This Sunday’s Gospel reading is a perhaps familiar story of Jesus calling disciples to follow him. But rather than picking the elite of society, the cream of the crop of potential recruits, Jesus chooses a few ordinary fishermen. It’s a surprising choice for starting a movement, but it’s consistent with the way God typically works. Over and over in Scripture, we read stories of God choosing flawed people. As a church full of ordinary, flawed people, that’s good news for us!
Today’s Scripture readings are Isaiah 6:1-9, 1 Corinthians 15:1-11, and Luke 5:1-11. For this sermon, I found helpful Kristin Thomas Sancken’s reflection in this week’s ELCA World Hunger Sermon Starters email. Today’s message is a little shorter than my typical sermon, as we also had a presentation in worship from the president of the Mt. Meru Coffee Project, a wonderful ministry of our synod that distributes coffee from farmers in Tanzania at fair prices. In addition, we installed this year’s church council members at Christ the King, and had a special litany for Scout Sunday at Living Hope.
Here’s the livestream from Living Hope and the sermon podcast audio.
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Grace to you and peace from God our Creator and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen
So far in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus has been pretty much a solo act. He’s done a few miracles, preached some sermons, and people are taking interest.
As we heard last week, not everyone’s happy with his message, but some people are starting to pay attention.
Now, in today’s story in Luke 5, Jesus starts to recruit helpers. Because if you want to start a movement, you need some people with you. Preferably famous people, influencers, people with power, people whom others listen to and look up to.
If you’re watching the Super Bowl tonight, look for how often brands include celebrity endorsers in their commercials. If that famous actor uses that laundry detergent, it’s probably good enough for me, right?
So Jesus goes to the temple and gets the high priest on his side. He finds the most popular Roman political leaders and gets their endorsements. They don’t have YouTube stars yet, so he finds the leading philosophers and rabbis and signs them up.
No! He goes down to the docks and invites a couple of fishermen to follow him.
Fishermen are not the leading social influencers of their day. Kristen Sancken writes,
“The Romans, who were occupying first-century Palestine, looked down upon fishermen. ‘The most shameful occupations are those which cater to our sensual pleasures,’ wrote the Roman poet Cicero, ‘fish-sellers, butchers, cooks, poultry-raisers and fishermen.’
In today’s terms, a fisherman might translate to a fast-food worker or agricultural day-laborer. Jesus chose the guys sweating by the deep fryer at McDonald’s.”
These are not the obvious people to lead a movement to change the world. But they are consistent with the way God seems to work throughout history. Over and over in the Bible, God pretty much always chooses people with flaws.
Maybe “people with flaws” is a redundant phrase, because all people have flaws. If God is going to choose to work through human beings, that means God is choosing flawed people.
Today’s readings include some of the great heroes of faith in Scripture. Isaiah is one of the greatest prophets in history, but the first thing he says when he encounters God is “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips.”
He knows he’s nowhere near worthy to stand in God’s presence. He’s overwhelmed by the sense of God’s holiness, God’s majesty and glory, and he knows he is a sinner. But God purifies him, and sends him as a prophet.
In 1 Corinthians 15, we heard part of Paul’s letter to the early church in Corinth where he says in verse 9, “I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.”
Paul was actively working to harm followers of Jesus, trying to get God’s people arrested and even killed when Jesus called him. We know him as probably the most important figure in the early church, the apostle to the Gentiles, the great church-planter, but in another letter, he apologizes to the Corinthians for how shy he was when he was with them in-person. He says he’s untrained as a public speaker.
And these aren’t the only examples, right? Pretty much everyone in Scripture has flaws, starting way back with Adam.
Abraham loses faith in God’s protection. Moses is a murderer and a poor speaker. David is the youngest in his family, overlooked by his father, and later commits adultery, but considered the greatest of God’s kings. Last week we heard Jeremiah’s objection that he was only a boy, but God promised to be with him.
And the list goes on.
There’s a great song by Peder Eide called As Is and I’m not going to play it for you right now—I’ll try to post it on our church Facebook page later—but let me read the first verse to you:
Moses was a stutterer, David was a murderer,
Jeremiah’s suicidal, naked in the street
Paul-he had a problem with specifics left unsaid,
Timothy had stomachaches, and Lazarus was dead.Samson was a long-haired, arrogant womanizer
Rahab was a scarlet-courted lady on the street
John the baptist eatin’ bugs and honey on his bread
Gideon a scaredy-cat, Lazarus was deadBut God chooses us as is.
Never-ending love transcending
all our weaknesses, no excuses,
He uses us as is.
This is the way God works. I listened yesterday to a podcast with United Methodist Bishop Will Willimon, and he talked about telling someone he was surprised God was calling him in the ministry and the person responded, “Why is that surprising? Read your Bible. God is a sucker for losers like you.”
When Jesus picks a team, he picks people with flaws. He calls them to follow. And the Holy Spirit equips them with everything they need to share the good news of Jesus.
Can we dare to believe God is calling us too? Can we dare to trust God will use us to make a difference in this world?
Can we dare to believe God has trusted us with the story Paul tells, the most important story in all of history, the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection, the story our neighbors and our world need to hear?
Do we dare answer Jesus’ call?
Please join me in prayer.
God in heaven, you are holy, you are mighty, you are far more than we can ever comprehend. And yet you call us to follow. We are unworthy, but you call us to be your disciples, to do your work in this world, to share your love in word and in deed. Lord, give us the will and the strength to follow you as disciples. Transform us to be your body in this world, in Jesus’ name.
Amen