(Isaiah 6.1-8; Luke 5.1-11) Epiphany 5
10 February 2019 – © Neil Millar
The title of today’s sermon is no doubt recognised by some of you as the title of the 1977 American sci-fi classic: Close Encounters of the Third Kind, written and directed by Steven Spielberg. Have any of you seen the film? It tells the story of Roy Neary, a run-of-the-mill blue-collar worker from Indiana, whose life changes dramatically after an encounter with a UFO. Thanks to Wikipedia, I’ve discovered that there’s a discipline called ufology and that it has a system for classifying close ‘alien’ encounters (i.e. encounters closer than 500 feet). Close encounters of the first kind, refer to UFO sightings in which actual detail of the object can be made out. Close encounters of the second kind refer to UFO events in which physical effect is alleged. And, close encounters of the third kind refer to events in which an animated creature or robot is also present. It goes on, but that’s enough; I imagine you can see where this is going. Both of today’s readings recount encounters between human characters and a strange ‘alien’ presence (in these cases, the divine holiness); encounters that changed these characters, and their lives, profoundly. The first is the story of Isaiah’s commissioning as a prophet of God; and the second, Simon Peter’s commissioning as a disciple of Christ. Interestingly, though these commissions occur some 700 hundred years apart, there are some notable similarities in their structure.
- Availability
In both cases, availability seems to be a factor. Isaiah is in the temple worshipping. Simon is pottering at his nets listening as Jesus teaches nearby. In other words, they’re both in situations that allowed for the possibility of encounter. If you want to avoid getting caught up with God and God’s care of the world, then best not to be too available. Make sure there’s plenty of noise and distraction in your life, for example, don’t spend too much time being still or quiet. Avoid spiritual places and spiritual texts and hanging around spiritual people. Most especially, avoid spiritual practices – true worship, prayer, confession, reconciliation… that sort of thing. Of course, God could easily break through the barriers we erect, but overpowering and controlling is not God’s way. God is love (1 Jn 4.8), and love is patient and forbearing, not rude and intrusive. God respects our decisions, waits until we’re ready.
But if you are open and ‘in the way’ as it were, then know that God is a communicating God and that at various points in their lives certain human beings have had profound experiences. ‘In the year that King Uzziah died’, Isaiah writes (6.1), ‘I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of God’s robe filled the temple…’. ‘When Jesus had finished speaking’, Luke writes (5.4), ‘he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch”.’
- Divine majesty and holiness
Both of these characters had a numinous experience that led to an intensely deepened awareness of God’s presence and majesty. Isaiah sees the Lord on a throne, high and lofty, the temple filled with smoke and shaking at the thresholds. In Simon’s experience, nets suddenly fill with so many fish that they begin to break; the boats were so laden down they began to sink.
This revelation of divinity inundates earthly structures, stretches their categories to breaking point, takes them to the edge of what they can take in. In both cases, they are flooded with feelings of shame and unworthiness. ‘Woe is me!’ Isaiah cried (6.5), ‘I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!’ Simon Peter falls at Jesus’ knees: ‘Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!’
It’s overwhelming, which is surely why we get nervous about God – we fear exposure, humiliation… annihilation! It’s understandable, God is ‘holy, holy, holy’! But annihilation, or even just humiliation, is not what happens next to those who encounter the living God. What they experience is acceptance… tender mercy… a cleansing touch or word. What God does, is to raise them up and call them on. ‘Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal… from the altar’, Isaiah writes,
the seraph touched my mouth with it and said: ‘Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.’ Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here am I; send me!’ And the Lord said: ‘Go and say to this people…’.
Likewise, Jesus says to Simon, ‘Don’t be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.’
- Renewed and commissioned
In both of these stories, a close encounter with God sparks deeper engagement with humanity. Far from being destroyed, Isaiah and Simon experience personal and vocational renewal. They experience themselves commissioned as participants in God’s work of redeeming or reconciling the world – what theologians call the missio Dei.
Now, I have to say I find these two passages pretty encouraging and I hope you do too. I think it’s true to say that many of us struggle with feelings of ordinariness, unworthiness and inadequacy when it comes to being a part of the church and of God’s work – not really good enough, or smart enough, young enough (or whatever) to put ourselves forward. Best leave it to someone else we think, someone better, someone like…Isaiah or Simon Peter or James and John. But actually, these guys were not exceptional. Simon, and James and John, were rough ‘n’ ready fishermen. Levi, whom we meet in a chapter or two, was a tax collector!! They weren’t called because they were good or smart or especially able (they weren’t the fairest or kindest or purest in the land, like in the fairy tales). In the way Luke narrates it there’s an element of happenstance about it, they were involved because they were available; commissioned because they were responsive. They didn’t get it all right from then on, they made mistakes – errors of judgment and so on. But that didn’t seem to matter. What mattered was that they continued to be present and responsive.
What these two stories offer, then, is not great men doing great deeds for God. What they give us is a vision of divine greatness and majesty, of divine mercy and grace, a vision of God encountering and calling unworthy people like you and me who happened to be ‘hanging around’, as it were – placing themselves in the way of it. These encounters were life-changing for Isaiah and the first disciples.
But what about us? We may well be just like them in the sense of being ordinary everyday people, but most of us haven’t had one of these extraordinary encounters, even though we’ve been ‘hanging around’ for years! Does this mean we have to operate solely on the basis of their experience, on a bunch of second-hand visions passed down in scripture and a few dramatic testimonies from more recent history?
- So what?
As I’ve reflected on this question, a couple of thoughts seem worth sharing. First, I don’t think we should be focussed on having intense spiritual encounters. It’s one thing to be available and open and quite another to be seeking what Isaiah or Simon had. Of course, we need to know that the whole thing is real, to touch and ‘taste’ the life of the Spirit, but the form this takes is not something we can manufacture or demand. Indeed, in times and places where people became obsessive about dramatic signs there were problems – read Paul’s correspondence with the Corinthians. One issue with focusing on this kind of experience is the way it encourages our ego-ic desire to be special, or to ‘possess’ God on our terms. A second, related issue is that in focusing on what think such an ‘experience’ should look like, we miss the ways God is actually present and calling.
In terms of practising faith day to day, then, it’s important not miss or dismiss more subtle experiences of the presence and prompting of God. Last week, I spoke about limiting expectations and here’s an example – the expectation that unless I see a blinding light, or some amazing miracle, then God isn’t calling me. I’ve never experienced anything like this. Having said that, if you’d told me I’d be preaching from pulpits like this when I was a young adult, I’d have said, no way. And yet, here I am, and the truth is, my life was turned around by a simple question from an old bloke at church one night. His name was John and he was in his late thirties (which seemed old at the time!!). We were chatting after the service and I was sharing my uncertainty about next steps in my life. ‘Have you ever thought about doing youth ministry’, he asked? ‘No,’ I said, ‘I’m not an up-front person’. ‘Well, just think about it’, he said. We left it at that, but I can tell you that later that night something took hold of me and wouldn’t let go. And the rest… as they say, is history!!
A simple question from an old guy was how God got through to me. It was nothing dramatic on the outside, but wow it has changed the course of my life. Which leads me to say, don’t decry the less dramatic promptings of the Spirit, which we all have from time to time. And, relatedly, don’t underestimate the impact you might have as an agent of God in someone else’s life. A word of encouragement, a simple question, can have a profound impact, and you may be the one to offer it.
So, ‘close encounters of the third kind’. We may never have a story to tell quite like Isaiah or Simon. But what these stories (and the Scriptures generally) reveal is that God is everywhere present and communicating. The human experience of this is different, sometimes dramatic, more often subtle. Our participation in this seems to do with being available, putting ourselves in the way of it. It’s about living attentively and responsively to what is given, giving ourselves to God’s call as best we can discern it at any stage of life. Being willing to say, ‘Here I am, send me’; and to follow where ever God may lead.
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