Isaiah 6.1-8; 1 Corinthians 15.1-11; Luke 5.1-11

Our readings today reveal three encounters with the living God.

Let’s think for a minute about what we’ve heard.

First, there was that wonderful story of Isaiah’s calling from God. It’s a story that has been important for me personally as I explored my vocation to ordained ministry - those words of Isaiah’s “Here am I; send me,” are ones I come back to time and again.

They signify an openness and willingness to do God’s will. They suggest a submission to God and his ways. They are words I hope to echo each day as I perform my ministry.

They are words that I do not always live up to. I have, as I’m sure we all do, days where I really wonder what on earth I’m doing here and feel bogged down by the challenges of the Church and the work within it and beyond its walls that I have been called to do. But they are words which call me back and remind me of that initial “Yes,” of what is at the heart of who I am and what I do.

In his vision, Isaiah has an encounter with the holiness of God. And his encounter with the power and goodness of God elicits a response. “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips.” An encounter with goodness makes Isaiah feel inadequate and aware of his own shortcomings.

It’s a bit like those adverts for washing powder. A white shirt looks clean until it is placed alongside the one washed in new Sparkle or Sunlight or whatever they call washing powders these days.When set against something that is truly clean, the original shirt starts to look a little less clean, a bit grubby round the cuffs and collars and so on.

I think we can be a bit like that. If we look at our lives, we can’t see anything greatly wrong with them. We’re probably aware of the times when we specifically give in to temptation, but day-to-day most people do not live with an awareness of their sinfulness. In fact, many people, in church and outside, are strangely confused about what we mean by sin.

When I visit a couple who wish to have a child baptised, we look together at the baptism service and at the promises the parents are required to make. Time and again the response I receive is that they haven’t committed any sins. For them, sin is something great and terrible - murder or rape, perhaps, theft or burglary. Something that someone does that is patently wrong.

But, in my view, sin is much more than that. If it were only the large things, which most of us don’t do, then Christ’s coming has no meaning for most of us, since it would mean we were not tainted by sin.

Another idea that people sometimes have of sin is the seven deadly sins: pride, envy, anger, avarice, sloth, gluttony and lust. These are often the root causes of things we think of as sins. They are the roots that might make us then act out something or in the case of sloth, perhaps not do something we should have done. The seven deadly sins in past times became a helpful guide for people - first so they could know what sins were and avoid them - and this is a pretty all-encompassing list - and second so that they would know what to confess when they hadn’t avoided them.

But I think sin is about much more than lists of things to do and not to do. More than anything, sin is what divides us from God; it’s anything that harms our relationship with God. It’s what gets in the way, the block.

The Jewish people had evolved a whole system of laws to help people know what sins were so that they could avoid them. But the Jewish law was so complex that no one could keep it perfectly. Everyone sinned, because it was impossible to keep. The Jewish law was not able to save people from judgement because it couldn’t be kept in its entirety. If you want to explore more about this, just try reading Galatians and discover Paul’s view of the Law.

Isaiah’s encounter with God made him realise that he was a sinner. But the story didn’t stop there. The encounter with God led to a recognition of his sin for Isaiah and then to a cleansing from it. “Your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.” And, afterwards, he was sent to fulfil a specific ministry for God.

Paul, too, had an encounter with God. I hope you remember the story of how on the Damascus road Saul, as he then was, was struck down by a bright light and blinded. He heard the voice of Jesus: “Saul, Saul. Why do you persecute me?” It was a turning-point. Until now, Saul had persecuted Christians zealously. After his encounter with Christ, he turned from his former ways - and was commissioned to God’s work.

And, Simon Peter, who must have known of Jesus before his encounter with him, if we adopt Luke’s chronology, since his mother-in-law had been healed by Jesus.

Jesus’s first act is a very practical one. He has hordes of people gathering around and needs to find a way of speaking to them all. So he borrows a boat and pushes himself back from shore a little so that all can see and hear him - something that the geography of the area makes possible.

Did Simon stop and listen or carry on cleaning his nets? We don’t know. But at the end, Jesus turns to Simon with that astounding request to let down their nets. I wonder what went through Simon’s head initially. Here was a carpenter telling a fisherman how to fish. A fisherman who was tired after a night at sea when he and his mates had caught nothing, not one fish.

But a direct encounter with Jesus was too much to avoid. He responds and ends up with a marvellous catch of fish. He sees the power and holiness of God and he too is reminded of his own sinfulness.

Let’s think about what is similar between all these stories.

o All three men have encounters with the living God.
o All three men become aware of their own sinfulness.
o All three men receive forgiveness from God, and
o all three men are given a ministry to fulfil.

Each one of these men accepted the task that God was calling him too. They knew they had nothing to offer - Isaiah - I am a man of unclean lips; Paul - unfit to be an apostle; Simon - a sinful man. What they also recognised was that God’s calling does not depend on our worthiness.

God takes the unworthy and transforms it. All three men played an important part in the mission of God. All they had to do was to accept their calling.

Their recognition of their sinfulness was something that God accepted and then freed them from guilt.

I’m often struck (and have felt this at times myself) by the number of Christians who allow their own unworthiness to get in the way of fulfilling a call by God. If we waited till we were perfect, no Christian work would ever happen.

If we don’t allow God to use us while we are sinful, hurting, broken, wounded people, we will never respond.

At the heart of the Gospel is God’s forgiveness, God’s generosity, God’s belief that sinful humanity can be redeemed. The stories of Isaiah, Paul and Simon can give us hope for our part in God’s mission. They can remind us that even people we think of as God’s greats began their work as sinful people. They can remind us how life-changing an encounter with God can be if we respond to the holy. They can remind us that we are called to be part of God’s work.

Once they had become aware of their sinfulness and been released from it, it wasn’t God that had a problem with it. God sees the potential of people and longs for us to use it in sharing the work of the Gospel.

Thanks be to God. Amen.