FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY – 04 FEBRUARY 2007

ST PAUL LUTHERAN CHURCH, ABQ NM – THE REV. P. L. HOLMAN

Isaiah 6:1-8; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11, Luke 5:1-11

Get Wet!

When I was growing up we lived for hand-me-downs…not much money, surrounded by brothers, I wore boys clothes a lot, so the girl hand-me-downs were always a treat.

Bible stories make great hand-me-downs.

  • some know many stories, some of us are fairly new, most of us are likely somewhere in between
  • and just like we learn to fish from those who know, we need those who know to share the Jesus stories, to witness of God active in history and in the present

On the Prairie Home Companions joke show last night radio host Garrison Keillor lamented the fact that not knowing the biblical stories takes the fun out of some jokes.  Like the one about Abraham informing his son Isaac that he wants to upgrade his computer.  “I will ask God to help me with this.”  Isaac protested:  How can God help you, father?  What can God do?  “God will provide, my son. God will provide the RAM.”

Today’s Bible stories all involve some story about being called to follow

o       call -- drop everything and go

o       The Nelson family from Cross of Hope who left their home and careers here in ABQ about two years ago and with their children are serving as medical missionaries in Cameroon.

o       Pastor Scott Stein leaving a parish in CO to go start a new church in Utah – who names among the strengths God has given him for the journey his partner, , who was raised in a Mormon household.

o       Tom and Mary Holman who heard a call in the midst of a tent revival in Milwaukee WI and now, supported by many prayer partners including their home congregation of Resurrection Lutheran, Racine WI, have been serving as Bible translation missionaries in Ghana.  The New Testament in Anufo will be dedicated on February 17th in Chereponi, North Region, and I am blessed to be among the hundreds who will be there to give God thanks for this blessing!

ŕ all tremendous challenges and all amazingly gifted to translate the Good News.

  • Also called – less dramatic, yet no less faithful
    • Teachers who persist for decades in the face of change and political pressure
    • Folks like the ABQ school crossing guards honored recently
    • People of St. Paul like Marie Ellis, 90-something woman of faith who through various trials and challenges has faithfully followed her baptismal calling for decades right here in ABQ
    • You know the folks – maybe you even saw one in the mirror this morning -- you who come week after week to pray and worship, who gather with prayer partners or sewing partners or collating partners or feeding partners, with youth partners and senior partners, then go out to visit your neighbor or feed the folks at Project Share or provide support for a stranger in need

Naming the call can be hard for us – we are so oriented to thinking we’re in control that we can manage just fine, thank you.  If nothing else, events in recent days in Iraq and Florida are painful reminders that we are not.  We trust that God is – and God is calling us to honor the power of God’s presence in all times and places by living our days in response to God’s grace.

The call to follow is not always what it seems.  Isaiah is awe-struck by the vision of the Holy, yet equally overwhelmed to think that he, a man of unclean lips living among such a people as well, could be called and equipped to hear the call and answer it boldly: Here I am; send me.  Yet the Lord provides and Isaiah responds.

Paul, by God’s grace, least of the apostles by virtue of his past, answered the call to proclaim and in the power of the Spirit to call others to faith.  His witness continues.

Paul’s story, along with the timely story of the brothers Zebedee and their partner Simon Peter, remind us that just when we think WE have the answer, Jesus will show us a still more excellent way.  “Those nets won’t help you drying there on the shore – get up, and get ‘em wet.”  The resulting vision of nets teeming with fish, after working all night and catching nothing, throws Simon Peter to his knees.  He knows something big is happening here. I’d be scared too, wouldn’t you?  And Jesus says, “Don’t be.”

“Do not be afraid” – sometimes that’s a signal to be afraid, be very afraid especially if we don’t do change very well.  Do not be afraid, Jesus assures them: I’m calling you to leave what you know and follow me.  You will be given all you all you need.  Don’t be afraid because it’s not about YOU. 

This call is about God.

It’s not about your boats and your fishing prowess – not about your grades or your paycheck or your house or your pension -- it’s about God’s Word of hope and God’s water of Life – it’s about God’s shaping faithful people and through them (and us) giving the world hope!

We’re called to be the net – get it? – not the fisher-folk with poles and bait but the NET of welcome and embrace, the web of support and strength for all God’s creation.  Nets stretched so full they’re about to break, nets breaking open to be rewoven into larger networks welcoming even more people into this amazing community called the body of Christ.  Arms extended hand to hand, ever widening the circle of welcome so that those joining reweave us into a more faithful witness of who God is for world and for one another.

So here’s the call, my friends, the call straight from Jesus:

You are the NET – get wet!