Called and Cleansed - Sermon for the Fifth Sunday After Epiphany (February 9, 2025)

Scripture Readings: Isaiah 6:1–13 | Psalm 138 | 1 Corinthians 15:1–11 | Luke 5:1–11

“But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!”… Then Jesus said to Simon, ‘Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.’” (Luke 5:8, 10b).

Have you ever felt particularly unequipped to do the task before you?

It’s a horrible feeling. Literally the stuff of nightmares. I mean, has anyone here ever had that dream where you’re about to take a test you hadn’t studied for? Or give a speech you’ve not prepared? It’s not so fun. You feel exposed. Panicked. Paralyzed. And hopefully it doesn’t drag on too long before you wake up and realize it’s not real.

But then again, sometimes in life, we really might find ourselves in those kinds of situations… ones we never planned for, and feel completely unqualified to tackle… for whatever reason… leaving us scrambling, or maybe just tempted to run the other way.

If you’ve ever felt this way, you’re in good company. And reading through the Bible, again and again, we witness stories of people who find themselves drawn into circumstances they never imagined, or prepared for… and feel completely ill-equipped to handle. In fact, our Scripture readings this morning all touch on times when the Living God calls on some pretty unlikely agents to take part in His Kingdom plans.

In our first reading this morning, we heard an account of what happened when the prophet Isaiah was granted a vision of God’s heavenly throne room. Suddenly finding himself surrounded by the glory and holiness of the Almighty One, Isaiah feels overwhelmed with guilt… deeply conscious of his own sins, and the sins of his people. 
Isaiah 6:5 “Woe is me! I am lost,” he says, “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!”

Now sin is indeed a big problem and obstacle in our lives… distorting our desires, and undermining our ability to love God our Creator, and to love our neighbours all created in His image. Suddenly faced with the incomparable goodness of the Living God, Isaiah becomes keenly aware of how unholy he and his people are… and how utterly unworthy he is to be so close to the Lord of All.

But what happens next? Does an angel announce to Isaiah: “Hey it’s no big deal… you’re only human… give yourself some slack!” 

Not quite. We hear instead that a seraphim, a spiritual servant of God reaches out and takes a burning coal from God’s alter, and touches the coal to Isaiah’s lips.

Now I’ve never kissed a live coal, but I can’t imagine that it was a pleasant experience. But then the seraphim says to Isaiah: “Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.” (Isaiah 6:7).

Can you see what happened? The LORD knew Isaiah’s situation, that he and his people were of unclean lips. But God makes him clean! God doesn’t ignore, but rather deals with the guilt and sin that stood in Isaiah’s way from being a part of God’s Kingdom work in the world, and among his people. The process was painful perhaps, but it did prepare Isaiah to participate in God’s mission… which in this instance meant speaking on behalf of God to offer a profound warning and word of judgement against his proud and wayward people.

What about our own sins and guilt? Those distorted desires at work in our hearts, and minds, and our choices that take us far from the holy ways of the Living God? We know that God won’t ignore them, but do we believe that they are too big for the LORD to deal with? 

Isaiah’s story reminds us that God really can make us clean, no matter our baggage or background. The question is, will we trust Him and humbly draw near so that He can do so? 

Turning now to our Gospel reading, and St. Luke’s account of Jesus calling His first disciples. After teaching the crowds gathered on the shore from Simon’s boat, Jesus tells them to head out a bit deeper and cast their nets again for a catch. 

Now, this might seem a bit strange: an itinerant teacher telling some professional fishermen how to catch fish. I mean, this was their livelihood. This was the work they knew best. Fishing was what they were the most prepared to do.

But even with all their experience, and skill, they had come up empty. And now, Jesus tells them to try once more. “Simon answered, ‘Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.’” (Luke 5:5)

Simon Peter set aside his pride, and listened to Jesus… and witnessed a miracle. They ended up catching more fish than two boats could handle… far more than anything they had expected… convincing Simon that this teacher Jesus was somehow in touch with the power of the Living God… and like Isaiah, this filled Simon Peter with a deep sense of his own unworthiness. 

Luke 5:8, “But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, ‘Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!’”

But rather than distance Himself from Simon Peter, this self-confessed sinner… Jesus does something far more drastic: He invites Simon to follow Him, and take on a whole new mission: “Then Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.’ When they [that is, James and John] had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.” (Luke 5:10-11).  

Think about this for a moment. Simon Peter, and James and John had their own lives going already. They had their own hopes, and dreams, and plans. And in an instant, Jesus disrupts all of that, and invites them to join Him on a completely unknown journey.

These fishermen… are called to become fishers of men… and eventually to become key leaders within His Kingdom movement… drawing many other people into the story that Jesus was unfolding before them.

Talk about ill equipped! They had absolutely no experience as rabbinical students… or in group management, or public speaking, or anything like it! And as Simon Peter makes plain, they weren’t even particularly pious or holy. And yet Jesus calls them to follow Him… and they do! They drop everything and discern in Him something much more important than they had imagined for themselves. After all, someone who could help them catch that many fish… what else could this Jesus do?

It’s easy to forget, when we hear these familiar but distant stories, that the very same Jesus who called Simon Peter and the others that day by the sea shore, is the One who has also called you and I today… open to disrupting our hopes and plans, while inviting us into something far greater than we could have ever imagined for ourselves.

And like Simon, we often feel ill equipped for this… that we don’t have the right disposition, or training, or time, or whatever else we think might limits us. But these things don’t really seem to bother Jesus all that much. He constantly calls the ill equipped, the humble, the hurting, even the lost into His Kingdom work, and He is constantly accomplishing far more than they could ask or imagine in and through them.

That is because Jesus Christ the Risen Lord empowers us to accomplish whatever He calls us to accomplish. He is the One who makes us able to do what He calls us to do. Not with some magic wave of His hand… but most often through a journey with Him of discovery and trust… and of letting go of all the things we think are important, but that keep us from sharing in the work of His Good Kingdom.

And what is that, exactly? What is it that Jesus is calling us all to do? What are we signing up for when we say yes to following Him, not just once, but always?

One way to sum it up: is to live in and share His story… the Good News of Jesus Christ, God’s beloved Son who gave His life and rose again to cleans and reconcile the world to Himself.

This is what we heard in our second reading this morning from First Corinthians, the centre of St. Paul’s understanding of what the Good News is all about: 

1 Corinthians 15:3-8, “For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.” 

This is the story! The Good News for our world articulated in the ancient Creeds of the Church… the climax of the entire narrative of Scripture, and the anchor of God’s people, keeping us bound to our loving Saviour in the midst of our world’s vicious storms.

Jesus really came to us in our moment of weakness… bound by sin, and ill equipped to live God’s way. And Jesus really died for us, taking our cross onto His own shoulders, and bearing the burden of our sins, in order to make us clean, and to set us aright again. And Jesus really rose again from the dead, snapping the power of sin and the grave, and opening up the way for us to share in His eternal life. 

And Jesus really appeared, more alive than ever before to the apostles, and many others after His resurrection. These everyday, ordinary people He had called to follow Him long before, had now became first-hand witnesses to the power of God’s saving love, by raising Jesus from the dead. 

And this Risen Jesus really calls you and I to believe this story. And not just to believe it, but to live it out in our own contexts. To live as people set free from our sin and guilt by His precious blood. As people invited to take part in His story, and journey, and Kingdom work all around us. To become His witnesses today, helping those around us catch a glimpse of God’s power and saving love. To trust in Him to provide what we need to accomplish His will for our lives, and get to it.

Maybe you’re still feeling ill equipped to answer this call. To trust that Jesus has really dealt with your sins at the cross, and that He has a place for you in His Kingdom.

If that’s the case, then take a moment to remember St. Paul’s story. No one would have thought that Paul would one day become a herald of Jesus, proclaiming to the world that Jesus really was the Messiah that Israel had been longing for, and also the hope for all nations.

Now unlike Peter and the other disciples, Paul actually was pretty well equipped: he was trained in rhetoric and skilled in communication, at least in writing, which were very valuable and useful skills in the ancient world. Paul had a deep knowledge of the Scriptures too. He studied under an esteemed rabbi, eagerly learning the significance of his people’s history. 

And Paul was an effective man of action, and leadership. An entrepreneurial spirit, we might say… taking it on himself to defend the faith of his ancestors. He was a devout keeper of Torah… the teachings and law of Moses, as well as the traditions of the elders, set up to keep people like Paul as far from sin and guilt as humanly possible.

With so much to Paul’s credit, why did I say he would be the last person that anyone would imagine being an ambassador for Christ’s Kingdom, sharing the Gospel all around the ancient Roman world?

Because, as we know, despite everything he had going for him, Paul was also an ardent enemy of the Church. He believed Jesus of Nazareth to have been a false teacher, and that Christ’s followers were a plague on his peoples’ efforts to stay true to the Living God. And so Paul passionately persecuted them. He had them arrested and thrown in prison, and even sought to chase after those who had fled Jerusalem and arrest them too.

That is, until Jesus called him too… Stopping Paul in his tracks, and confronted him… changing his path forever, and drawing him into the Kingdom of God for good.

Now it was a years long process for Paul to go from persecutor to preacher and then apostle of the Gospel. But sure enough, Jesus called even His passionate enemy to be a part of His good Kingdom.

And if Jesus could call someone like Paul… and deal with all of the obstacles standing in Paul’s way… and do far more than Paul ever imagined… working through him to share the Gospel story, the Good News of Jesus the Risen Lord with the world… what’s stopping our LORD from working in your life? Or in my life? In the life of our parish family?

There’s a lot of challenges facing us these days. Lots of pressures, and fears, and struggles that we and our neighbours are having to face. And we might be feeling pretty ill equipped at times to tackle them, unsure of how people like us could help bring God’s healing, and hope, and help to light in the lives of those around us here in Gondola Point.

But the fact remains: Jesus has called us. Jesus the Risen Lord has invited us to trust Him, and by His Holy Spirit, He really can make us able to do His work in our world today. And so, may God give us grace to draw near in faith to Jesus, the Risen Lord, that He may cleans us of our sins, and empower us to walk in His ways. Amen.