Catch
Isaiah 6:1-8; Luke 5:1-11
February 7, 2010
You may have thought we were about to go on a fishing trip, an ice fishing excursion for that matter, but the trip begins in the jargon of my university days with a trip, a psychedelic vision few of the Timothy Learys of that bygone era would have been capable of experiencing. Isaiah, without warning, in the year King Uzziah died, saw God. The same thing happened in a less spectacular way on the shore of the Sea of Galilee perhaps 800 years later.
Isaiah describes the overwhelming experience of being in the presence of God. He did not earn the right to be there, he was just there, and what he struggles with mere words to communicate is the scale of what he sees. God is very big. So big that to say he is humbled is nothing he has to think about or consider, for there is no denying that as an ordinary human being he barely counts in the scheme of this incredible scene. The only thing he can think of is worship.
That’s what this passage is noted for. The hymn, “Holy, Holy, Holy,” picks up its refrain from the singing of the seraphim around the Lord. Isaiah, overwhelmed by what he sees, cries out in despair, not joy, that he is a man of unclean lips living in the midst of a people of unclean lips. That sounds pretty dire, awfully pessimistic about the status and potential of the human race, but when you are face to face with the living God, it all becomes so obvious how imperfect we are. Of course, Isaiah reflects the common notion in ancient times that if a human being came into the presence of the divinity, he or she would immediately die, not able to withstand the infinite gap between the two. Isaiah didn’t die, and we have become rather casual about divine-human encounters. They are nice, but not mortally dangerous anymore.
By the Sea of Galilee, Jesus is still recruiting disciples. Take note that the Gospel records how Jesus recruited these disciples, they didn’t just appear at his side. There was no civil service exam, no examining of the candidates’ university transcripts or even an intensive interview of Simon. There appears to be almost a random selection of people; they just happened to be there. They certainly were not the sharpest tacks and the rest of the Gospels details excruciatingly their stubborn thick-headedness. They were humble ordinary people who got into the most trouble when they tried to be important and powerful, wondering where they would be sitting with Jesus in the kingdom of heaven. They have nothing over you and me, indeed, you and I might be smarter and more sophisticated than they were and for many of us that is our downfall.
Simon Peter has already met Jesus in Capernaum when he came to Simon’s house and healed his mother-in-law of a high fever. But now this itinerant preacher and teacher had commandeered one of his boats to sit in and speak from off shore to a sizeable group of people who were crowding uncomfortably about him. Simon must have cast a wary eye on all this. Even more his wariness was raised when Jesus naively suggested he and his group go back out to catch some fish. Fishers usually did this at night and apparently nothing had worked for them, but to oblige Jesus, perhaps a payback for the healing of his mother-in-law, he went out again. The fish were there. Overwhelming their nets and sinking their boats, an unbelievable experience, though it is one many people have tried to explain logically and according to nature. So it may well have been natural, but for Simon Peter it said something much bigger than nature. This was the very presence of the living God in this person Jesus. “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord,” he gasped on his knees before Jesus. Simon knew that Jesus was God - when you said Lord it was the same name for God - and so it would be safer for him if Jesus left. Simon was afraid now that he would disintegrate in the presence of the deity. Fish instead of angels drove him to a holy despair few of us have ever experienced.
It was a big fish story, but Jesus calmed him down and told him a bigger one, although I doubt Simon Peter, along with James and John, sons of Zebedee, quite got the point. “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” No other words were uttered, just bringing their boats into shore and leaving them there, and simply following Jesus. Isn’t that the way we have all done it? Just drop all we have been doing and follow Jesus?
Sometimes we have done just that, but as a rare, impulsive and risky movement. Most things work against us dropping everything, not the least being most advice about being organized, knowing what you are doing, acquiring the proper education. You see, becoming a follower of Jesus, a Christian, is not normal. In a well-ordered life Christianity doesn’t sit comfortably, though we try to make it fit.
We try to make Christianity a normal part of our daily routine so that we can conform to what others are doing, but being Christian is just plain different and it’s odd. It’s odd to get up on Sunday morning when others are sleeping or playing hockey to come to a central location with other odd fellows and worship. Worship means that you are recognizing that there is something much greater than you. Usually we don’t see technicolour visions like Isaiah singing our hymns and the pews aren’t jumping with fish, but worshiping today involves the same attitude. Then there are the issues of justice, of forgiveness, of generosity and loving one’s enemy that is either not politically correct or perceived as subversive activity or just weird and idiotic. Few people choose to be Christians, and frankly I wonder about the motives of those who believe they are choosing Christianity.
We really don’t choose this faith, it chooses you. It catches you and you are caught, usually against your will. The story here about how Jesus calls his first disciples is a parable, for these are not extraordinary people, they are all too un-extraordinary and they prove it frequently. As extraordinary as we may be in this particular place and congregation, we are at best like Isaiah and Simon Peter, simply caught with no options but to follow. You are caught by someone who can show you things and people you would not otherwise see in a normal life. You are caught by someone who will throw you into the midst of extraordinary events, armed only with love and compassion and an openness to see the presence of God where no one else is looking or wants to look.
Do you think you are here organizing our religious life, making it exemplary and part of normal life? If so, that proves you are disciples! We are here sharing our caught-ness and as we worship and recognize our human ordinariness, let us rejoice in the extraordinary possibilities for new life that God is dragging us into. We may scream in protest, or as God’s children may we say at once, Amen!
Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan