5th Sunday after Epiphany, 2/9/2025

Text: Isaiah 6, 1 Corinthians 15, Luke 5:1-11

Grace, Peace and Mercy from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

This Sunday’s readings center around the calling of God. Jesus calls His first disciples while they are out there catching no fish, and then calls them to catch people instead. Paul talks about his own ministerial calling and efforts to preach the Gospel of the resurrection of Christ from the dead, in alignment with all the first disciples who were witnesses of Jesus. In Isaiah, God calls the eager young prophet, and the seraph places a burning coal on his lips in preparation for his difficult prophetic message to a wayward Israel. When God calls, it is not based on worthiness or merit. If you notice, none of these people had a clean curriculum vitae that made them ideal disciples. Fishermen who can’t catch any fish, a former persecutor of the church, not even one of the first witnesses, turned it’s most energetic proponent and expanding the limits of the church’s belonging and preaching; and then a young Isaiah, who even though he felt his unworthiness before God’s presence, responds bravely to God’s call: “Whom shall I send?” “Send me!”. To preach God’s Kingdom, unlike how we run our worldly affairs, depending on merit and achievement, God sees the heart, he has a different criteria. First, it’s not about you or your capacity. It’s about His will. Looking at all with love, God sees beyond the world’s stigma, and sees the human heart in their humility, their compassion, their willingness, and yes their redeemed brokenness. Meaning, yes, these called people are flawed, but they are in the process of being transformed. As you see them, God is building up the capacity to love in the hearts of all people, for that is the ultimate purpose of His Kingdom. Meritocracy is an obsession of human beings. For God, it is about grace. It is the capacity of a humanity redeemed by God’s grace in Christ. You don’t need to be the most capable, the smartest, or the strongest to belong to God’s Kingdom. We all have our gifts which God will use. But to build up the Kingdom, it is an open and humble heart built up by God’s love that is required.

It is to respond and commit oneself to that voice that speaks mercy and justice. So beloved, if you are here in church you are called to something, just as you are. You have a purpose rooted in the love of Christ. Every one of you will have a task for the Kingdom, now one task is mutually shared. Every one of you is an evangelist, meaning you are all called to preach the Gospel with your lives, that people see you and they can glimpse Christ through your own unique self. Notice, how God comes to the people in wherever place they are and instructs them, time to catch people for the Kingdom!

Now, a little note about that word in the Gospel, “catch”. In the Greek, the word connotes to catch or preserve alive. Jesus calls the disciples to catch people for life, not for death. God’s Kingdom is for the well being and life of human beings. So as evangelists, you are called to catch people so they might live! So the world and it’s powers of destruction, it’s oppression of the vulnerable, its hard heartedness, may not consume them. You are to preach, because human beings need to hear the good word! That they are loved into being, that it is mercy and justice and belonging that God seeks, not power and control. And thus, this is the reason why the call of God is always this life-turning and passionate affair. Once you have this word in your hearts, it can’t keep to itself, like the burning coal, it’s heat will open our mouths to preach the Word of God, it cannot be contained, it needs release. And because it is a burning Word, do not expect the world to hear this word and think how nice. The world needs this word, but it will resist it. It will burn the heart with its demand. Like Isaiah, we shall speak God’s desires and the world will not listen, because God’s word is in conflict with our sin. It is in conflict with our comfort with injustice. It is in conflict with our acquiescence of the oppressors and their evil policies. The church cannot put a veil on its eyes and claim it does not see and hear the cry of the poor and the rupture of community. It needs to respond to God’s call to speak the burning and passionately just and merciful Word of God. No greater task than this. Perhaps that is why no curriculum vitae is needed, because God needs every one of us broken people, to participate in the world’s reparation through God’s love in Christ. So beloved, warm yourselves with passion for the Gospel, with passion for God’s Kingdom of love and mercy, for that is the seed from which Heaven might be glimpsed in our midst. Let us pray that this Word might lead us into greater things in the name of Jesus Christ as we follow Him from where ever he calls us. Amen.