Our lessons today, as well as those of last Sunday, could not be more fitting for what we are about to do this morning. In a few moments we’re going to be ordaining and installing elders. We may say that they have responded to a call from God, mediated through the voice of the church, to serve God’s people in this place.
Throughout the Old and New Testaments of the Bible there are intriguing stories in which God encounters great characters and through a “call” enlists them in God’s service—often to the amazement and hesitation of those who are the recipient of the divine call.
Last week Steve Zeoli spoke to us about Jeremiah. While still a young boy, Jeremiah received the divine call. God appointed him to be a prophet. Jeremiah protested. After all, he was only a boy and hardly able to speak well. But his insufficiency is of no concern to God. There is a saying: God does not call the qualified; rather God qualifies the called. God assured Jeremiah that he would be with him, to protect him from his enemies, and to give him the words to say to whomever God would send him.
To respond to God’s call is always daunting. Who is ever adequate to the task? But God is faithful. If we step out in obedience, God is willing and able to meet us and equip us for what he has called us to do.
But how are we to imagine the experience that Jeremiah underwent? How did God appear to him? Did he hear an audible voice? Does God call people today as he did then?
Steve mentioned people he knows who claim to hear God’s voice, in dreams or in moments of silent reflection. But then he hastened to add that God most often speaks to us through his Word, which we hear in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. We hear from the Bible each time we come together to worship on the Lord’s Day. May we suggest that this was what Isaiah was doing when he received his call from God?
Bible students claim that Isaiah was participating in the liturgy at the temple at the time he undergoes his experience. God comes out of hiddenness to appear to Isaiah in the power of his glory, in the majesty of his divinity. Surrounding God are the seraphim, the mighty angels, who must cover their eyes and bodies to shield themselves from the splendor of his holiness. “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory.” These words, which the seraphs call out to one another in Isaiah’s vision, inspired the hymn that we sang earlier this morning. And we will later chant these same words when we celebrate Holy Communion.
Isaiah is unsettled. He realizes that he, a sinful human being, is in the presence of a holy God. He recovers only when one of the seraphs takes a burning coal with a pair of tongs from the altar and places it on his lips, thereby purifying him. He now stands ready to receive his call from God.
Again, we may ask: how are we to imagine the experience that Isaiah underwent? However we imagine it, we have to keep in mind that it happened while Isaiah was at worship.
Last time Steve spoke to us about great expectations, by which he meant the expectations that God has of us. But let us for a moment consider the expectations that we can and should have of worship.
Our worship is not an empty ritual; rather, it ushers us into the presence of the divine, invisible to the naked eye. There is power and splendor and majesty here. And so our worship makes room for times silence and humility. And every week we take time for our Prayer of Confession and Assurance of Pardon. We don’t do it to induce guilt. We don’t do it because it’s just something we’ve always done. We do it because when we encounter the living God in the splendor of his holiness, we see that we are not as we should be. “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” cried Isaiah. Scott Hoezee, Professor of Preaching at Calvin Seminary, tells us that so long as we live on this side of the new creation, we cannot encounter God without some sense of Isaiah’s “Woe is me!” coming over us too. If we are lacking this sense, then we have good reason to wonder whether the God we encounter in our worship is the God Isaiah saw, the one high and lifted up, or the one we fashion for ourselves, one low and able to be manipulated.
God’s call is not a word that we can give to ourselves; it is only one that we can receive. We can and should come to worship in expectation of this word, of this call. Charles Bartow, former Professor of Preaching at Princeton Seminary, defines the expectation as follows “In Christ God takes us as we are and presses us into the service of what he would have us be.”
Jesus is preaching the Word of God on the shores of the lake of Gennesaret, otherwise known as the Sea of Galilee. It is the only time in the entire Gospel of Luke that Jesus preaches near the Sea of Galilee. Everyone comes to hear him. The words of Jesus leave no one indifferent. As one Bible student has observed, his word has the power to convert hearts, to change plans and projects.
Is this not what Peter is about to find out? On the shore of the lake, Jesus sees him together with the other fishermen as they are washing their nets. Peter is exhausted and discouraged, because that night they had caught nothing. Then Jesus surprises him with an unexpected request. He wants to join them in the boat and put out a short distance from the shore, so that he can continue to teach the people on the shore.
After he finishes teaching the crowds, Jesus turns to Peter and says: “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” Now Peter is a seasoned fisherman. Having caught nothing all night, he concludes that the fish are not in the vicinity. Nevertheless, inspired by Jesus’ presence and no doubt moved by his word, Peter obeys.
It is the response of faith that we too are called to give. It is the attitude of willingness that the Lord asks of all his followers, especially those to whom he entrusts the responsibility for governing the church, that is, the elders.
It is a miraculous catch, evidence of the power of Jesus’ word. Peter shows us that when we respond in obedience to him, when we place ourselves at his disposal, he accomplishes great things in us.
One Bible student remarks that Jesus asks each one of us to invite him into the boat of our lives, and to set out anew with him on a voyage, which is full of surprises. According to ancient tradition, the sea represents the vast spaces where all people live. We use similar expressions today. We speak of “tides of humanity” and “sea of peoples.” Jesus invites us to go with him into the open sea of humanity of our time, to be witnesses of his goodness and compassion, to show others that there is meaning and purpose to human life, which is always at risk of collapsing in on itself.
Like Jeremiah, we may be hesitant to accept the call because of a sense of our inadequacy. Like Isaiah, we may feel we don’t measure up to the call because of a profound sense of our own unworthiness. Peter, too, after the astounding catch of fish, says to Jesus: “Lord, go away from me, for I am a sinful man!” But, as we have already seen, it is precisely in this place that we are ready to receive our call from God. “Do not be afraid. From now on you will be catching people.”
May God give grace to each one of us, including the elders, to respond to the Lord’s call and to enable us to cooperate in his mission in this community and in the entire world. Amen.