Readings: Isaiah 6:1-2a, 3-8/ Ps 138:1-2, 2-3, 4-5, 7-8 (R/V 1c) / 1 Corinthians 15:1-11 / Luke 5.1-11
“...what matters is that I preached what they preach and this is what you all believed” (1 Corinthians 15.11)
This is how St Paul closes his teaching to the Corinthians in today’s second reading. His words describe the essence of his mission: to proclaim the Good News that Jesus Christ preached and the apostles handed on. Throughout history Christians imitated St Pau; many heard and believed the Good News. We have received this Good News too, and we believe. Our Christian task is to hand it on to others.
St Paul’s words remind me of this instruction to deacons: “Believe what you read, teach what you believe, and practise what you teach.” The ordaining bishop says it to them at their ordination. They are ordained not just to proclaim the Good News; they are to live Jesus’ way of life – for service.
The call to service is the message in today’s readings. Serve the Lord by serving His people. This call is for you and me, as it is for deacons and those first Christians St Paul addressed at Corinth. We know this call. Today God repeats it to us. Are we hearing God?
St Paul preaches Jesus, God-with-us, loving and saving us. He preaches with words, even more, with his life. He does with a selfless ‘yes’ to the Lord.
We also want to say ‘yes’ to the Lord. We want to echo Isaiah and say, “Here I am, send me.” This is our holy intention because we want our Christian life to count for something.
The honest truth is that we all struggle to do this. Like Isaiah, we know how wretched, how lost, and how unclean we are when we sin. Even more, we know it when we look into the face of God and encounter his immeasurable goodness and love. For many of us, God’s mercy to forgive overwhelms, and we want to run away from God and hide.
Run away: this is how the Evil One seduces us. Tempting us that we are never good enough. Never good enough especially for God.
Today, Jesus’ words and actions remind us that we are more than good enough to stay with Him and live His call to serve. Stay and serve with him on mission. With Him beside us. With Him who – first of all – steps into the boats our lives are.
In the gospel reading, Jesus steps into Peter’s boat. He does not ask permission. He takes Peter’s place in the boat. From here, He preaches and teaches God’s people with authority. Indeed, Jesus steps into Peter’s boat and the people’s lives as the Good Shepherd who looks out for His own and cares for them.
Even more, it happens because Jesus’s bold, even impertinent, act of stepping into the empty boat changes everything. Peter does not lose his boat nor does Jesus possess it. Rather, both enter into friendship and this makes Peter’s faith, life and service come alive and flourish.
Jesus wants to do the same for us; He is inviting us to partner him, and as our friend He will let our lives flourish by serving others. If we do, the empty nets in our lives will be filled, often with excess beyond our imagination. There will be fish for the catch, food for nourishment and life in abundance instead of emptiness or lack.
What we don’t have, Jesus will provide, often with much more that we can possibly imagine. When we don’t have, Jesus will turn up and give, always surprising us. This miracle of something more and better out of nothing is Jesus’ assurance that God keeps his promise to be with us and for us.
Again and again, Jesus reminds us what God’s expectation is: that we share generously, even better, that we do it selflessly. Many others need this goodness that sustains and nourishes, refreshes and remakes us and our lives. Once again, Jesus calls us to share what we receive from Him through lives of service. Are we?
Right here, right now, Jesus is indeed stepping into the boats of our lives. However fragile, broken, shabby, unsightly, even ill-fitted for the open waters, we are, Jesus is stepping into our lives through today’s readings, today's Eucharist.
Stepping into our lives because Jesus chooses us to join Him and serve everyone. His love is bighearted that where we see our unworthiness, he values us worthy. Worthy, and, even more, worth His while and His love to be His.
Indeed, our life becomes His boat -- wide and deep enough to include and shelter many. A boat sturdy and strong enough to brave stormy seas to bring all to safety. With Him in the boat of our life, He will lead us far and wide across the waters to those in need at the horizons. Indeed, we are truly His vessel to carry the lifesaving cargo of the Good News to all peoples.
You know how true this is when you live in God’s Spirit and let Him shape your life for the good of others. Can you recall a moment when you made a difference for others? Now that’s how good your partnership with Jesus can be for someone else.
Jesus does this for everyone through us and with us because He wants to. He desires so very much to step into our lives and set himself up in order to transfigure us for better. He will do this by forming us to:
believe what we read in Scripture,
teach what we believe to everyone,
practise what we teach in our lives.
Today we have every right to be joyful because Jesus wants to make us better to serve Him by serving others. We can help Jesus make this happen by cooperating with Him in our lives. Let us begin by responding, not just hearing, this instruction He says to us, as he once said to Peter, “put out into deep water and pay out your nets for a catch.”
Shall we? Dare we?
Preached at Church of the Church of the Sacred Heart
Photo by shayan abedi on Unsplash
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