God Qualifies the Called

This sermon was preached by Pastor Ted Carnahan on the Fifth Sunday after Epiphany, February 8, 2025.

Transcript

Grace, mercy, and peace be with all of you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Our culture has become very informal. Some of you who are on the older side of things and anybody who's acquainted with history would look at the way that people lived a hundred years ago and think, "Wow, they dressed up every day?" And they didn't think of it as dressing up. They just thought of it as the way that you lived.

The way that people talked to each other also had notes of formality in it. We didn't call adults by their first names and we used Mr. and Mrs. and we tried to be as polite and use our pleases and thank yous. That's maybe not so much the way that most people conduct themselves today. In fact, if you do that, a lot of people will look at that and say that it seems stuffy or stuck up or just too much.

Understanding Holiness in a Casual Culture

In our casual culture, sometimes it's hard for us to wrap our minds around the idea of formality. It's difficult for us to think about propriety. And I think that that makes it a little difficult for us to think about what is holiness. Holiness is something that we know: we know that God is holy. We talk about holy baptism, holy communion. We talk about "holy cow," right? It's an exclamation. But holiness is actually something that I think that we have a hard time getting in touch with. And I think it would do us good to do that.

The Nature of Holiness

Holiness is the attribute of being set apart for a higher purpose. And so things that are set apart by God or for God cannot be treated in ordinary ways. They have to be treated specially. Not because God necessarily has said you must do it in this way, but because we as human beings understand that when something is holy, when it's set apart, there's something special and we need to treat it with special care.

There are holy things in this room. We talk about holy baptism in the baptismal font. We're saying that that is a special place. It's not an ordinary bath. It's not to be used for ordinary purposes. We don't wash our clothes in the baptismal font, though of course we could, but we don't. We choose not to because it is something that we want to have remain set apart for God's purposes.

Our altar is a communion table, but it's not just an ordinary common table, but it's the table of the Lord's mercy. It is the place where the extraordinary miracle of the sacrament of the altar comes to be. These holy things are not holy in and of themselves, but they're holy because they have been set apart for the use of God and his people.

The altar is not some common table. The font is not some common bath. Yes, it is still a table. Yes, it is still a fountain, but it is holy. It has been set apart.

Isaiah's Encounter with God's Holiness

In our first reading today, Isaiah, the prophet, experiences God's holiness, and he experiences it in a way that is extraordinary and which convicts his heart. He has a vision, and yes, it's a vision, but it feels very real to him, and it's not just a vision of something beautiful or different. It's not just an imagination. Not something that he's just having dancing in his head, but he has a vision of something set apart, of something so extraordinary and beautiful and powerful and good that it must be called holy, and therefore it is awesome.

And that's another problem is that we use the word awesome to describe things that maybe aren't quite as awesome as God, right? You ever sing that song, Our God is an Awesome God? That's an oldie, but that song is talking about awesome, not great, not fantastic, wonderful, super cool, but awesome as in awe-inspiring and powerful. Not awesome like neat, but awesome as in striking fear into our hearts because of his power and his majesty.

There's something going on in Isaiah's experience which is beyond our experience and something of which we are not worthy, that Isaiah knows that he's not worthy. He doesn't just feel amazement in the presence of God, but he is certain that he is about to die.

He sees this vision of God, and his reaction is, "Woe is me." In fact, if you've ever heard somebody say, "Oh, woe is me," they're quoting Isaiah here. That's where it came from. "Woe is me! I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and I have seen the Lord of hosts." I am an unclean person. I am not holy, not set apart. I am quite common, and I've come into the presence of a holy God, and I am surely lost. I do not belong here. In fact, his dread comes from the fact that he sees the holiness of God. He says, "I have seen the King, the Lord of hosts." And he says, "I'm going to die. I'm not worthy to be here. Surely I will be destroyed, because as beautiful and holy as this place is, I am that which is defiling and desecrating it. My presence is the problem."

Peter's Encounter with Jesus

I think that this is the awe that St. Peter is experiencing in our gospel lesson today. Upon encountering Jesus Christ for the first time, he knows that this man, Jesus of Nazareth, is an itinerant preacher and a rabbi. He watches him at the Sea of Gennesaret. He's on the seashore, and he's taking care of his fishing, and it hasn't been a good day fishing. And he's watching Jesus on the shore, preaching to other people.

And then Jesus asks him to let him get out a little bit so he can see all the people, and then they're not pressing in on him so close. And so Peter kindly allows this itinerant preacher, this rabbi, to get in his boat, and they go out a little bit so that everybody can see him, and he's got a little breathing room.

And he begins to teach the people some more, and Peter's been listening. And then after that, almost in the form of a reward, Jesus looks at his nets and his boat and realizes how poor the catch has been, and he says, "Throw out your net into the deep water there." And the catch is enormous. In fact, between him and the other boat, they catch so many fish that they haul them into the boat, and it's so heavy that the boat begins to sink. I bet you guys who enjoy fishing would love to have that be a problem you'd like to solve.

Peter's Realization of Jesus' Holiness

And Peter knows that's not normal. He's a professional fisherman. He doesn't just go out on the weekends. I mean, some of you go out on the weekends, and you've got all the professional equipment. But he does this every day. This is his livelihood. This is how he makes his living. He knows the area. He knows all the spots. If Peter the fisherman has decided that the fishing is poor today, there's nothing that anybody else is going to be able to do about that.

But for some reason, this seasoned fisherman, this consummate professional, this young man who knows his fishing spots better than probably anybody else in that area recognizes something in a flash of inspiration. This man is somebody to be listened to, and he has something to say.

And so he does. He listens. He listens to the nets, and he throws them out one last time into the deep waters, and they catch literal boatloads of fish.

And he has another flash of inspiration. He realizes there's something very strange going on here. This man is no man alone. This man is the Lord. He realizes in this flash of inspiration that Jesus is Lord, and he is so struck by the holiness of this rabbi, this teacher, this man that he just met and heard him preaching just a few minutes before. But he seems to have power beyond what any mortal man can do or have. And when he hauls in this catch of fish, he realizes that this man, Jesus, has got something to him that he's never seen before.

And he's so struck by the holiness of this man, Jesus of Nazareth, that he is immediately cut to the heart and realizes that the one thing that isn't holy in this boat is him. He says something perhaps he's heard many times in his childhood in the synagogue growing up. His sin makes him unworthy to be in the presence of the Lord. Perhaps even he remembers the words of Isaiah, "I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips." And he says, "Lord, I am not worthy to be here. Get away from me, Lord, because you are holy and I am not."

He recognizes his sin. He's face to face with his shortcomings. He experiences conviction. He's guilty. He doesn't belong there. He doesn't belong in his own boat!

Jesus' Call to Peter

And even though Peter is just a fisherman, he's not a religious leader, probably barely literate if at all, Jesus says to him this, and it changes his whole life. He says, "Do not be afraid. From now on, you will be catching people."

And for some strange reason, you might be wondering why Peter was so willing to follow. And that is a good question. But I want to ask you another question, something that I wonder about a little bit more. Why was Jesus so willing to have Peter follow him?

He may or may not have been able to read or write. He was not an educated guy. He was not from a good family. He wasn't anything particularly special. We wouldn't look at Peter and be like, "That guy is going to be the next major religious leader in the Roman Empire. Yeah, you keep your eye on that guy." We say, "Hey, I hope he catches some fish. I'd like to buy some."

He wasn't qualified. But Jesus saw something in him and called him, of all people, to be a preacher. And he went about that work from that day until the day he died.

God Qualifies the Called

There's a cliche, and I'm going to repeat it because I actually think it's true, even though it's probably said too much. "God doesn't call the qualified. God qualifies the called."

Maybe it has been said a little bit too often, but it's actually true. And I think we bear reminding the work of God is not about our ability. It's not about how fancy of people we are, how well educated we are, or how rich or poor we are, or any other thing. It's about the message God has given you to share.

Stand in This and Believe It

That's what St. Paul is saying in 1 Corinthians tonight. "Hold firmly to the message that I preach to you. You received it and you stand in it and hold fast to that message," not because Paul is great, but because all he did was he handed over to you as of first importance what he has been given. And that's something that anybody can do. He's been given a message to share, and the message St. Paul then shares with others and says, "Stand in this and believe it."

And the message is all that matters, not the messenger, which is a good thing too, because while Peter may have been of no account, there was a couple of fishermen in the crew that Jesus originally called. Paul was a persecutor of the church. He literally presided over the murder of innocent Christians. And yet God chose to qualify him, not by his great learning and education. He was very well educated, but because he humbled him and showed him his mercy.

And Paul trusted that mercy more than his own life. And he made him a messenger of Christ, a messenger of the cross of Jesus. And that message makes all the difference in the world for us.

The Heart of the Gospel

That message that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that on the third day he was raised in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, that is to say Peter, and then to the Twelve. And then he appeared to more than 500 brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still, at the time of Paul's writing, still alive, though some have died.

It's a simple message, but if it's true, it changes everything. Because it means that Jesus really is the Lord, that the scriptures call for the death of this suffering servant in order to atone for the sins of the world, and that Jesus Christ is that atonement. That Jesus fulfills all the scriptures spoken of him in the Old Testament. That he lives a perfect life, and then he dies upon the cross, not for his sins, but for yours.

And that God vindicated him and proved that he really is the Christ, the Messiah, the anointed one of God, by the power of the resurrection, which means that you can trust him. And not only just trusting him, but you can trust Peter, because he saw it with his own eyes. And you can trust the other apostles, some of whom write in our Bible, and all of whom saw it with their own eyes. And you can even trust, in Paul's day, the 500 witnesses of the resurrection who rose and saw Jesus alive, most of whom were still alive at that time, all of whom have gone to the Lord now, but all of whom would tell you, "I have seen the Lord alive after his death, face to face, with my own eyes."

Yes, it's crazy. Yes, it's amazing. Yes, it's awe-inspiring and holy. But it's true!

The Call to Share the Gospel

That message, that's the center of our faith. And anybody can share that. You are a sinner. You are a man or woman of unclean lips, living among an unclean people. But God, in his infinite mercy, gives you his holiness, like Isaiah is given holiness through the burning coal on his lips.

Your sins have been washed away in the holiness of baptism. Your sins have been washed away and you have been given saving faith. Not as your own choice, but as a gift. All of it comes as a gift. You have nothing to offer or exchange, but it all comes to you as gift. And all you can say is, "Lord, thank you for choosing someone like me."

Of First Importance

You are being given here that which is of first importance, the true gospel of Jesus Christ, the Lord who has died for you and risen for you. And you are fed here with the holy body and the precious innocent blood of Jesus Christ.

Holy baptism, holy absolution, holy communion.

And therefore, you, as the baptized and chosen people of God, are qualified to share the good news with other people, to hold that out in your life as of first importance, to have the holiness of God come not from inside you, but from outside you, to make you worthy of the presence of God, live in this new life, not defined by who you have been, but by whom you now belong to.

Cling to the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Trust in his mercy, for he has died and risen for you.

And may the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and minds strong in Christ Jesus, our Lord, to life everlasting. Amen.