{"id":1654,"date":"2025-02-09T09:30:55","date_gmt":"2025-02-09T14:30:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/?p=1654"},"modified":"2025-02-09T09:32:17","modified_gmt":"2025-02-09T14:32:17","slug":"here-i-am","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/2025\/02\/09\/here-i-am\/","title":{"rendered":"Here I Am"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Here-I-Am-Lord-2725-1.23\u202fPM.mp3\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A Sermon for the Locust Grove United Church of Christ of York, PA<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">by Rev. James Eaton, Interim Pastor \u00a92025<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Fifth Sunday After Epiphany\/Year C \u2022 February 9, 2025<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/bible.oremus.org\/?ql=606111181\">Isaiah 6:1-8<\/a> * <a href=\"https:\/\/bible.oremus.org\/?ql=606111218\">1 Corinthians 15:1-11<\/a> * <a href=\"https:\/\/bible.oremus.org\/?ql=606111245\">Luke 5:1-11<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">My favorite place in Spain is a little fishing village named Cambrils. Now, all fishing villages have a common layout, so imagine this scene being like that. There are the houses and churches and plazas to gather and then closer to the water various shops and caf\u00e9s. In a working village, there would be the smell of seaweed and rotting fish from the bits and pieces that fall off. You know what the shore smells like. Then there is a road, an open area, just in from the sea itself. Then there are the docks and the boats. There are gulls wheeling in the air over it the road and the docks, diving occasionally to find some speck of food. And then, of course, endlessly moving, always changing, there is the water. Jesus has gone to a fishing village to teach and heal and exorcize demons. Just like the story we read last week, people gather to hear him and marvel at his teaching. What they don\u2019t know is that something incredible is about to happen. Did you see it?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Today we\u2019ve read three stories of how people just like us came to be called by God. There\u2019s Isaiah, one of the greatest prophets of Israel. We think he was a priest in the temple, and he tells this fearful story of monstrous looking seraphim and a brazier from which a coal is plucked to touch his lips and purify his speaking. Wow: at my ordination a bunch of ministers, some of them so old they could barely get up after they knelt, laid their hands on me while a prayer was offered\u2014I\u2019m glad I didn\u2019t have Isaiah\u2019s initiation. Yet there is the same interplay, the same Lord asking, \u201cWho will go?\u201d And one person, Isaiah in this story, me at that ordination, saying \u201cHere am I, send me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The portion of First Corinthians is also a call story, although it may not seem so at first glance. Paul has been dealing with the divisions in that congregation, divisions caused in part by others coming and perhaps teaching them something different from what they\u2019d heard from Paul. So he quotes to them the bedrock of Christian faith. Scholars tell us that this looks like something already familiar, like the lords\u2019 prayer. If that\u2019s true, clearly it settled down early, because this letter was probably written about 20 years after Jesus.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures and that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. [1 Corinthians 15:3-8]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The striking thing about this is that it mixes things we hear other places, like the appearance of the resurrected Christ to Cephas, another name for Peter and then to the twelve. But it also mentions 500 brothers and sisters and James; we don\u2019t hear about those appearances anywhere else. At the same time, he doesn\u2019t seem to know about the appearance to Mary Magdalene that John mentions. He says at the end, \u201cWhether then it was I or they, so we proclaim and so you have come to believe.\u201d [1 Cor 15:11] So he\u2019s reminding them of their call in Christ.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That brings us back to Luke and the fishing village. Can you see it? Can you smell it? There\u2019s a crowd and frankly? Not all of them showered this morning. There are fishing guys working on nets. Most of a fisherman\u2019s time is actually spent cleaning and mending nets, not fishing. In Spain, that work was often done by women but here it seems to be Peter and Andrew and James and John and presumably others doing it. And there\u2019s Jesus. He\u2019s not new in town. The gospels tell this story a bit differently but in Luke\u2019s version, he\u2019s been there long enough to have gone to Peter\u2019s house, where he miraculously heals Peter\u2019s mother-in-law. Her response to this miracle is to get up and serve dinner. It\u2019s an interesting side note that the Greek word used for this\u2014diakonis\u2014gives us the word \u2018Deacon\u2019. Peter\u2019s mother-in-law was the first Deacon. The crowd is doing what crowds do, pressing in to hear and get closer. There\u2019s no sound system, just voice, and the thing about a fishing village is that it has an edge: step back too far, and you\u2019re in the water. I imagine Peter\u2019s boat being side tied to the dock, and Jesus asks to use that as a pulpit; Peter shrugs and says sure, so they get in, Jesus sits down, which is the position rabbi\u2019s used for teaching, and he talks to the crowd. None of the gospels tell us what he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Then there is this remarkable moment. He turns to Peter and says, &#8220;Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.\u201d Peter replies the way churches always reply when Jesus tells us to do something: \u201cWe already tried that, and it didn\u2019t work.\u201d It makes sense, doesn\u2019t it? After all, Peter and the others have been fishing these waters for a long time and most recently all night. I bet Peter grew up fishing; some people just take to it when they are small. My son did. And this is corporate fishing, it\u2019s not a rod and reel and a worm; you have to get ready, load bait, arrange the nets, get set. Peter and his crew are exhausted, they\u2019re ready to finish fixing the nets and go home and get some sleep. But here\u2019s this guy who may know a lot about the Torah but knows nothing about fishing calmly telling them to go fish. They know better; there just aren\u2019t any fish right there, right then.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I\u2019ve seen this play out in churches. Some new member is all excited about their new faith and new church, they get on a board and start suggesting things. The long time members quietly tell them, \u201cWe tried that ten years ago, and it was a failure\u201d or \u201cWe can\u2019t afford that\u201d or \u201cThat\u2019s not how we do it here.\u201d Thank God that this time, Peter and the others shrug and decide to go along with the new preacher. So they set out, let down the nets and there\u2019s a miracle: the nets fill up. Can you imagine what that would look like? Silvery, slippery fish jumping all over, the nets bulging, weighing down the boat. These are open boats, pull the side down far enough and they\u2019ll sink. The first time we took our sailboat out on our own, I forgot to detach something from the engine shaft. The result was that when I went below as we were starting back, there was water already up over the floor boards. I\u2019ve been sailing since I was 12 and in my whole life, that was one of the scariest moments. So I get what they are feeling. \u201cThis is too much!\u201d No wonder Peter says, \u201cGo away from me Lord!\u201d I wanted a big catch, but this is too big; I didn\u2019t want a miracle, I just wanted to get by.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They make it back to shore, apparently. We never hear what happened to all the fish; hopefully someone took care of them cleaned them sold them. Jesus just laughs; he tells them not to worry about it all because they\u2019re going to become fishers of men. Now if you grew up with that line like I did, you probably think this is where this turns into a sermon telling you to out and evangelize, get people to come to church with you. That would be a fine thing to do, but I don\u2019t think that\u2019s the message here. \u201cFishers of men\u201d has a particular meaning in the Bible. In Jeremiah (16:16) it\u2019s a description of God sending people to find evildoers and idolaters; in Amos 4:2, it\u2019s connected to being conquered and exiled because of the sins of the people and Ezekiel has a similar message. Becoming fishers of men isn\u2019t evangelism; it\u2019s confronting injustice. It\u2019s proclaiming the year of favor for the poor, recovery of sight to the blind, freedom to captives.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Peter hears this call and responds first with repentance, then with obedience. He\u2019s already called Jesus Lord; now he puts that word into action. He\u2019s gotten a glimpse of the miraculous abundance Jesus reveals. We call it eternal life sometimes; in the gospels it\u2019s a miraculous catch of fish, it\u2019s feeding thousands of people from a few donations. What is it here?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The musical <em>Rent<\/em> is about a group of Bohemian young people in New York in the plague years of AIDS. It begins with a song about abundance: \u201c525, 600 minutes\u201d, the minutes in a year. Stunning, isn\u2019t it? Isn\u2019t that a miraculous catch, to have 525, 600 minutes laid out this year waiting for us to fill them? Each of these stories offers us a perspective on God\u2019s call to someone, each is a question: who will go? Isaiah says \u201chere am I\u201d; Paul says, remember that Christ is risen. Peter says, go away from me Lord, but he follows Jesus, leaves the boat and the fish and his mother-in-law and presumably his wife and family behind. There are still 482,400 minutes left in this year. How will you fill them with your call? Oh, there\u2019s one other line from Rent I want to share: it\u2019s a refrain at the end: no day but today. When is God calling you? No day but today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Amen.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>God&#8217;s call expressed in Isaiah, 1 Corinthians and at the seashore by Jesus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,371,3,2,32],"tags":[329,4,98,67],"class_list":["post-1654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-epiphany","category-luke","category-sermon","category-worship","category-year-c","tag-call","tag-epiphany","tag-hope","tag-jesus"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1654"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1654\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1660,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1654\/revisions\/1660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}