February 10, 2019: May God’s words alone be spoken, may God’s words alone be heard. Amen.
I grew up, like a lot of you, reading the Sunday comics. I used to pull it right out of the big Sunday Paper, that I, by the way, had just delivered. I was a reluctant Washington Post delivery kid. Reluctant because it was my brother’s paper route, and you had to get up really early in the morning. On the other hand, I did have more spare change than any of my friends.
Anyway, my favorite comic was Peanuts, and my favorite character was Snoopy. In fact, Snoopy was a nickname I had as a kid because I was often seen wearing a really worn out Snoopy sweatshirt.
So, there was one “Peanuts” comic where “Snoopy and Woodstock are sitting on top of Snoopy’s doghouse. Snoopy says, “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be out somewhere sitting on a branch chirping. That’s your job. People expect to hear birds chirping when they wake up in the morning.”
With that, Woodstock flies off to a nearby branch and belts out a single “chirp.” Then he flies back to the doghouse. Snoopy says, “You chirped only once. You can’t brighten someone’s day with one chirp.” So Woodstock flies back to the branch and belts out eight more chirps. And when the bird returns to the doghouse, Snoopy smiles and says, “There now! Didn’t that give you a real feeling of satisfaction? The bad news is you’re supposed to do that every morning, for the rest of your life.” Whereupon Woodstock faints dead away off the doghouse roof.”[1]
I thought about Woodstock when I was preparing this sermon because, in a sense, Snoopy was telling Woodstock that he had a calling in the world – a role that would have an impact on others – but when Woodstock heard that, it was a bit more than he could deal with – so kerplunk!
It’s a funny thing, but whenever we are called, it is never to what we expect, we usually don’t initially feel up to the task, and our first response is often – “are you crazy?” – or…falling off the roof of a dog house. Okay, maybe that last one only happens to little yellow birds whose best friends are beagles, but for the rest of us, our response to call is a lot like what we hear today in our text from Isaiah and from the gospel of Luke.
In the first reading, Isaiah finds himself in the presence of God who has called him, and Isaiah is thinking “Holy, holy, holy cow! I am in deep trouble. I am flawed and standing in the presence of God – where is the fire exit!” He is then sanctified for this purpose by a six winged Seraph who holds a hot coal to his lips. I am guessing that had to have hurt, and why I think Isaiah is likely considered the Father of Chapstick. He then says “Here am I, send me!” I suppose that was better than the hot coals.
Then there is Peter, who is with Jesus. Jesus does this amazing thing. The boys had been out fishing all night with nothing to show for it. Jesus comes along, hops into one of Peter’s boats, and has him set out a bit from shore so he could do some teaching. Then, he tells this weary fisherman to go a bit further out, put those nets they had just cleaned after their futile night, back into the water. They do, and got, you guessed it, a boatload of fish. Peter falls to his knees asking Jesus to go away from him, because he was a sinful man. Apparently, Peter forgot all about the stories of Isaiah that he heard in the synagogue, but thankfully for him – no hot coals. Jesus just tells him to get off his knees and get going – with him – to fish for people.
It’s funny, but I think in many ways Monty Python had it right about God’s reaction to how we respond to God’s call.
See, Arthur and his knights are galloping through the kingdom, as they do (no horses, just, well, horse sounds). When they hear the voice of God and see God’s face in the clouds:
“Arthur! Arthur, King of the Britons!” They all fall to the ground. “Oh, don’t grovel! One thing I can’t stand, it’s people groveling.”
Arthur rises, but hides his head, saying “Sorry.”
“And don’t apologize. Every time I try to talk to someone it’s ‘sorry this’ and ‘forgive me that’ and ‘I’m not worthy’.’ What are you doing now?!”
“I’m averting my eyes, O Lord.”
“Well, don’t. It’s like those miserable Psalms– they’re so depressing. Now, knock it off!”
“Yes, Lord.”
“Right! Arthur, King of the Britons, your Knights of the Round Table shall have a task to make them an example in these dark times.
“Good idea, O Lord!
“Of course it’s a good idea…” Then God calls Arthur to set on a quest for the Holy Grail.
It seems that whenever God calls us, we first try to tell God why we can’t do it, appealing to our inability or unworthiness, and then, if we are smart, we give in to it. The truth about it is that “there are three rather uncomfortable, uncontrollable characteristics of being called: 1) that God often calls us to do the very thing we have said we would never be caught dead doing; 2) that God often calls us to do the very thing other people are better at doing than we are; 3) that God often calls us when and where we least expect it.”[2]
And of those three, it is the second one that often keeps us from stepping forward where God is leading. We seem to believe that we aren’t good enough.
Just look at all the prophets:
Moses told God that he couldn’t be the one to go to Pharaoh – because he hadn’t taken the local Toastmasters class, and so he wasn’t all that great at public speaking.
Jeremiah tells God that he’s just a kid, so he can’t possibly do this prophet thing.
Isaiah says he is too sinful and Amos says he is just a farmer.
And Jonah, well he didn’t even LIKE the good news God wanted to share and told God he had shopping to do in Tarshish.
They all were saying “Here I am Lord…send the other guy” send somebody else. Something many of us who are priests can remember doing when we heard the call to ordained life.
I think the reason we all seem to struggle with the call of God is first, because we spend more time talking at God, than listening to God, so we don’t hear the call in the first place. And then, because of that, we can only hear our own voice, and we can’t imagine in the way that God can. We can’t dream in the way that God can dream. Or, as the poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning put it “God’s gifts put man’s best dreams to shame.” And call, my friends, is a gift from God…if we will only receive it.
Sadly, we often can’t imagine what is possible, because we look at who we are, see our imperfections, and forget that we are God’s beloved child. We become so focused on ourselves and what we have or don’t have, and forget to see the God standing before us, the God speaking to us, the God begging us to stop fearing our inadequacies and start responding to God’s amazing grace! And to do that, we have to first remember who we are, who God is, and how much God loves us – yes us – the incredibly imperfect people of this world.
Because it would seem that God calls those who are not perfect…and that’s a good thing too, because if God only called those who are perfect, then there would be nobody to do the work of God – not one person – not even a church, mosque, or synagogue either. The church is NOT perfect, because the church is us, and none of us are perfect. Being perfect is not what is asked of us…if it were, why would we need the confession.
No, God doesn’t call the perfect. Yet it seems that we often expect perfection of others, and of ourselves, and when we are inevitably disappointed by the lack of perfection, as we of course will be, we discard, accuse, demean, and bemoan the person…even ourselves…for not living up to this ridiculous ideal.
Here’s the thing. If you really think about it, this focus on perfection is a form of idolatry. It is a quest for us to be God or to have others be that God for us. But God only asks us to be our human selves, our flawed human selves, inviting us to partner in the amazing work God is doing. While this may be a surprise to a lot of folks out there in the world – it isn’t all about them. It never was.
Another part of the problem with answering the call of God is that we imagine call as something WE do – just ourselves alone. It’s that same part of us that does this, that also thinks we have to be perfect, because it is the self-absorbed focus that results in this type of thinking. Well, I can tell you that if that were the case, if we answered God’s call all alone – we are right to think we can’t measure up. In fact, it is only the foolish who think they are up to that type of thing…which is likely why they are called foolish in the first place.
All of this reminds me of a story about an elephant who broke loose from the heard and charged across a little wooden structure that stretched across a ravine. The worn-out bridge shivered and groaned, barely able to support the elephant’s weight. Once the elephant had gone safely to the other side, a flea that had been lodged in the elephant’s ear exclaimed in mighty satisfaction, “Boy, did we shake that bridge!”
See, we may laugh at that little flea, but the flea was actually right! And the thing is, when it comes to call, we are the flea to God’s mighty elephant. God accomplishes great things, and asks us to be a part of it, we just have to say yes, and attach ourselves to God. The journey of living into our call might be scary and ground shaking, or it might be peaceful and sublime, but whatever it is, we don’t do it alone, we don’t have to be perfect, and we don’t have to grovel. We just need to know that there is something larger than ourselves and be open to going with God into the world, and that is a journey that will almost always take us away from the societal herd, and into fields unknown.
When we do, when we say “Here am I God, send me!,” I promise you it won’t be bridges that are shaking – it will be walls! And they will come tumbling down too – the walls that divide us from one another. And in their place we will build bridges of love across the ravines of our despair, of our ignorance, of our hate, of our indifference, and oh, what a journey that will be!
It will be so amazing that in the wee quiet voice of our evening prayers, we will whisper to God “We sure shook the world today, didn’t we!”
Amen.
For the audio from the 10:30am service, click below, or subscribe to our iTunes Sermon Podcast by clicking here:
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The Rev. Diana L. Wilcox
Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge
February 10, 2019
Fifth Sunday After The Epiphany – Year C
1st Reading – Isaiah 6:1-8, [9-13]
Psalm 138
2nd Reading – 1 Corinthians 15:1-11
Gospel – Luke 5:1-11
