t come face to face with Jesus in our every day lives is because we get caught up in our present and our past. We look back on our lives, wrap ourselves in our history, and dwell on memories both good and evil. We spend so much time being who we think we are, we don’t have the time or energy to be who God calls us to be. In the moment after Isaiah and Simon confess their unworthiness, they are forgiven – and their past falls away.
Freed from what holds him back, Isaiah opens himself to God. Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I; send me!"
Simon has always been a fisherman, but freed from his past, when Jesus [says to him], "Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people", he left everything and followed Jesus.
To answer God’s call is to leave everything we know, as we know it, behind. This does not mean we walk out of our lives, most of us can’t do that, but it does mean that our lives will be profoundly and forever changed. This change is what we are called to accept, the commitment we ae called to make – to tell our Lord we are willing to let go and do His will and His work as He sends it to us.
Do we then get to meet Him? This is the exciting part, because Jesus is in each and every person we meet. Mother Teresa, and many holy people, have found Him particularly in the poor, but He can be seen in every single individual who enters our lives – if we are looking for Him. We need only treat each person we meet as if they were Christ. Then we will recognize that He is here, right now, this day.
This is how we answer Jesus call. He asked Simon to walk away from the nets, to stop bringing fish to their death, and start bringing people to Life. What makes it so difficult for us to be holy people, is that we must first see that we are not, then walk away from what we thought we knew and embrace the Truth. And the truth is, we come face to face with our Lord every day, and pass Him by without acknowledging His Presence.
“True holiness consists in doing God’s work with a smile”. It sounds so simple. The problem is that simple and easy are rarely if ever the same thing. For us, who live our complicated lives in this complicated world, the simplest things can often be the most difficult to accomplish.
Still, we can begin our journey to holiness with a smile. We can smile at the beggar, the stranger we meet, the family member who has upset us, a genuine smile filled with love. We can smile at our foolishness and our pride, smile at our stubbornness and willfulness, and laugh as we put these things aside, opening our hearts to the joy of surrendering to true holiness in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Let us pray:
Holy Spirit, search and know us. Reveal to us our sins, our sinful ways, and our attachments to things of this world. Shine your light in our hearts – lead us to repentance – and fill us with Your grace, that with a smile we may live the lives Jesus is calling us to live. We ask in His Name. Amen.
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