4th Sunday before Lent 2019. St. Paul’s Athens. Is 6, 1-8; 1Cor 15, 1-11; Luke 5, 1-11

Revd. Canon L W Doolan

 

3 locations; 3 time zones; 1 message.

 

The three locations are a thriving cosmopolitan city with a commercial port not a million miles away from us here; a lake side in a region called Galilee; and a magnificent temple, indeed the original temple of Solomon in Jerusalem.

The three time zones, working in reverse order, are the early 50’s AD when the Apostle Paul is thought to have written his letters to the Christian church in Corinth; about 20 years prior to that is the second time zone – namely the 3 year ministry of Jesus before his death and resurrection; and the third, a long time before that is about 800BC when the prophet Isaiah was working perhaps as a priest, in the great Temple of Solomon, the Temple that was destroyed in 587BC by Nebuchadnezzar, and which was never surpassed by the 2 temples built subsequently.

 

The three time zones represent, back in chronological order, the time before Christ, the time of Christ’s ministry, and the time of the church and Christ’s apostolic command to ‘go out’ and baptize, and ‘do this’ in memory of me when you worship together.

That is the historic and topographical backdrop to our three readings this morning. 3 locations; 3 times zones; 1 message.

What is the message – God calls us not only into his service, but into his very essence. By serving him in his world, we inhabit his very being. And we are called to do this through repentance and humility; through worship and awe; through being sent out and serving.

Let’s look briefly at all three readings. Surely the passage from Isaiah is stentorian in impact. What could be more impressive? Nothing could summarize quite so succinctly the whole religious enterprise.

Our location is the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem, and the prophet Isaiah is caught up in a mystical experience of God. This is not the priestly prophet telling us about God; this is Isaiah encountering God, engaging with God, being transformed by God.

He experiences being surrounded by hosts of heavenly beings as they chant their doxology. He smells the incense of prayer and worship, of offering and sacrifice. He senses deeply how frail and sinful he is in the presence of the divine glory – this is truly a worm and no man – and yet, and yet his penitence is rewarded, as it always is, by the graciousness of the divine glory. The image of his penitent heart and the power of his reconciliation, expressed in the image of the burning charcoal being placed on his tongue, to sear God’s mark of forgiveness in his heart, is so powerful. It is then, and only then, that God can ask ‘whom shall I send?’ The prophet from the very centre of this mystical experience can now say, ‘Here I am. Send me’.

My goodness, the power of this message! And even more powerfully is that this whole experience is there for us to experience as we worship the divine glory in this holy Liturgy. When we are sent out by our deacon, will we truly be so transformed that we can truly say ‘here I am send me’.

 

It is this experience of the divine glory that brings the Apostle Peter to his knees in a small lake in Galilee, some 800 years later. This time Peter is standing before the new Temple of God – Jesus the Christ, the one who would pull down the temple and rebuild it in three days – a forewarning of his death and resurrection. Lake Gennesaret is the name given here in St. Luke’s gospel. It is also known as Lake Tiberias, but far better known to us as the Sea of Galilee.

‘O Sabbath rest by Galilee! O calm of hills above, where Jesus knelt to share with thee the silence of eternity, Interpreted by love.’

From Simon Peter’s little fishing boat Jesus teaches a crowd who had gathered; the Word of God made flesh in Jesus teaching by word the holy ways of God’s kingdom. Further out into the lake a miracle is about to happen: a catch of fish so great that Simon Peter has to summon assistance. The number of fish is so great that the nets are bursting as sign that God’s kingdom is so full of faithful followers. Simon is in awe and falls to his knees. Like Isaiah before him Simon too knows his unworthiness in the presence of the divine. ‘Do not be afraid’ says our Lord to Simon, and he gathers up Simon and other fishermen to join him in his mission.

This mission is shared somewhat unexpectedly by a man called Saul from Tarsus. Well educated by Gamaliel, a leading light in the ancient scholarly world, this Saul as a loyal Pharisee was happy to see the followers of Jesus put to death. Certainly he had seen Stephen dispatched from this life. The problem is that in such a short space of time people all over the place were being drawn into a life – an experience, a way of being – that claimed to be the body of Christ. It was this that Saul had to put a stop to. Instead though, he was caught up in the same mystical experience of the divine revelation in Jesus, and he too becomes perhaps the most influential apologist for this new way of understanding the inherited Judaism of the day. The God of glory who had once only existed in the Temple, behind a curtain, had broken free. The curtain was torn apart, and the glory was revealed fully in the mystery of a death on a cross.

 

Saul, better known to us in the Greek version, Paul, was hooked like a fish on a line, just like those fish that got caught in the net. Paul becomes a luminary in his apostolic mission carrying the message of Christ, and it seems from references, carrying some physical signs of the mystery of suffering.

In Corinth, a difficult place, he calls them back to the core of the faith in the form of a simple, but possibly ancient Creed, listing the sightings of the risen Christ, mentioning himself as one unfit to be an apostle. Yet by God’s grace Paul is called, Paul receives, Paul is sent. In the same way, so are Isaiah, and Peter, and my friends, in the mystery of God, so am I and so are you. God calls us into worship, in which we are penitent before him, and in the power of his glory we are sent into the world to live and breathe the gospel of life in Christ.

As a practical response to this reality, our Council decided unanimously towards the end of last year, to recognize God’s calling into the mystery of his life, of our young people, and we resolved that they should be admitted to receive Holy Communion even if they are not confirmed. Of course each young person must be baptized, and we would respect parental opinions, but we are committed to this, and as is required, Bishop Robert has granted his permission for us to do so. We will begin to collect the names of our young people with parental consent. They will get particular teaching in Sunday School about Liturgy and worship, and we will admit children to First Communion on Easter Sunday.

Let’s recall that great vision of calling, of penitence, of being fully taken up in worship, and of being sent out into the world as disciples of Christ and workers for the Kingdom of God. Isaiah, Peter, Paul, in today’s readings represent 3 locations, 3 time zones, but 1 message. We can add another location – Athens. We can add another time zone – 2019. And together we can respond to the one message and together say, ‘Here I am, send me’.