“Here I am, send me.” I’ll confess that it’s a bit uncomfortable being the person in the pulpit hearing and also saying those particular words. I mean, here I really am! In this somewhat visible location. If God’s about to call on someone, there’s no back row for me to hide in. But—spoiler alert—there’s no back row for you to hide in either, even if you do happen to be sitting as far as possible from the front. As most Episcopalians prefer to do!
We are all called. Just by virtue of showing up today, not to mention by the grace of your baptism or confirmation… you are called. Called to continue the apostles teaching and fellowship, the breaking of the bread and the prayers; called to persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord; called to proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ; called to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself; called to strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being. Those are foundational Christian callings we all affirm at every baptism and confirmation in the Episcopal Church.
And, at this very moment, you are called to listen with the ears of your heart and respond in love to the Word of God. And who knows where that will take you. Certainly I don’t know. It’s a pretty common experience among preachers to hear from our parishioners about sermons that we didn’t actually preach. That is to say, whatever you hear in this sermon today, I trust that it’ll be what God needs you to hear, regardless of whatever I message I think I am preaching. God can be sneaky that way!
Sometimes, however, God can be startlingly direct. I mean, the very pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, according to Isaiah. Even though I have a background in architecture, I had to look that design detail up. Pivot doors are not hung with hinges; they are anchored to the threshold and the sill of the door frame, which has to be exceptionally rigid and strong so as to support the weight and the swing of a heavy door. That is to say, these pivots are not intended to be shakable.
Nevertheless, sometimes even our very best craftsmanship is disturbed when the Lord calls. And sometimes the tools of our trade are stretched to their capacity and beyond, as happened with Peter’s nets in our Gospel reading this morning. Both our Old Testament lesson and our Gospel today are examples of a type of Biblical literature known as a “call narrative.” That is, a story in which God or God’s messenger summons a human being to do God’s work. Once you know that call narratives exist, you’ll discover them all over the Bible: everywhere from Moses’ encounter with the burning bush to Mary’s fateful encounter with the Angel Gabriel who announced Jesus’ birth. And although each of these stories are particular to the character—because calling is always personal—they nevertheless have a pretty recognizable threefold structure.
There’s an initial request from God directed to the prophet or to the disciple, which is often misunderstood, and almost always frightening to them. Then the called one responds with some kind of statement of unworthiness. To which God or God’s messenger responds by amplifying the importance of the call and demonstrating how the called one is indeed worthy. Biblical scholars call that part the solemn commissioning. It sometimes includes a restatement of God’s character or purpose. “I am who I am,” God enigmatically revealed to Moses. “You will be catching people,” Jesus said to Peter.
So take a pause for a moment and remember the readings you just heard, or feel free to take a look at your bulletins. Do you notice both Isaiah and Peter objecting to the call, pleading unworthiness? Notice also that the manifestation of God—what’s sometimes called a theophany—prompts the amazement and fear. It’s over the top. High and lofty, sitting on a throne and surrounded by seraphs. Or in a much more earthy way, providing fish enough to almost break the nets. Glory in abundance, almost too much for Isaiah and Peter to bear. They protest, they even fall to their knees. It seems that only when they know that their sins are actually known and forgiven that they are able to hear and accept the call. When it comes to God, we can’t hide from calling… not even behind the perception of our shortcomings or our sinfulness. If you think you are unworthy, I assure you: God already knows that. And you are called.
Peter’s call from Jesus required him to imagine possibilities far beyond his previous self-awareness as a sinful man and as a fisherman. He knew that there were no fish to be had: he had already been up all night catching nothing, and he was tired and discouraged. And that’s an all-too familiar story these days, no? Especially as we stare down a possible third year with COVID-19. We’re tired, and there’s no reason to think that continuing to do what we’ve always done before will produce different results. That is, not until we hear a clear and loving voice telling us to fish as we’ve always fished, but go deeper. Or perhaps even telling us to leave our familiar nets altogether. I’m curious. What would you need to hear, and from whom, in order to take that kind of risk?
Earlier this week I was talking with some clergy friends about this story, and one of them offered up a story of her own. She confessed that she really didn’t know how to fish, but had gone line fishing at her son’s invitation. And she didn’t catch anything at all, at least not at first. Her patient son observed her technique with compassion and said “Mom. You need to think more like a fish.”
Friends—all of us who have been called in to God’s community as Peter and the other disciples were—let me take this moment to invite you to think like a fish. Or if not like a fish, to think like any of those who may be waiting for our invitation to a life-giving relationship with God and God’s church. Your family, your friends, your neighbors or colleagues… what do they long for? What inspires their awe? What do they need to be known or forgiven for? Isn’t that kind of personal identification with people that God was about in the incarnation of Jesus Christ? Isn’t it what Paul was doing when he preached to the recalcitrant Corinthians? Meeting them just where they were, just as they were, and calling them to be even more.
This much I know: there are people who can only hear God’s call through each of you. Because, as the great Spanish mystic Teresa of Avila taught her disciples—
“Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”
Today we’ll be commissioning a bunch of Trinity leaders who have heard the call. They serve as members of our vestry—that’s our leadership board—and as members of our altar guild and liturgical assistants. These are jobs of joy and risk and the occasional abundance of glory that shakes the our pivots and breaks our nets. More than a few of these leaders resisted the call initially—you know who you are—but here you are. Here we are. Here am I. Wherever we may find ourselves, God needs us. Here we are, God… send us.
