God Calls, as We Call God, and Grace Can Happen

 5 Epiphany C February 9, 2025
Isaiah 6:1-8, [9-13] Psalm 138
1 Corinthians 15:1-11 Luke 5:1-11

Lectionary Link

One might say that a call from God is the way in God communicates to a person or people the divine will for humanity.  The Bible is full of many events of God's calling of people; they are so many that the category of calling has to remain open because in time, new callings will happen in new ways to more people, and callings will happen to the same person multiple times in one's life.  Why?  Because the intentions of a loving God, calling all people to love never finishes.  Sometimes the call requires something very simple and sometimes the call comes in difficult times requiring something more difficult because of human weakness or because of the opposition of contrary people.

As people theatrically inclined, we often want to be knocked off our horses by thunderbolts from heaven because such an event would seem to be more obvious than events in our everyday mundane lives.  We should not neglect or fail to acknowledge God in the mundane; for Elijah, God came in the stillness, not in wind and the fire.

Perhaps we want a wonderful theophany like the prophet Isaiah when like a dream his inside world and his outside world became indistinguishable and he saw things that the outward looking does not normally see.  He experienced the grandeur of the divine and such made him aware of his smallness and his uncleanness.  He felt totally unworthy.  And yet this man who felt unclean and unworthy was called to deliver perhaps an unpopular message to people who did not want to hear the message he was commissioned to bring.

If God calls us, the Psalmist reminds us that we call God.  Calling is a two way action.  God calls us and we call God.  Why?  We find ourselves ever needing help.  We don't find ourselves omni-competent to tasks of life which seem to be required of us.

God is always calling to us.  And whether we know it or not we are always calling, we are always talking to someone on our insides.  We are always using words, borrowed words from and to the Eternal Word itself.  And yet we don't always know that we are talking and calling to the Eternal Word itself.  The Psalmist teaches us that in our talking, we can accept the fact that we are borrowing the words of the Eternal Word, and that in fact it is upon the ground of Eternal Word that we are talking, and we are calling.  We are calling in words, and asking for more words, more words to help us.  And we want those words also to be in the choreographed body language and nature language deeds of safety, protection, purpose and kindness towards us.

One of the most telling historical facts of the New Testament writings, does not come from the Gospels which were written rather late; it comes from the earliest writer, St. Paul.  St. Paul wrote in the  sixth decades that he knew Cephas; he knew Peter who had known Jesus of Nazareth.  This perhaps the most telling chain to establish the historical fact of Jesus of Nazareth.  St. Paul had an Christophany, an epiphany of the Risen Christ; yet he needed his Epiphany connected with the Jesus of Nazareth who was known by Peter, James, and the Apostles.  St. Paul did not let his calling remain an individual, self-edifying event; he had it verified within a community of people who also shared a range of varieties of callings of the Risen Christ.

The Gospels include the traditional stories about how the original companions were called by Jesus.  For Peter, it included many calling events, including an event when a non-fisherman Jesus meddled in the fishing specialty of Peter, James and John and told these expert fishermen how and where to fish.  Peter, a prideful fisherman was rebuked by this success of Jesus, this one who had the audacity to tell these long-time fisherman how to do their jobs.  Peter, like any of us, can have humbling experiences when insight comes from unsuspected sources.  Sometimes we have to let the surprising success of grace humble our prideful selves, and then we need to realize that we need such grace to bring good news to other people.  There is nothing omni-competent about any of us such that we don't need grace to attend us in being accepted by others to deliver to them something good about their lives as it pertains to God's love, and the freedom to be able to love better.

Let us accept the many callings of God which are coming to us; let us accept that we have words going on inside of us always which we have borrowed from the Eternal Word at the basis of knowing itself; let us accept the fact that ultimately we are calling and talking from and to the Eternal Word.  And let us accept our call to call others to the truth of a loving God, calling us to love better, and who shows how to do this best in the life of Jesus Christ.  And let us not over-estimate our charm or eloquence to convince people; let us ask for grace to meddle in people's lives toward loving God and each other.  Amen.