TAKING RISKS

7th February 2010 : Epiphany 5 : Year C
9:30am Camillo
Isaiah 6:1-8 : 1 Corinthians 15:1-11 : Luke 5:1-11

In 2006 BBC One produced an intriguing documentary series that SBS aired last year. It was called The Trawlermen and followed the harrowing lifestyle of Scottish fishermen operating out of the town of Peterhead in Aberdeenshire.

These men take their boats out into the vicious waters of the North Sea, infamous for its violent temperament and ice-cold temperatures. Trawling the North Sea is NOT the maritime equivalent of a gentle stroll in the park on a lazy Sunday afternoon-a…!

The Sea of Galilee, the backdrop to today’s gospel, also had a reputation for being treacherous and unpredictable, a place where winds could sweep in suddenly and whip the water into a frenzy of frothing waves and plunging troughs.

And when we meet Simon Peter he’s experiencing every professional sea-going fishermen’s nightmare – long, expensive hours for absolutely no gain. As he tells Jesus, they’ve trawled all night and caught nothing, nada, zilch, zero, rien.

It’s against this background that we find Luke’s version of the call and commissioning of Peter, James and John. Luke’s story has none of the straightforward brevity of Matthew and Mark. He’s a first-century cinematographer and he wants to give us some vision, some visuals that will not only enliven a mundane call story but also provide a vignette of a life lived in faith.

So, what are the elements of this short short film that Luke produces and directs? The first is obvious enough – the actual call. Jesus, after teaching the crowd, invites Simon to go into deep water and drop his nets.

The second element is trust. Despite logical, rational objections, Simon Peter takes Jesus’ word for it and does as “the Master” asks. His trust finds its reward in the so-called miraculous catch – more fish than either the nets or two fishing boats can safely hold.

Is this meant to be a blatant example of Jesus showing off? Highly unlikely. It’s hard to imagine Jesus doing anything so gratuitous and self-serving. A better fit is that it illustrates God’s power when human beings put their trust in the divine and allow God to act within the world through human agency.

A third element in the call narrative is unworthiness. Simon Peter, recognising the presence of God, suddenly becomes acutely aware of his failings. In one sense it’s a natural and unexceptional response: God’s presence ought to overpower us with such a sense of awe and wonder that we become paralysed, time stands still, all pretence drops from our being and we stand naked before the Living God clothed only in that uncomfortable part of us that we cannot seem to release by our own power – our sins, our failings, our neurotic clinging to faults real and imagined.

In another sense, though, this talk and feeling of unworthiness are sheer silliness. Does God need advice on who will fit the bill? Does God not know already that no one called into divine service is perfect? That we all have weaknesses and failings? Of course God knows these things. But hey – feeling unworthy is great for anyone seriously into self-manufactured humility. It’s one of the best free, legal mind-altering substances around…

Which brings to element number four: God’s grace. This is what operates when God calls people to serve the divine purpose and seek the divine will in our world.

Much happens behind the scenes as it were to enable us to engage and sometimes even complete the task God sets us. Grace deals with the objection of unworthiness – unworthy? Who, sir? You, Sir? What unworthiness?

Grace enables us to do things we otherwise would successfully talk ourselves out of doing. We see this in Isaiah and Paul’s continuing correspondence with the Corinthian mob. In the latter, God’s grace is also formative, fashioning us into the people God needs for the tasks at hand: “I am what I am,” says Paul famously. How? “By the grace of God.”

In other words, even though Paul was a persecutor and only received his vision of Jesus last, nevertheless, he now does what he does as a result God’s freely-given power to enable us all for God’s work.

We see these elements in the call of Isaiah – the call, the trust, the sense of unworthiness, God’s grace. In a more condensed form, call, trust, unworthiness and grace are all present in the piece we hear from Corinthians.

Where does this place us in the Parish of the Holy Spirit, in the Anglican Parish of Camillo?

It leaves us confronting the most unpleasant reality of vocation in God’s service. It’s not that we might fail; it’s not that we might be hurt, emotionally, psychologically and sometimes physically. Crikey, people might laugh at us or call us names. Perhaps having to deal with our own sense of inadequacy and worse, our prevarication, procrastination and stagnancy – perhaps they’re a little part of it.

But the greatest stumbling block involves taking risks. Remember, faint heart never fashioned deathless prose for a Valentine’s Day Love Book entry – and vocation without risk is like coffee without a cup to contain it – it’s wasted.

Remember also the gospel. What does Jesus ask Simon to do? He asks him to go into deep water. Not the relatively safe, secure shallows. And in that deep water place, what happens? Simon’s equipment is nearly trashed and not one but two boats nearly sink because Simon and his colleagues are so successful.

So if we want to remain safe and warm ourselves by the inviting embers of failure and sin, it’s best to ignore God’s call. But do get used to being nagged, because God won’t give up.

If we do set out into deep water, then we can count on God’s grace to assist us and, in the process, transform us into the people God created us to be.

As ever, we have choices. Which will ours – individually and as a Parish – seek safety? or take the risks God invites us to engage, with the greater security of knowing that we sail – however deep the water – with the power of the grace of the Living God.