Fourth Sunday before Lent, 9th February, by Fr Jack

Isaiah 6. 1-end
1 Corinthians 15. 1-11
St Luke 5. 1-11

 

We’ve said it before, but today’s first reading from Isaiah reminds us that angelic beings are fierce and scary not like the little statuettes we buy of angels in garden centres. 

Today’s first lesson is an image of God’s glory. The earth quakes the air is thick with winged seraphim.  

And this vision of heavenly glory in the first part of the first reading is in stark contrast to the last few verses, which tell us about the tumult below. 

Isaiah could have been writing today. The world feels like tumult, cities do lie in waste: Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan. Trump in the Whitehouse, the far right in Europe, economic stagnation, adolescent mental health. Insert your own tumult of choice: the list goes on. 

So there is a tension held in this reading, the tumult we face in the world on the one hand, and the vision of God’s glory on the other. We here, now face the reality of the tumult in our human family, we are those who cry ‘how long, O Lord!’, and we come here, in the midst of life to behold God’s glory. To praise God, to hear holy Scripture, to participate in the Holy Mystery of the Eucharist.

We don’t come here to pretend, to shut out that which is difficult. No, every time we come to the Eucharist (midweek and Sunday) we do it for everyone else. Just as Isaiah says ‘Here I am Lord, send me’ in the first reading, we do something similar by coming here, and bringing the tumult and disaster, the whole human family with us into God’s presence, into God’s glory. And we pray for healing, for peace and justice. Thy Kingdom come, O Lord.

It is here, then, that the tension in today’s first reading is held and unified: that the world’s tragic tumult meets the the glory of the Kingdom of Heaven. And eventually, that Kingdom will overcome. 

There’s that spirit alive in Byrd’s magnificent setting of the Ave Verum we hear today during Holy Communion. Hail true body - in Christ’s body on the cross, in Christ’s body in the Eucharist, in Christ’s body that is us the church, the reality of suffering and the glory that is to come live together towards the hope of heaven. 

That same idea is reflected in today’s second lesson. St Paul is trying to encourage and shape the culture in the troubled Early Church in Corinth by reminding them of who they truly are. Back to foundations - remember who we are. He gives them this wonderful summary of the Christian faith, today’s second reading. These are words we need to hear too, as we go about trying to be an Easter people in a troubled world, amidst our own challenges and realities. St Paul reminds us that God has called and equipped us, just as He did His apostles, and St Paul on the road to Damascus. So His grace has been given to us, in our baptism. 

We just need to remember the foundation stone on which we are built, and face the reality of life, with these firm foundations of hope. Again there’s that unity and tension at work (in Isaiah and St Paul): reality and faith, the faith we hold and the reality we live, held together. 

And this brings us finally to today’s Gospel. St Paul calls him Cephas in the second reading, but he’s Simon in the Gospel today. 

Cephas or Petrus (the same word, just Aramaic and Greek) Peter (in English) is a nickname that Jesus has not yet given him when He makes Him a ‘fisher of men’ today. Jesus loves giving nicknames. He does it a lot. Ss James and John He will nickname Boanerges or ‘sons of thunder’ because of their fiery passionate temperament. Simon the fisherman will be called Peter, Petrus, Cephas, literally ‘Rocky’ - it’s a descriptive nickname of affection, not a formal title. We have made ‘St Peter’ sound so grand, but ‘Rocky’ is much more the spirit of what Jesus will nickname. It’s rather surprising and funny isn’t it?

We heard the stunning poem The Call today, before the Gospel. Words by the great Anglican priest-poet George Herbert, music by Vaughan Williams. This simple poem draws on Scripture to voice a soul calling out to God. It is full of hope, but it is also a fragile cry coming from the deepest need of God. I think its intimacy would voice perfectly a walk with you, just you, and Jesus along the seashore of Galilee. Hold on to that image.

So, the first two readings both have this sense of facing the difficulty of reality, whilst returning to the solid ground of our foundations: our faith in God’s coming, glorious Kingdom. A troubled world and a vision of glory for Isaiah. A troubled church in Corinth being reminded of their real calling and identity. But here in the Gospel, the solid ground we return to is different. Because here the solid ground is a God who (instead of the glory of Isaiah) is wandering up and down the seaside giving out nicknames.

Isaiah’s image is true: God is all glory and majesty and might, and we very well should fall on our faces in awe and holy fear. But God is also the one who walks along the seaside, and calling us by name, gives us a nickname out of humorous affection. We face the reality of life strengthened not only by the God of glory, but also, the loving friendship of Jesus.

St Peter brings these two poles together when, after the miraculous catch, he glimpses God in Jesus and falls on his face, saying ‘Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man!’ as if he were before Isaiah’s glorious vision, not in a boat full of flopping fish. Because of course he is. He is before Jesus, our God and our King. And it all comes together, this tension of awe and intimacy, of God’s Kingdom and our confused little world. And we bring and meet it all here, in the Scriptures the Church gives for us today, and in this and every Eucharist.

Friends, we are being invited to live this tension and unity: having first fallen on our faces in holy fear before God, to stand firmly on faith, hope and love, as we face the reality of life without flinching, because we walk life side by side with Jesus who calls us His friends.