Isaiah 6:1-8, 9-13; Psalm 138; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11; Luke 5:1-11

Good morning Church. Today is a good day for me as a preacher because today the message contained in each of the four lectionary readings is well structured and exciting to preach. I enjoy preaching and I enjoy writing to preach, you may have noticed, and today’s readings are all about God’s call and the story of how each of three men first heard God saying to him, “go and tell”. It’s a great message for a church such as this one,  a church examining what it means to  carry the authority of God in the empowering of Holy Spirit to share Christ with its neighbours. This sermon shouldn’t take very long at all, I am preaching to the choir.

In the opening words of today’s story from the Hebrew Traditions we hear how Isaiah dates his call to ministry to a specific time and place; he knows his origin as a prophet and teacher. In the activity of the story Isaiah overhears The LORD calling for volunteers to take the message of God to humankind, and Isaiah steps up for the job (Isaiah 6:8). Oftentimes when this story is read in church this is where we end our reading; we hear how great and holy God is, we sing “Holy, Holy, Holy” before the sermon and “I, the Lord of Sea and Sky” after it, and we all go home.  Even today Isaiah 6:1-8 is listed by the lectionary to be read, with Isaiah 6:9-13 in brackets; this means you don’t have to read on if you don’t want to. Do you see what I’m saying: an easy message on a familiar concept, a fast sermon is a good sermon, big-bang let’s get it done and all go home.

Meh-yeah-nah: sadly for you know me too well for that, and if you were hoping for an early minute this sort of lection is a red rag to a brown bull for me. What are those lectionary writers trying to hide? Why don’t they want us to read on? Maybe it’s because in these optional verses we get what God’s actual word to the world is, the text of what is to become Isaiah’s message, and it’s not very nice. In fact it’s very not nice, because Isaiah’s job essentially is to make the people stubborn and hard-headed because God has decided in advance of Isaiah’s mission to punish the people. This is not like Jonah where God sent the prophet to seek repentance so that God could relent; no, here God is baiting the people into further resistance to the gospel so that when divine wrath falls it is more fully deserved. That’s harsh.

A strong comparison with Isaiah 6:2-3 is offered in Psalm 138:1 where the spiritual beings gathered around God’s throne hear a man, let’s call him David, singing his praise and thanksgiving to God. Instead of God the holy, holy, holy One asking in the hearing of the cherubim and seraphim for a volunteer to carry a message of wrath and devastation, here we see a man in the same company thanking God for God’s steadfast love and faithfulness; which we find in Psalm 138:2. Where God tells Isaiah to make the people resistant to God’s voice, David tells the seraphim about the moment he began praying in distress how God came close and answered him (Psalm 138:3). It’s as if we’re speaking about two different gods here, or at least about the one God dealing with the Chosen People on one hand and the pagan and heathen nations on the other. But no, and you know it’s no, this is Adonai on both occasions, and Israel on both occasions. What is going on?

At this point let me interrupt myself to say that this is my favourite type of Bible study. So often our evenings of fellowship and study revolve around opening a letter of Paul or a gospel and reading around the circle from a familiar story, and looking for the obvious answers to the reading comprehension questions posed by IVP or Scripture Union. Today’s type of Bible study looks at unfamiliar texts and searches out the hard questions. This is awesome fun, I hope you’re enjoying this as much as me. Let’s get back to it.

In today’s set reading from the Jesus Traditions we read Luke’s account of Jesus calling his first disciples. Again, this is one of those intensely familiar stories: Jesus teaches a pressing-in crowd from a boat, then he asks the boat-owner (who is a stranger at this point) to put out and go fishing. Eleventy-hundred fish are caught in just under four minutes, and this causes the anonymous fisherman to recognise that a miracle worker has turned up in his boat and he utterly unworthy to be in such a lord’s presence; kinda like Isaiah in Isaiah 6:5 and his “woe is me, man of uncleanness” lamenting. As our familiar story continues Jesus says to Simon “get up,” and he says, “don’t be afraid,” and he says, “you will no longer fish for men, but for people,” and without a second thought Simon, and James and John from the next boat walk away with Jesus and into the sunset. There’s nothing hard-headed or confusing about that; okay the “fishers of men” reference is a little opaque, but we trust Jesus, he seems nice, and so we leave everything behind and just walk away and follow him. As Christians we get that; no biggie, Jesus is worth dropping everything else for, there’s no stubbornness amongst us to the voice of God calling us to discipleship.

In today’s set reading from the Christian Traditions we find ourselves at the other end of Jesus’ mission to earth, and Paul’s explanation to the churches of Corinth how the resurrection works as a theological and soteriological truth. In less-Greek words this describes how the facts and understandings we have around the resurrection make us think about God, and how they make us think about what it means to be “saved”. In a passing comment I once heard on a Christian programme on radio someone once described 1 Corinthians 15:1-11 as a perfect distillation of the whole gospel. You have just heard the passage read, do you agree? Is this all you need to know about Christian doctrine in one handy-to-open box, free at the point of sale with no need of easy payments, and no additional postage and handling?  Indeed could we sum the whole Christian story up in one line, 1 Corinthians 15:3b-5a which plainly says 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 according to the scriptures, and that he appeared to… a lot of people? Is that all you need to know? I’d argue no; there is more to the entire gospel than that, but I suggest that any telling of the entire gospel must include that. The thing is, in some ways the passage which I’ve just read is not the actual point of the paragraph we read it from. The deepest point of 1 Corinthians 15:1-11 is found in 1 Corinthians 5:8-11, where Paul uses the brief nub of the gospel to explain how he too is an apostle, just like Cephas in 1 Corinthians 5:5, and the twelve also in 1 Corinthians 5:5, and the many living witnesses in 1 Corinthians 5:6, and James and all the “apostles” in 1 Corinthians 5:7. So “yeah-yeah, yada-yada, died, buried, rose again, Jesus awesome” is there, but the point is that Paul is allowed to say that because he’s just as much a follower of God, and a bearer of divine ordination as Cephas (aka Simon-Peter); and by extension David and Isaiah. Paul has been called: Paul is an apostle, an individually dispatched messenger of God’s light about Godself to a world in darkness.

So, that might have been a good place to move to a paragraph on how we apply Paul’s and Peter’s stewardship of the apostolate to our own lives, and how we too are called to carry light into the world. I could say that even though God has not spoken to any of us like God spoke to Isaiah (in a vision in a temple), or Simon-Peter (literally as a flesh and blood man asking us for a favour after a long night at work), or Saul-Paul (blinded and yelled at in the middle of a highway on a multi-day road-trip), God still calls some of us to be witnesses and prophets today. Paul may have been the last on his list to see Jesus in person and to be commissioned by a lordly figure in a vision, but he is not the last in all history. We also need to watch and be ready for Jesus to appear in our dreams-slash-windscreen. All of that would be true, and neat, and good, and we could move on to the benedictions and beverages; but we can’t do that. There is a loose end.

So, yay! let’s get back to the awesome fun of finding hard questions. Actually we have already found the hard question, and now we’ve put some shape around it to make the question even harder. With all that Isaiah, David, Jesus, and Paul have said about God and the call of God to tell the good news of salvation, (case in point the cross and empty tomb), why did God send Isaiah to make the ninth century BC Israelites and Judahites resistant to that story? If Christ died for all, and if Christ died for sin, why would God

1. a) deliberately exclude Jews,
2. b) deliberately make them sin more badly so they would deserve the punishment already lined up.

God effectively says to Isaiah, “look, I really want to smack them, but they don’t deserve it yet, so stir them up to rebellion and I’ll wait until I can really smack them so they stay smacked”. I mean, where’s the grace? Where’s the honour for the covenants with Abraham and with David? And if the situation really is that dire for the people of God, why does God make them wait another 800 years for the Messiah?  Don’t send Isaiah to harden their hearts LORD, send Jesus to redeem them! I mean, you’d think God had never even opened a Bible the way this is going.

So, what’s the answer?  Anyone?  Do you need the question again?  The question is, with all that we know of God in Christ, and all that we know of David, Jesus, Peter and the twelve, and Paul, why did God send Isaiah to make the Israelites more naughty rather than more repentant, just so that God could snap them with a backhand as well?  So, what’s the answer?  Anyone?

Well what I’m going to do right now is keep you in suspense, but let you off the hook. I am also going to wrap up, so here’s the final paragraph. As great and profound a question as that is, and would be awesome for a Monday afternoon, it’s not a question for Sunday morning. A good teacher, a good pastor, a good preacher knows that; and you don’t only have a good teacher, pastor and preacher, you have a great one: you’re blessed.  No the question for a Sunday is, given all that, given David and Jesus and Paul and yada-yada-yada, how do you respond in Isaiah’s place when God calls you to prophetic witness and sends you to the Church with such a message of desolation. Anyone? You proclaim it. For me, the question is not why God wants to do this to my people, but how do I go about telling the leaders who need to know what God intends for us.

As your pastor let me say this: I know God is calling some of you to ministries of proclamation, and God is calling all of us to witnessing and to fishing-for-men. So, whatever God tells you to tell me, and to tell us, please just tell us. Be strong and courageous;, be bold, be strong, for The LORD your God is with you. Amen.