February 4, 2007

Denise Kelsall

Epiphany 5     Isaiah 6: 1-9     Luke 5: 1-11

When I was much younger – no more than a child, I wanted to be a missionary. My heroine was Gladys Aylward, and I repeatedly devoured a book about her and dreamt that I could be, like her, bravely striding out in China or maybe even Africa doing God's work and telling people about Jesus. Looking back, as a child of that age the idea was so full of romance and innocent faith – a lethal combination.

Stories of missionaries were still prominent and utterly laudable then. This was the 1950's and a time when most people attended the obligatory church service on a Sunday, or if not, usually sent their children off to Sunday School to learn great little action hymns like “I'm in the Lord's Army” where we would enthusiastically 'march in the infantry' 'shoot the artillery' and 'ride in the cavalry' and generally make war on behalf of God. It was great fun, and the louder and more raucous the better. We would vanquish our foes – God's foes. “Onward Christian Soldiers” is another rallying militaristic hymn in the same vein that I am sure many of you remember, and I must say that apart from the lyrics the tunes are good thumping stuff I still relish.

I guess it was a legacy of the war years - it was around 50 years ago, but nevertheless I am acutely aware of how rapidly our faith, how we interpret and try to understand it and how we live it has all changed. It really is monumental, and in a whole variety of ways liberating and at the same time quite frightening. We had certainties then, divisions were not so much between biblical interpretations and theologies but more like – “they must be Catholics because they have 11 children – can you imagine” – and then the hushed tones when the adults realised you were listening. So the divide appeared to be largely denominational. We all believed in the same God really. How simple it all was.

Now, technology, global and cosmic awareness, nonconformism and hyper-individualism, potential wealth and rampant consumerism – just so much has shifted the worldview of each and every one of us, time and time over, in the last few decades.

When I looked at the readings for this week I was struck how the passage from Isaiah speaks of the God we were raised with not so long ago. You know – that huge awesome thunderous Man on the Throne, who here is surrounded by seraphs who cover their faces with their wings as they, like us, would die if they saw God, as the Hebrew Scriptures tell us. This narrative tells of the call of the prophet Isaiah – announced in a vision where God is visible to him. He is a marked man!

Isaiah feels sick with fear, sin and unworthiness, but then a seraph cleanses his sin on God's behalf. Isaiah hears God's question and responds accordingly. “Here am I, send me!” This is a remote and incredibly holy deity on a grandiose and fearful scale.

Luke's God is vastly different. Here in a miraculous display of abundance the 'Master', Jesus – confirms his power. He ignores Peters painful admission of sin and unworthiness, and at the same time allays his fear and calls Peter to be his chief disciple.

So – both of these readings are about a “call” from God. They demand the person give their all for God. Just like Gladys Aylward and like those who wrote and sang those rally cries to battle. A call of this nature is something deep and inexplicable I think – something that is akin to madness perhaps, where the subject cannot do anything else but to follow a sort of drivenness towards the call that will not let him or her alone.

From Joan of Arc to Frodo Baggins in the Lord of the Rings, to Luke Skywalker in Star Wars who was called to 'trust the force,' a call is utterly individual and internal. It is also generally something associated with the heroes, the greatest or the triumphant or the victorious – we think a 'call' is for the chosen – those we read about or who achieve fame, honour or notoriety in some way.

Well – I want to put in a word for the fishermen – a lowly but essential occupation in 1st century Palestine. They too had their call, just as we do – to do their work, to love their families, to listen to friends, to work out personal values and beliefs, to celebrate life and hopefully to have a good death – to be wonderfully human. And as Jesus reveals in this passage it can be you and me who are called to something extraordinary, but also that we still remain that which we have always been – merely ourselves, and that is enough.

We live in a world hooked on achievement where we are subtly and not so subtly judged by what we have done or not done, by our qualifications, by our possessions, our success in the eyes of the world – not by our ordinariness and our often very vulnerable and painful humanity.

Well, I have a leaflet at home that gives sage and fun advice on how to do your life – its called “the class of 97” or some of you may have heard it as the “wear sunscreen” ad that was popular on New Zealand radio a while back – my favourite lines go like this

“Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don't. Maybe you'll marry. Maybe you won't. Maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else's.” – And I think it's my favourite because I'm the sort of chick who really does want to dance the funky-chicken when I am 75 – forget the anniversary – I won't make it! But importantly this is a pretty hip and realistic look at a non-judgmental acceptance of who we are, our joys, our limitations and our humanness.

As I mentioned before this 'monumental shift' in our God consciousness, our spiritual lives or awareness, comes at a cost. It is both liberating and frightening at the same time. This shift is exemplified in these 2 visions of God – while the God of Isaiah may be awesome, fearful, remote and desperately holy – inherent in this model is the hierarchical structure where God as pinnacle lords over and judges all. It's about ultimate supremacy – such a dangerous and destructive model, as we see in our world today.

This is a very unknowable, sometime capricious and often savage God, - one where we know our place expressed so well in old hymns and prayers as 'lowly' – we are lowly and unworthy as Isaiah expresses. But we are safe in that rigid structure and certainty, however injurious fearful or limiting. We know the rules!

Contrast this with the accepting and generous God in Luke who dismisses this unworthiness, overcomes our fear and who opens us to miracles and the vision of God as one of forgiving abundant and overflowing love. This liberating love is at once far more real creative and wonderful, but also quite frightening. The old rigid rules and structures have been overcome and there are no fences to cling to any more. It is about mutuality, relationship and the promises and wonder of this open and generous love as seen in Jesus. This is the call – our call and it is difficult and sometimes scary because of its very openness.

How we see God is crucial for our lives. If we live with the God of Isaiah it shapes us and how we live our call. We embrace our unworthiness which can end up as a sort of poisonous self-loathing, and we continue to cling to the fences in fear. Individually and globally it leads to exploitation and oppression – power and might rule! What these readings do reveal however, is the evolving nature of our faith towards the unconditional and generous love of God as revealed in Jesus.

Our call is to reject the vision of an omnipotent fearful God who engenders division and condemnation, where our lives are diminished narrow and mean. Our call is to embrace the message of Luke where we find God within community and each other, a God who encourages and desires us to live openly and abundantly with all our strengths and weaknesses. It is only in the freedom of this generous love that we can flourish and be liberated to realize and fulfill our potential and grow into this gift of abundance.

So, we rest with this story of Jesus in the fishing boat who brings us the miracle of shoals of an almost uncontainable catch of fish – this is such a beautiful and visual metaphor of how we can live in abundance if we do embrace this incredible and unconditional love, this amazing unearned gift that resides within and between us all.