EPIPHANY 5 2007 | Luke 5:1-11

When Muhammad climbed the mountain near his home in Mecca to pray, he expected some quiet time alone with his soul and his God. What he got was much more than he bargained for, and if he had known what was coming, my guess is he would have stayed home.

An unseen hand gripped his chest as if he were no bigger than a gerbil, and squeezed. As Muhammad writhed in agony, a voice filled his ears. “Recite!’ it commanded.

“But I don’t know how to read!” Muhammad protested.

“Recite!” the voice repeated.

“But I’m a nobody!” Muhammad insisted.

“Recite!”

“But who will listen to me?”

“Recite!”

When the terrifying experience was over, Muhammad stumbled down the mountain, got into bed with his wife, and cowered under the covers while she tried to comfort him. It took him days to recover, and when he finally got up the nerve to tell someone besides his wife about it, he told his brother-in-law, who was a Christian. His brother-in-law said simply, “Maybe it was God.”

“What should I do?” Asked Muhammad.

“If I were you,” his brother-in-law replied, “I’d recite.”

Muhammad’s story is the beginning of a great world religion, but it is far from unique. In our reading from the Jewish scriptures today, we see a glorious vision of Isaiah, who has been carried into heaven in a vision, where he beholds the heavenly court. And what is his first response to this scene? The same as Muhammad, “I’m not worthy!” he says, “I am a man of unclean lips!” So what does God do? He cleans his lips. A napkin would have done the job, but in the heavenly court, apparently, flaming coals are used. Don’t try this at home.

Once Isaiah’s mouth is cleansed, the Voice of God thunders out, “Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?” And even though he knows he has a potty mouth, Isaiah pipes right up. “Here am I, send me!” he says.

Here in Isaiah’s text we have the archetypal version of the story. A person comes face to face with God, and is overwhelmed by his own inadequacies. And God calls him anyway. And God uses him.

It’s a glorious story, but as we saw with Muhammad, it rarely takes place in such splendiferous surroundings. The same things happen, but not in the idealized, grandiose environment of heaven. For Muhammad, it happened rolling around in the dirt in a cave, writhing in agony.

It happened to Mary, also traditionally in a cave, when Gabriel said, “Greetings, favored one! The Holy One is with you…in more ways than you know.” And Mary was greatly perplexed. And eventually she said the words that echoed Isaiah’s own, “Here am I, the servant of the Holy One; let it be with me according to your Word.”

And in our Gospel story today, it happened to Peter while he was tired and sweaty from a full nights work—a frustrating and unsuccessful nights work, too, I might add. But Jesus tells him to cast out his nets again. Peter probably grumbled a bit as he did it, but he did it, and caught so much the boat began to sink. That’s when Peter realized he was in the presence, not just of the rabbi Jesus, but of the one who comes in the name of the Holy One.

And what does Peter do? Just exactly the same thing that Isaiah and Muhammad did. He fell on his face and said, “Jesus, go away! I’m not worthy—I’m a sinful man!”

Fortunately for Peter’s lips there were no flaming coals handy, and Jesus just says, very kindly, “Don’t be afraid, Peter. From now on you will be fishing for people.”

Peter’s story, like Muhammad’s, has none of the glory and splendor of Isaiah’s archetypal vision. Theologians call this the “scandal of the particular.” Usually when theologians use that term, they are referring to the fact that the perfect Word of God scandalously took up residence in a finite human body. Or, appropriate to the feast of Candlemass, the fact that the Queen of Heaven because of her incarnation in a PARTICULAR human culture, had to submit to ritual cleansing after childbirth.

And this is indeed scandalous, but it isn’t just about Jesus and Mary. When we think of the divine, we think of glory, of perfection, of that which can be barely imagined. And likewise we think that anyone that speaks for the divine must somehow be likewise glorious and perfect. But it never happens that way. Because there aren’t ANY perfect people. There are only wounded, fallible, insecure people. And God uses them anyway. The particular, the actual way God works, is scandalous indeed.

Think of it this way, when we are young we all have this vision of our perfect soul mate: he or she will be kind and compassionate at all times, will read minds and understand mumbling, will never break into a sweat or pass gas. No… But there aren’t any partners like that of course. The idols of our idealized mates have to come tumbling down or we won’t have any partners at all. And our partners will be wounded themselves, their patience inevitably has limits, their bodies have odors, and they will invariably snore. This, my friends, is the scandal of the particular.

And that is why there is, I am afraid to inform you, no escape for us. Isaiah’s vision is archetypal precisely because it is one of those pesky stories in scripture that doesn’t just happen once. It doesn’t just happen to certain, select people. It is happening right now, and to you.

And there really aren’t any excuses. Peter’s excuse, “I am a sinful man!” got him nowhere. Muhammad’s complaint, “But I can’t even read!” didn’t do one bit of good. Mary’s bewilderment, “But how can this be?” was waved away. Isaiah’s protest, “I am a man of unclean lips!” just got his mouth washed out with burning coals—it didn’t get him off the hook.

This morning, God is saying to you, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” It’s up to you whether you will say, “Here I am, send me!” But make no mistake about it, you are being asked. “But I don’t know what to do! I’m not worthy! Who am I? What can I do?” None of these are any good at all.

And it doesn’t do any good to say, “But I’m not a minister!” God doesn’t call just the professional clergy to be ministers. God calls all of us. There is a lot of pain and injustice and suffering and blindness and illness and ignorance in this world. If it were only up to the professional clergy to solve it we’d be even worse off than we are now, because the professional clergy, by and large, are putzes. Even if they weren’t, even if being a priest gave me some kind of superhuman powers to go along with my superhuman responsibilities, the truth is it’s not my job to solve the world’s problems. It’s my job to empower you, to build you up, to educate and inspire you so that YOU can solve the world’s problems—so that YOU can feed the hungry, and heal the sick, and liberate those in bondage, and comfort the brokenhearted.

Yes, it’s scandalous that God needs you—little ol’ you, what with your farting and your dermatitis and your speech impediment—to heal the world, but it’s true. God can’t do it without you. The question is, will you do it?

You can always say, “No.” Lots of people do. But it’s a tragic answer. Not because the work will not get done, but because if you say “no,” you miss out on the very reason you are here in the first place. I don’t know about you, but I want to know that I’m doing more than just taking up space and contributing to the gross national product.

Now, this is not an evangelical church. I’m not asking you to give your heart to Jesus. I’m not asking you to believe anything. I’m not asking you to give your money to anybody. All those things are way too easy. They’re cop outs. What I’m asking you to do is far more significant, and much harder. I’m inviting you to be who you really are, and to do the work that you were put here on this earth to do.

Again, there really aren’t any excuses. “I’m too old; I’m too young; I’m too poor, I’m too busy, I’m too scared, I’m not smart enough, I’m not good enough, I’m not talented enough,” blah blah blah. There’s only “yes” or “no.”

And if you say “no” no one is going to punish you, there will be no external repercussions. But you will have to live with your own unrealized potential, and that is not a particularly comfortable thing.

And if you say “yes,” don’t expect that you’ll instantly know what that work is that you are supposed to do. A man does not always know where a path will lead when he steps upon it. But the adventure of discovery, of fulfillment, of realized purpose and vocation can, at least, begin.

When the voice boomed from heaven, “whom shall I send and who will go for us,” Isaiah had no doubt that God was speaking to him. We should be just as certain that God is asking that of us today. “Whom shall I send and who will go for us?” Let us pray…

God, we’re small, we’re scared, we’re limited, we’re flawed, we’re wounded, we’re few in number, we haven’t got it all figured out, our lives are messes, we’re broke, we’re busy, we’re tired, we’re distracted, we’re sick, and some of us are not even sure you exist.

Even so, open our eyes to the magnitude of suffering in the world, strip us of our defenses so that we can see with unguarded eyes the lonely, the ill, the hungry, the naked, the poor, the woundedness of others. Break our hearts open like an egg. And give us the courage to pray the words you long to here: “Here am I. Send me.” Amen.