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RCL YEAR C, EPIPHANY FIVE, February 4, 2007
Isaiah 6:1-8, 9-13; Psalm 138; 1 Corinthians 5:1-11; St. Luke 5:1-11
St. Edmund’s Episcopal Church
The Reverend George F. Woodward IIIAn Indiana farmer died and went straight to hell. Soon the devil noticed that the farmer, because of his hearty constitution, didn’t seem to be suffering like everybody else. “I kinda like it here,” says the farmer. “It’s about this hot when I’m plowing my fields in June.”
So the devil cranks up the thermostat to 100 degrees, with 90% humidity, and after awhile he goes back to see how the farmer is doing, and the farmer looks as happy as he can be. “This is even better!” says the farmer. “It’s like pulling weeds in July.”
The devil is pretty upset, so he cranks the heat up to 120 degrees with 100% humidity, and a bit later looks up the farmer. “This brings back wonderful memories,” says the farmer. “It’s like a barn raising in August.”
The devil is furious. He thinks for a bit, goes to the thermostat and sets the controls to 10 degrees below zero with snow. A little while later, the devil finds the farmer with a big grin on his face, and jumping up and down with joy. “Now what,” asks the devil. “Don’t ya see!” yells the farmer. “Hell’s done froze over, which means the Colts won the Super Bowl!”
The Colts are favored by 7 points, though so were the Buckeyes! I won’t be laying any wagers, and least of all with young Master Harrington.
St. Paul reminds us today, that we often are in need of reminding. “I would remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to you, which you in turn received, in which you also stand….” We need to be reminded that we are recipients of good news. The news from Iraq certainly isn’t good these days. There is much that can discourage us in our national life. There is much to discourage in the course of our daily routines; the pace we keep, our inability to do quite so much as we think we ought. And there is, in the post-modern world, a tendency to disbelieve that an ultimately hopeful Voice can be heard in the universe. This absence of Faith can be discouraging also.
G.K. Chesterton commented more than half a century ago on the premise of suspicion which underlies much of our thinking. “Most modern philosophies are not philosophy at all,” he wrote, “but philosophic doubt; that is, doubt about whether there can be any philosophy.” Many of our contemporaries lack the belief that there is anything worth believing in. (G. K. Chesterton, "St. Thomas Aquinas," Collected Works, Vol. 2, p. 494)
It is of first importance that we remember, St. Paul tells us, “that Christ died for our sins, that He was buried and was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve, then to more than five hundred at one time.” We are to remember that we are people of Hope, recipients of Good News. Our Faith positions us to believe that an ultimately hopeful Voice can not only be heard in the universe, but experienced in our daily lives. God loves us, relates to us with grace and goodness, summons us to our full potential, and to the manifestation of His presence for the well-being of others. That Good News should so animate us that we find it difficult to contain ourselves, for we have a word of hope for those who dwell too much in doubt and despair.
I’ve heard Episcopalians called Methodists with sore knees; I’ve heard us called Roman Catholics without the guilt. I’ve heard Episcopalians called Presbyterians who have made good in the stock market; folk who can always be found in the front of the bus, the back of the church, and the middle of the road. But I have not often heard Episcopalians called evangelists! We associate evangelists with loud fellows on television with hair like a Nepalese yak. But St. Paul tells us we are to be people of the “evangelio” “people of the good news.” In the way we live our lives, we are to be evangelists.
The Christian philosopher Soren Kierkegaard told a parable about a group of ducks who wandered off to duck church to hear a duck preacher. Last week I told a story about geese in formation, and now, church going ducks, so I guess my ministry is in a poultry phase! The ducks listened to the duck preacher speak eloquently of how God had given ducks wings with which to fly. With those wings, said the preacher, there was nowhere the ducks couldn’t go, there was no God-given task the ducks couldn’t accomplish. With those wings they could soar into the Presence of God. Quacks of “amen” echoed through the duck church, and at the end of the service, the duck congregation and the duck priest waddled out of the duck church and on home without flapping a single wing. “I would remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news in which you stand….”
People of the Good News should look like they’ve had some. Kierkegaard says we ought to fly…or at least flap our wings a bit! It isn’t small potatoes to believe in God’s work in one’s life, and to have confidence in life eternal. “Faith isn’t belief without proof, but trust without reservation” (Elton Trueblood). Faith isn’t gullibility. It isn’t denial of the scientific method, or a dogmatic rejection of new insights, as some of our co-religionists seem to think. Rather, it is an open, hopeful stance; a trust without reservation that God is with us in the human project. Such belief forms a glad heart.
When, like Peter on the shore after a night of unsuccessful fishing, we come to believe our efforts have come to naught. When there is no hope for us, nothing worth believing in, no philosophy to sustain, we are reminded that Christ calls us to push out onto the sea again, and cast our nets, and reap God’s own abundance. There is more to life than mustering our own resources. It is God in Whom we live and move and have our being, Who undergirds and surrounds and works to accomplish that which we cannot do for ourselves.
This is not always consoling! We are comfortable within our known limits. We’re not of a mood to push ourselves to think new thoughts and do fresh deeds. We take refuge, as Peter did, in complaint: “We fished all night, Lord, and caught nothing….” When Peter is shown life’s possibilities on the shore of the Gennesaret, he is not especially happy about it. “Go away from me, Lord!” he says. “Leave my neighborhood” gives perhaps a more accurate sense for the Greek. Peter is not initially comfortable in the world of possibility the Lord has revealed to him. He preferred his neighborhood the way it was before. He felt safe within the contraints of limitation.
“I will make you to fish for people,” Christ said to Peter. How did we come to imagine that this meant our Lord wanted us to imitate yak-haired TV preachers? To bear the evangelion into the world is to live boldly, informed by a sense of boundless possibility, animated by hope and God’s great goodness. It is to extend such news to others in a winsome manner through the testimony of our own lives where God is abundantly at work. It is to approach the most intransigent of problems with a sense of optimism, for we are not alone. It is to come to believe that we are ourselves, with all our faults and failures, vehicles of God’s good news, a conviction which finally came to St. Paul: “I am unfit to be called an apostle,” he said. “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and God’s grace toward me has not been in vain.”
Many lack belief that there is anything worth believing, which isn’t a stance that does much for avoiding a life of self-absorption or for developing a social conscience. So Paul reminds us that it needn’t be that way. We’ve received a hope and a faith in which to stand, challenging the small ways of life we may prefer. You are what you are, and you may not think that is enough, but God’s grace toward you has not been in vain, so cast your nets once again. Live boldly, and open to God’s fresh possibility. GFW+
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