Sermon at Whiteparish All Saints’
Parish Church, - 4th Sunday before Lent –
Sunday 6th February 2022
Isaiah 6:1-8(9-13); 1 Corinthians
15:1-11; Luke 5:1-11
Each of the
three readings this morning has, essentially the same theme. Can you identify
what it is? Well, for me, the message
which each of these three pieces of scripture portrays is that of “renewal”
after a period of desperation and I think that we can all identify with this topic
as we hopefully move out of our own Covid exiles into a new beginning.
I have
always liked the gospel reading in particular.
Many of you will know that I was brought up in a tough northern town –
Grimsby on the southern bank of the Humber Estuary famed for its fishing and
food processing. Indeed, when I was growing up it boasted of being the largest
deep sea fishing port in the world with literally hundreds of trawlers sailing
daily out of the port and spending several weeks at sea before returning with
their catch – mainly haddock and cod. My grandfather was a trawler skipper
captaining one of these vessels. On
their return to Grimsby, he and his crew would be well rewarded with a
percentage of the money from the sale of the fish, but if either there was a
glut which kept the price low or a poor catch they would receive little if
anything. It was literally feast or
famine. For the most part they did well,
as attested by the plethora of smart shops in the town at that time, but if not
their only hope was to go back to sea and hope for a better catch and, indeed,
return with their lives too!
These
fishermen were tough and sometimes quite rough characters and I have no reason
to suppose that Simon Peter and his brethren were any different. We know from the direct way Simon Peter often
spoke that he, like his counterparts in Grimsby, would get straight to the
point. I would see all the fishing nets
strung out on the dockside for repair or for returning to their ships and every
time I read or hear this passage the sights, sounds and smells of my home town
come flooding back to me. Unfortunately it is pure nostalgia now as there are
only a handful of vessels still sailing out of Grimsby and then only for a few
days at a time into the shallower waters of the North Sea. Most of the fish processing which still
occurs is mainly using fish imported from overseas and not directly landed in
the port. The town itself has lost its main reason for existence and can be
described as a deprived area of the country.
I am using
this example, not to make any political statements, but as a reminder that when
Jesus chose his first disciples, his first followers, he was not choosing
theologically learned people as most “rabbis” would have but ordinary
hard-working men just as he might have found in one of the pubs along Freeman
Street in Grimsby. These were men who probably drank hard, partied hard and
swore frequently – they were as far from the Pharisees and Elders of the Temple
as you could get. They probably laughed
at this “preacher-type” who had used one of their boats (probably at a price)
to preach to the crowd. When he told them to go out and fish on the lake, Simon
responded that they had had no luck despite their superior knowledge of where
the fish might be. However they did humour him, (or did they find something
special in the way he had preached?} and put out to sea and were astounded by
the catch they had – so many fish that other boats had to come to their
assistance. If they had been sceptical about Jesus and his ministry, they were
no longer because he had, effectively spoken their language – the language of
fishermen – the catching of fish. Jesus
then went on, in inviting them to join him, to use “fishing” as a metaphor –
“From now on you will be catching people” or as some translations have it “You
will become fishers of men”. And so,
here we have a most unlikely scenario – rough and ready fishermen becoming
disciples – ministers of religion if you like.
But, as we saw, this had happened before.
Our reading
in Isaiah is one of those pieces of scripture which is most often read at
services of ordination and licensing – especially the phrase “Whom shall I
send?”. There is a hymn – “I the Lord of Sea and Sky” which I had hoped to have
today but couldn’t find it in either of the church’s hymn books. I am sure you
all know it. Once again we have a situation where the writer feels totally
unprepared and unqualified to take on the role of prophet. He says, perhaps pre-empting the thoughts of
the fishermen several hundred years later after hearing and listening to Jesus
– “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a
people of unclean lips; yet I have seen the King, the LORD of Hosts!” We read that Isaiah’s lips were touched with
a hot coal from the Altar of the Lord and his guilt departed him such that he
then felt ready to offer his services in ministry.
Our third
reading again touches on this theme.
Paul was always conscious that he had never been an actual disciple of
Jesus – living and working with him – but only met him after Jesus’s death and
resurrection on the road to Damascus where he was going to persecute Jesus’s
followers. Accordingly we find throughout his writings his need to justify his
authority – especially on those occasions when he comes into conflict with
Peter, Andrew and James (those self-same fishermen). In this passage though, he humbles himself
for once and describes himself as “the least amongst the apostles, unfit to be called
an apostle, because he persecuted Jesus’s church. But he recognises that inspite of this he has
a story to tell which makes his testimony all that stronger because he was
chosen by Jesus despite his appalling antecedents.
What I
really love about all three of these readings is that in their individual and
collective way, they remind us that whatever we might have done in the past,
however educated or uneducated we are, we are all qualified to be
disciples. Indeed, Paul went even
further in reminding us of the concept of the priesthood of all people. It
shows us that to know Jesus is not necessarily about knowing about him
intellectually, it’s about having a personal relationship with him. It also
reminds us that God will meet us where we are.
He met Isaiah in a Vision of Heaven whilst Isaiah was contemplating the
destruction of the Temple and the Exile; He met Paul through Jesus on the road
to Damascus on his way to officially persecute Jesus’s followers, and he met
the fishermen in their workplace – on the shores of the Sea of Galilee.
And today he
continues to meet people in their everyday lives. We hear reports that thousands of Muslims
have been converted to Christianity after seeing visions of Jesus. In the Bible
too there are many instances of people being called to service from where they
are.
As Jesus’s
modern day “fishermen and fisherwomen”, I guess I should now say
“fisherpersons” we should recall the instructions he gave to his first
disciples in the Great Commission at the end of Matthew’s Gospel :
“All authority in heaven and on earth has been
given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing
them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and
teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am
with you always, to the end of the age”.
Let us pray
Father God, we
remember your call to those first disciples
by the Sea of
Galilee
who left their
occupation and followed you without question.
Grant that when so
called, we too may have the courage to answer
with the words of
Isaiah :“Here I am, send me”
so that the Good
News so much needed may be spread throughout the world.
We ask this
through your Son and our Saviour, Jesus Christ our Lord
Amen MFB/169/04022022
