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07.02.2010_English
| 11.02.2010, 02:01 | |
| Rev. Tatiana Cantarella Psalm 138; Isaiah 6:1–8; 1 Corinthians 15:1–11; Luke 5:1–11 I Am Who I Am: Listening to Isaiah, Paul, and Peter We all remember those jokes that went something like that: "Ivan the Terrible, Lenin and Brezhnev met in the after life and were talking…" These are not real conversations but we come up with them to laugh at sharp differences between these persons could have never met because they lived at different epochs. Every Sunday we read different biblical texts which are also trying to be in a conversation with one another. Sometimes it’s not easy because all texts and their authors seem to say different things, like persons in those jokes. But this week the lectionary planets align almost perfectly. Today, as we eavesdrop on Isaiah, Paul and Peter as they compare notes on their experiences of God's call, we hear a singular theme. It's a theme that Saint Augustine once confessed with equal parts passion and eloquence: "Lord, what I am for you terrifies me. What I am with you consoles me. For you, I am a priest. With you, I am a Christian." These three people talking to one another in our texts could not be further apart in their differences. Isaiah was one of God’s great prophets, Paul was a zealous keeper of law and defender of Jewish faith believing it to be his duty before God to put Christians to death and Peter was just a rough fisherman. And yet these incredibly different people share a very similar experience of God’s call. When Isaiah, a prophet of God, had a vision of God in the Jerusalem temple, he was overwhelmed by awe and fear: "Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty" (Isaiah 6:5). Isaiah was one of the most gifted poets in ancient history, a man who spoke God’s words to the people but when the Holy God approaches and speaks to him, he is overwhelmed (and rightly so!) by fear, realizing God’s great power and his own inadequacy, weakness and sin. It is an appropriate reaction for even the Seraphs in the presence of God shield their faces from His awful power and majesty (Is 6:2) and all they can sing are the words of God’s absolute ‘otherness’ (v 3). When the apostle Paul pondered how viciously he had tried to exterminate the early followers of Jesus, painful memories evoked feelings of deep regret: "I am the least of all the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle," he wrote to the Corinthians (15:9). In seven autobiographical flashbacks on his pre-conversion life, Paul describes how he imprisoned many disciples, dragged them to Jerusalem for punishment, expended every effort to force them to blaspheme, favored the death penalty for them, and opposed the name of Jesus with all his might. It is in the midst of that kind of life he met Christ on the way to Damascus and was blinded by God’s light. Just like Isaiah he was struck to the ground by God’s majesty and had all the reason to be afraid of the justice of God. But God didn’t exterminate Paul who fought against Him, instead He transformed His life. What Paul once boasted of as religious orthodoxy he later repudiated as the worst form of self-righteous zealotry. This encounter allowed him to see clearly, to see God and to see himself in God’s light. When the fisherman Peter worked hard all night and caught nothing at all, but then obeyed Jesus’ command to sink his nets into deeper waters, he hauled in a catch of fish that ripped their nets and nearly sunk their boat. First, amazed by what is happening he is calling others to help secure this incredible catch but, then, his eyes meet the eyes of Jesus and he realizes that God Himself is present in the person of Jesus. And although he cannot understand everything that is happening, he all of a sudden realizes how unworthy he is to have God himself in his boat, when he grasped the inverse relationship between the power of God and his paltry faith, he recoiled before Jesus in fear: "Lord, depart from me, for I am a sinful man!" (Luke 5:8). And it’s not that Peter had some special sins to confess that he had unlike us, but being in the presence of the holy God made him realize that he is human and therefore sinful. He realized that the power of Jesus is the power of God himself and his response was the response of awe. You see, Peter believes that God will have nothing to do with him, a common sinner, he feels unworthy of even being near Jesus, and all the more to receive His blessings. Peter believes that God acts only through the righteous ones, uses only the holy ones. But for a sinner to be in the presence of God is an uncomfortable and even a dangerous thing. Can you now imagine with me how Isaiah, Paul and Peter are having a lively conversation about their experience – they have so much in common. They know exactly what the others are talking about – this sense of awe and fear in the presence of the holy God. Can you hear them all sharing their experiences: Isaiah had a vision of God that stroke him, realized his inadequacy and could only say "woe to me…” Paul saw the resurrected Christ and realized that he was not worthy to be called apostle for he persecuted the church. Peter saw God’s miraculous power and grace manifested in Jesus and fell at His feet in deep realization of his sin. But what then? Isaiah confesses his inadequacy and sin before this Holy God but instead of being burned by God’s holiness Isaiah is issued a call to carry out God’s mission. God reaches out and purifies Isaiah with a burning coal – a symbol of God’s justice and compassion and makes him fit for service to this King of majesty. God’s presence transforms Isaiah’s lips marred by sin and allows him to hear God’s voice and to speak God’s words to other sinful people. You see the sense of mission on the part of God’s people flows directly out of an understanding of who God is and of His relation to creation. Isaiah experiences God’s holiness, which causes him to stand in awe but also transforms him, purifies him from sin and invites him not only to go forth but to go as the bearer of God’s word. Еven late in his life Paul still lamented, "I am the worst of sinners". And only the "unlimited patience" of God permitted him to move beyond the inertia and regret that his painful memories caused. He was not worthy of the job but God’s grace made him into a diligent apostle. The encounter with Christ showed him how wrong and unworthy Paul was, but Paul had not only finally believed that Jesus was the Son of God, he was transformed and drawn in to the circle of God’s grace and made a new creature. And he could not but go and spread such Good News among others. Peter who has already seen Jesus performing miracles was astonished, no so much by the power of Jesus, as much by His love with which He touched him. For when Jesus spoke to him He said to him, a simple fisherman, "Do not be afraid for now on you will catch man”. Peter saw that day not just God’s miraculous power active in the Universe but God acting miraculously in his own life. Beauty, power and majesty that God employed at the creation of the world were now calling him, Peter to become a helper. The word translated into English as "catch” literally means "taking alive” but not in a sense of a hostage but in a sense of "saving from death”. It is fish that is caught to be killed and devoured but Jesus speaks of "snatching people out” of the sea of death, so they can live. There on the shore when Peter fell before Jesus he realized that he stands before the One who will never leave him. That moment, there by his boat, he realized how beautiful it is to be "taken alive”, saved from death and become an agent of salvation for others. But now Peter’s instruments will not be boats and nets but the word of God. Perhaps some of you have seen a movie, "The Guardian” about a very self-confident young swimming champ Jake Fisher who is determined to become the best at the elite school of coast guards in Alaska. But as time goes on, his study and live under the leadership of a legendary coast guard Ben Rendall lead him to realize his pride and to humble himself before the forces of nature, much more powerful than himself. This humility and being rescued from his pride allows him to finally become a real guard snatching people out of raging depth of the ocean. He was neither perfect nor able to save everybody who needed his help but having been saved from his self-confidence; he saved many lives that would otherwise be lost. Despite a common misunderstanding among people in the church, God is not waiting for perfect messengers for his message. Because of this, embracing rather than denying our fallenness is the path of liberation and not humiliation. It's an act of candid self-awareness and not self-hatred. By it we move from illusion and self-justification to reality and self-acceptance. In our most honest moments of self-awareness we can still offer ourselves to God like Isaiah, "Here am I, send me." Without hedging our bets or adding contingency clauses we can imitate Peter, James, John, and their companions who "pulled their boats up on shore, left everything, and followed Jesus." We can rejoice with Paul, that "by the grace of God I am what I am." Most important of all, to Isaiah's dread, Paul's deep regrets and painful memories, Peter's fears, and to our own deeply personal insecurities today, God whispers to us what Jesus said to Peter: "Don't be afraid" (Luke 5:10). God in His grace does not only save us, but desires to take us and make us fishers of man. How many times have we heard the Scriptural call to not only receive salvation but to serve God being a part of His ministry of salvation in this world? Yet most of the time we are like Tevye, a father of the Jewish family, from "Fiddler on the Roof” who in one of his usual out loud conversations with God says to Him: "I know. I know. We are your chosen people. But, once in awhile, can't you choose someone else?" We say that because we feel inadequate to be used of God, we are glad to be saved but we wish that this "saving business” will be taken care by those whom we deem worthier of the task. If that’s how you feel, think again about the upshot of these three stories: human sin, failure, and inadequacy were not obstacles to God's call. It is when Isaiah realizes his inadequacy before God, God purifies him and calls him to be his prophet and says: "who will speak to the world on my behalf? Whom shall I send? Who will go for us? Who will speak my word and teach people, who will go to console the suffering? Who will proclaim my righteousness and my desire to save the people I’ve created?” God also calls out to you and us to be ready to become by his grace the "catchers”, the "rescuers” of man, to become men and women, young and old and even children who will not want to sit still but will want to act for God and to speak about Him, to speak about what He has done and continues to do in their life. You see it’s so important what we talk about and who we keep to ourselves, because based on what people talk about most of the time we can judge what is most important for them: sport, family, TV programs or weather, growing prices, crime or who fell in love with whom and who mistreated whom. This list can differ but in any case, almost everything that takes the biggest part of our conversations is far from that which helps others to know God and His love. We are called to be the people who desire to talk about the holy with the same enthusiasm (or even more) with which they talk about sports and weather, to be the people who desire to deepen their knowledge of their faith with the same passion with which they deepen the knowledge of some TV show plot development, who would desire to see the salvation of their loved ones as much as they would desire their rescue from the raging sea during a ship wreck. Most of us gladly join Paul in his proclamation of faith in Jesus Christ who died for our sins, was buried and raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, but how many of us join Paul eagerly, saying "I am unworthy to be called an Apostle, but by the grace of God I am who I am and this grace will not be in vain for by this grace I will work diligently. I work hard so that others people will also know what Christ has done for their sake and would be saved.” Who will join Peter today and will leave their past where it belongs and entrust their future into God’s hands, accepting His call to be His helpers in saving people from the depths of the sea of sin? What will be our response today as we stand in the presence mighty God calling out to His people, "whom shall I send? Who will go for us?”…"Who will go for Me?” says the Lord, "to speak My words, to bring my hope, to reveal My love, to direct people on My ways, to catch and save people as they slip into eternity not knowing Me… who will go for Me?” | |
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