Sermon for Epiphany 5C
February 7, 2010
Texts:  Isaiah 61:1-13; Psalm 138; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11; Luke 5:1-11 

I can’t handle the holiness.

In the Message translation of the Bible
This is part of what Simon Peter says to Jesus,
When the fish are landing,
The nets are breaking,
And the boats are sinking.

I can’t handle the holiness.
That was Peter’s reaction,
And that may be the same reaction you get
When everything around you seems to be just a bit too holy.

Many of us have a love--hate relationship with holiness.

We are quite used to reciting the various psalms
That talk about God’s holiness,
And we certainly love to sing songs that call God holy.

But perhaps you are just a little tenuous about being too holy
Or being around too much holiness.

We have a phrase, not usually used in a complimentary way,
“Holier than thou”.

We also have at least a little fear of the mystical.

As Lutherans and particularly New England Lutherans,
We consider ourselves to be pretty practical people,
Nuts and bolts kind of folks,
And things too holy, too sacred, or too mystical
Put us just a little bit on edge. 

I have seen the skepticism in your faces
When we talk about passionate spirituality.

Last Wednesday at the All Committee night
Some of the reactions to the discussion
Of passionate spirituality
Started with comments like
“What is it?
I just don’t get it!”

My own husband expressed his lack of understanding,
And alluded to Garrison Keillor having a field day
With a possible skit about using the terms Lutheran, New England,
And Passionate Spirituality in the same sentence. 

I get the sense that Simon Peter was a pretty practical guy too.
Fishermen have a reputation for being fiercely independent,
And able to survive in all kinds of conditions.
They aren’t known for engaging in a lot of mystical behavior.

Simon Peter is also the down-to-earth one,
Who will, later, in his interactions with Jesus
Want to build little huts
When Elijah and Moses show up!
Stay tuned, you’ll get to hear about that story next week.

I’ll bet Simon Peter wasn’t quite sure
What he had gotten himself into with Jesus.

A few weeks earlier,
He had seen Jesus cure his mother-in-law from a fever.
Her recovery was so quick
That she was back in kitchen serving dinner,
When only moments earlier she had been in bed with a debilitating fever.  

Now after a night’s hard work
Without catching as much as a small bait fish,
Jesus tells him to go back out and cast out his nets.

Did you catch his answer?
There is almost a note of malicious compliance in Simon Peter’s voice.

Jesus, you’re a carpenter, not a fisherman.
We’ve been out all night.
Night is when you catch fish out in the deep with nets,
Not in the daytime.  We didn’t catch anything last night.
But, now in the daytime, you want me to go back out!
But if YOU TELL me to go out, I’ll do it,
But I’m not responsible for what happens.

Simon Peter rows out into the deep.

With Jesus, he casts out his nets
And catches so many fish,
That he has to call for help.
Even with the help,
His nets tear and his boat begins sinking. 

He doesn’t know
Whether to be skeptical
Or deadly afraid,
And it appears that his reaction has a bit of both sentiments. 

We hear Simon Peter say
“Get away from me Jesus.
I’m a sinner
And I just can’t handle all this holiness stuff.”

He might as well have said:
“I’m deathly afraid.”
“I am too much of a sinner to be in the midst of all this holiness.
“What you’re doing doesn’t fit in with my picture of the world.”
“I don’t want to be in the middle of all this miracle stuff.”
“I just want to go back to being a fisherman.”

Peter, might also have been thinking
About all the implications of this fish miracle.
He now has broken nets to mend,
A water logged boat to salvage,
And a ton of fish to dump on the market.

He might have been thinking,
What will happen next if I hang around with this Jesus guy?

Another person in this morning’s lessons
Was also thrust into the middle of holiness,
And his reaction had a lot of similarities to Simon Peter’s

The prophet Isaiah also found himself into the middle
Of an intensely spiritual event in the temple.

We don’t know if he was there alone,
Or if this event happened in a way that only he could see it.

Isaiah saw the Lord in the temple,
Surrounded by terrifying angels,
Not your Christmas pageant kind of angels,
But fierce ones, who job it is to protect God.
He felt the earthquake,
And smelled the temple fill with smoke.

In the midst of this holiness,
Isaiah, like Simon Peter, cried out
Woe is me, woe is me
I am a man of unclean lips
(Or in other words, I am a sinner;
I’m doomed).

When we come to a story
Like the one of Isaiah in the temple,
And hear about the intense glory of God
Many of us simply gloss over the reading,
Or kind of partially tune out the hearing. 

That mysticism of being in the presence of God
Is simply too much for us to absorb.

For any number of reasons,
Things that are too holy, too spiritual
Or too mystical take us to the edge,
And a lot of times, we don’t want to be transported to that edge.

Is your rational, practical side skeptical
Of anything that smacks of being other worldly,
Or of something you can’t document with one of your five senses?

Are you afraid of the loss of control
If you surrender yourself to the mystery of being in God’s presence?

Are you perhaps OK, with a private spiritual experience,
But you don’t want anyone else to know what is going on?

It could be fear, or skepticism, or privacy
That makes you want to shy away from a deeply spiritual experience
Or at least from letting anyone else share in your experience. 

Yet sometimes God won’t let us shy away from that kind of experience.

Even after Simon Peter told Jesus to get lost,
Jesus came back at him, “Don’t be afraid,
If you can catch fish like that, I have work for you.
Follow me and you will catch people”

Even though Simon Peter didn’t really like this “letting go” kind of experience.
Even though he couldn’t understand what was going on.
Even though he had caught fish when, by all logic,
In deep water in the daytime he shouldn’t have,
Despite all this, Simon and his buddies,
All got out the boat and followed Jesus. 

And Isaiah, even though he had been scared out his wits,
By his spiritual encounter in the temple,
When God called, “whom shall I sent, who will go for me”
Isaiah stood up and volunteered for more exposure to the Holy,
With the words, “Here I am, send me.” 

Despite their fear,
Or maybe because of it,
Despite the sense of being out of control,
Despite not being able to handle the holiness,
Simon Peter, his buddies, as well as the prophet Isaiah,
All willingly sign up and take risks
For assignments that will keep them
Into some kind of faith deep water,
A kind of perpetual spiritual limelight.

How about you?

This spiritual stuff seems vague and a bit squishy
Or worse yet, even a bit touchy-feely.
Miracles seem like something that happen only in the Bible,
And being in the presence of God seems scary,
And admitting it publically seems even more scary,
Or perhaps even a bit crazy.

What is God up to?

Is God perhaps calling you to have to a life of mysterious faith,
While you want to stay in your safe, rational comfort zone?

Is God perhaps calling you to a deeper, richer relationship,
While you want your religious experience to be a little more hands off?

Is God calling you to risk the abundance of full nets,
While you want to live with a low risk sense of scarcity?

With God, when you risk, respond and move out of rational comfort,
You don’t know where you will end up,
But you can be sure that it will bring you closer to God
And into a life of deeper spirituality.

Simon Peter, the bumbling, questioning, fearful fisherman sinner,
Who couldn’t handle all the holiness,
Was transformed by God into the rock
On which Christ built his church.

Isaiah, who could only cry woe is me,
Was used by God
To prophesy to the people of Israel in a time of national darkness.

God has a role for you,
Yes, you, who feel tenuous about anything that seems too holy or too mystical.
And yes, you, who are not too sure about being in the presence of God.

I can’t tell you what God has in mind for you,
But the Good News is that Jesus sent the Spirit to be your guide and counselor.
If you listen quietly, you will hear the Spirit.
It may not come as earthquake or with the rush of smoke filling the church,
It may come with a small still voice, or perhaps even in the sheer silence.
It may be mediated through another person.
But, for sure, God will reach out to you.

God is calling you into a deeper relationship,
And an experience beyond your wildest dreams.

When you hear, feel or sense the Spirit moving you,
May God help you, like Isaiah, to say,
“Here I am. Send Me!” 

AMEN