It Takes Humility to Know

Fifth Sunday after EpiphanyYear C, RCL

Isaiah 6:1-13, Psalm 1381, Corinthians 15:1-11, Luke 5:1-11

Isaiah Lips by Richard McBee 1995

Whenever I am about to celebrate Holy Communion, I hold the image of this story of purification. Instead of a hot coal touching my lips, I ask for a similar cleansing as an acolyte pours water over my hands. An ordinary red hot coal touching our lips can no more cleanse us from sin than the water in which I wash my hands, but it is through the prayers we offer and by the grace of God that our sins are washed away.

Isaiah received this vision in the year that King Uzziah died. King Uzziah reigned for 52 years. Though Uzziah was far from perfect, he was a strong military leader with good administrative skills. Over this half-century, the people of Judea lived in relative peace and prosperity. His death brings uncertainty with the rule of his son. At this point, Isaiah receives a vision in which he is purified and anointed by God to be a prophet. One of the issues that King Uzziah let slide was worshiping in high places, making offerings to other gods instead of temple worship.

Since the people of Judea are not following God’s ways, God instructs Isaiah to tell the people that they are listening but not comprehending; they are looking but not understanding. God will make the minds of this people (not God’s people) but this people dull, and stop their ears, and shut their eyes.

Isaiah receives this oracle that says that due to the people’s waywardness, they will end up in exile. Isaiah’s mission is to bring the people around, and hopefully with this new regime, they can become closer to and follow God’s ways again. This sounds like an impossible task. How can one person change the mindset of an entire nation? How can this individual out of millions save a nation?

We can look at Jonah as an example. This is Jonah of whale fame. He knows the job is impossible. He knows that prophets are abused and often killed. And after the minor whale incident, he follows God’s call and warns the people of Nineveh of the destruction to come. After Johan delivers his message, he goes to a hilltop so he can have a good view of God’s destruction of Nineveh. The people listened. The King took heed and ordered every human and animal to be clothed in sackcloth, sit in ashes, and repent. God accepts their repentance and does not destroy the city. And Jonah is upset with God, for he is sitting in self-righteousness and not going to see the dramatic show he was expecting. The prophet Jonah was successful in his mission. Yet as we know, Isaiah is less so. The people do end up in exile.

I really shouldn’t say that Isaiah failed his mission. Isaiah was successful. He did what God told him to do, even at great cost to him and his family. It was the people who failed to listen to Isaiah. They failed to repent and turn back to God. A good leader has humility. Jonah learns humility through the hot sun, a shady bush, and a worm that God sends to eat the bush. But Isaiah in comparison, seems to already have humility. In the tone and questions, he addresses God with, and in the examples he offers us through the mission he works at.

Paul on the other hand seems to have an interesting mixture of arrogance and humility. At the beginning of our passage, Paul is clearly in charge. He is doing the reminding; He is the one proclaiming the good news. And if you are not living life the way he says, then you have come to believe in vain. Yet on the other side of this passage, Paul tells of all the hundreds of people who saw Jesus, of which most are still alive. Yet Paul was born untimely, for he did not see Jesus in the flesh, but he nonetheless, had an experience of the living Christ. Paul says it is by the grace of God that I am who I am. Paul is the most influential writer of the New Testament even though he never saw Christ in the flesh.

Each of us is unique. We have various perspectives about life, religion, and politics. We are likely to know of people who are like Jonah, who are arrogant and want to do it their way on their terms until there is no other way to do it. Many of us may be like Paul in that there are things we are overly proud of and others in which we have a fair bit of humility. And then there is Simon from our Gospel story, who we know nothing about. He was a fisherman cleaning his nets. We believe he was Jewish. But we don’t know how faithful he was. Was he deeply faithful, or was he Jewish because his parents were?

Simon reminds me of those who knit or crochet in the pews, or maybe a child playing quietly. As observers, we are not sure if they are paying attention or not. Then, out of the blue, they ask a question or just perk up and become visibly engaged. Here we have Simon, who pushed out his boat so Jesus could speak to a crowd. I can imagine him continuing to clean his nets, for he could do this whether on the shore or on the sea.

After Jesus taught the people from the boat, he asked this fisherman who had worked a full day and just cleaned his nets to go into the deep water and cast his nets. Simon immediately takes in a huge hall of fish that almost swamps two boats. “When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, ‘Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!’” Though this is not the first time Simon met Jesus, it is this act that creates a huge sense of humility in Simon. I wonder, if Christ came to me, what would it take for me to believe that it was he and not someone trying to scam me? And would

I be brought to such humility that I ask Jesus to go away from me?

As people, we seem to have the ability to idolize or be infatuated by others or even objects. We may hold up a piece of jewelry that our mother gave us, or a house or a car as being something more than it really is. A Bible is a great example of this, in which some say it needs to be treated with a certain amount of respect. Don’t write in it, don’t tear the pages, and heaven forbid, don’t burn it. If I took this book and burned it right here, God would not care. This individual book is not the word of God. It is a representation of the word.

The word of God rang out at the beginning of time, creating the universe, the earth, and us. The word of God came to us through prophets, through experiences, and sometimes even a voice from within. The word of God came to us in human form as Jesus the Christ. And this book is not Jesus. It contains stories, it contains poetry, it contains some history, it even contains some of Jesus’ words all of which have been translated from languages that no one has spoken for more than 1400 years. Despite all this, the Bible contains truth, it contains wisdom, it contains the word of God, accurately handed to us from generation to generation.

It takes some humility to say there are discrepancies within this set of books. And even with discrepancies, the overall meaning is unchanged. There are events represented as historical. Some are believed to be heavily altered; others likely did not happen at all, but it takes humility to say that these stories, even if we know that they never happened, still have truths that God wants us to know.

We can idolize people as well as objects. I’ve seen clips from the 50s and 60s of rock stars like the Beatles or Elvis in which people would faint at their physical presence. Similar reactions happen with great military leaders, movie stars, and even politicians. We need to be careful with our infatuations. All of these people are just people. Though some may be better role models than others, they are all flawed. We need to be careful if anyone says they can save you. A religious person cannot save you. They can tell you the Gospel, the good news. They can witness to how their faith has worked in their life. But your salvation only comes from your relationship with God.

As Christians, we believe this relationship is mediated through Christ. It takes humility to be able to say that salvation is a choice that only we, as individuals, can accept or reject. I am the only one who can repent for my sins. And I am the only one who can accept God’s forgiveness.

But not all our sins are individual. Much as the Bible tells of Nineveh and Judea, we, as a society, can create harm; harm for the disadvantaged, harm to the ecosystem that we rely on for survival. In our country, our elected leaders work at the behest of our votes. Since we all cannot be in Washington, and all of us cannot work in the office of the mayor, we elect people to do that work for us. Sometimes, these officials align with our desires better than others. When they align with our piety, this does not make them our savior. And if they do not align with our ways of thinking, this does not make them the Anti-Christ.

We only have one savior, and that is Jesus Christ. Of course, he could save our city, nation, or even the world. This is what the devil tempted him with during his forty days in the wilderness. But because of free choice and the government we have installed in our country, each of us has a responsibility to tell our elected officials what we agree with and what we do not. If we are not humble enough to look at the Bible to inform our choices in what is true and false, what is ethical or not, what is ultimately good or not, then we are much like those who went to the high places to make offerings to other gods. Just because King Uzziah allowed it to happen didn’t make it right.

No one person can fix the problems in our city. No one person can fix the problems in our country, and no one person can repair or damage the earth. It takes humility to know that we must rely on others to help ourselves. And even in times when we may feel there is no hope, we have a voice. Much like the voices of the apostles are not the voice of God, they were humble enough to speak for the truth that God wanted others to hear. Not for their benefit but for the benefit of all. Humility is about putting others before yourself while understanding that even if the role we are asked to play is big, we are always small when it comes to God.

Let us pray, May the God of truth come and fill us with a renewed spirit to follow his ways and guide others to do the same, so that we may be a beacon for those who have lost hope and show all of us the way of truth and righteousness. All this I ask through your son our savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.