Luke 5: 1-11, Isaiah 6: 1-13 Extraordinary Power; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson
Miraculous events and visions raise many questions. The Old Testament lesson and the gospel for today are no exception to that. We ask what these extraordinary events have to do with our ordinary, everyday lives. Our immediate response is usually skepticism, much like the mother who asked her son what he learned in Sunday School that day.
“We heard all about a man named Moses. He went behind the lines and rescued the Israelites. Then he came to the Red Sea and called in his engineers to build a pontoon bridge. After the Israelites got across, he saw the Egyptian tanks coming, so he got on his radio and called in the Air Force who sent in dive-bombers to blow up the bridge with all the Egyptians still on it!”
“Now, son,” said the mother, “is that really what your teacher told you?”
“Well, not exactly, but if I told you what she told us, you’d never believe it in a thousand years!”
Sometimes we respond in a similar way when we hear of miraculous happenings. Perhaps because our lives are pretty ordinary. We have a pattern of life. We have routines and rhythms that give our lives order. Right now, it may be the Gordon Campbell series, or golf, or bridge games. It may be volunteering as a tourist guide at an orphanage, or as an English teacher. We live with ordinary joys and common struggles that give our lives meaning. So, when, from our everyday routines we come across stories like those in our lessons today, it’s hard to know just how to respond.
The Old Testament lesson is the call of the prophet Isaiah and his glorious vision of God’s holiness, from which we draw our response to the words of institution in our communion liturgy each week.
Visions, even in the Old Testament, are rare. Many people live their whole lives without even a glimpse of the mystical aspects of life. Others experience transportive visions or theophanies. Our season of Epiphany is full of biblical stories about amazing events and the season invites us to open ourselves to the holy in life and through prayer and spiritual growth.
Like the little boy who retold the life of Moses in believable terms, we can be tempted to pass off such experience or adjust them to make them more believable. Whatever happened to Isaiah, it lies beyond the realm of everyday common experiences. It was extra-ordinary and provocative, and it brought a response of faith in the prophet. Throughout this event God was shown to be active and present in the life of a believer in a powerful way.
Today’s gospel lesson presents us with another outstanding story. The marvelous catch of fish and the subsequent call of the disciples is another, extra-ordinary, provocative account. We come to these texts with our 21st century mindsets asking modern questions, overlooking the messages conveyed in the stories– that Jesus brings God’s power into all of life.
When our lives seem routine, or even dull, we can imagine how excited we would be about God if we saw a miraculous event or had an awesome vision. It’s easy to imagine that if only we had been there to see amazing things we could believe as the original onlookers did.
But, if seeing is believing, then the people who actually saw the miraculous catch of fish would have been so overwhelmed they would have stopped everything to worship, praise and follow Jesus. All of Palestine would have known Jesus as Lord. The word would have quickly spread to the whole world. His ministry would have been fulfilled then and there.
That didn’t happen though. Some people, in Jesus day, as much as today, quickly forgot the good and astounding things that happened to them. Maybe some of the people who saw Jesus’ miracles explained them away as we often attempt to do. Seeing is not necessarily believing, because seeing is subject to interpretation. People often look only at those things that prove what they already believe. So, they see nothing new or different that might challenge them to change.
What do we see when we look
around? Has God stopped raising people
from the dead? Has God stopped healing people,
calling people, restoring the broken to creative lives, or inspiring people
beyond their self-accepted limits?
I see these things all around me. A woman I know had crippling arthritis which is now gone. She was not cured by medicine but by prayer. Another woman I knew lived for 30 years in a nursing home, crippled by arthritis. She was not physically healed like the other woman, yet her positive attitude and her faith spread love throughout that home. Those who came to visit her left with a blessing.
I know many recovering alcoholics whose once broken lives have been restored to productivity and joy through their trust and dependence on God. In my years in ministry I’ve seen people once devastated by loss and anger and bitterness who have been transformed emotionally, spiritually, and relationally. God is working miracles every day, sometimes in extraordinary ways, sometimes in very ordinary ways.
There are countless people who live lives of quiet heroism. They may seem so ordinary that we look right past them. Single parents care for children while maintaining a home and earning a living. Many people have pushed through the despair at the end of a marriage either through divorce or death, overcoming obstacles and carrying on with courage.
I had a great aunt who live to be 95 years old. After her retirement from public school teaching she served endless hours in community work, feeding and providing for the needy in her small hometown in a quiet and respectful manner. Her life extended beyond its own limits in ways that revealed her faith and strength. Each of us know people who live or lived beyond themselves because of a commitment to the example of Christ.
What do the miraculous and visionary accounts of the Bible have to do with our ordinary lives? Everything! We only need to open our eyes to the extraordinary to find it all around us.
Actually witnessing a miracle or having a vision did not then and does not necessarily now convert people to a new way of seeing. The event itself does not change lives. Many look and do not see anything special. What is important is the ability to see Jesus as the source of new life, to hear the call and follow. The real miracle, in any outstanding event, is the impact of Jesus that turns lives around.
The most extraordinary event is that Jesus laid out his life to convince us, to show us the outstanding power of God in all of life. Jesus still brings us to see him, to enter deeply into his meaning for life.
Dr. Nelson Traut was the commencement speaker at my graduation from Wartburg Seminary. He told of his visits home to see his mother. Each time he came in the door his mother would greet him warmly and then say, “Come and see what the Lord’s been doing.” Then she would show him how the house had been painted, or tell him about someone who got a job, or show him how well her garden was growing. Traut said he learned from her that it was indeed the Lord who made these things, all things, happen.
Jesus’ power of transforming lives involves making us see him in all the ordinary everyday events in our lives. Then our lives become no longer ordinary but outstanding witnesses to the power of God. The events may not be different but the way we see them is. Look and see the extraordinary power and glory of God in everyday life. Amen.