What barrier keeps
you from doing God’s work?
The prophet
Isaiah’s call to God’s service is pretty spectacular: Isaiah sees the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne with seraphim stationed above. In awe of this divine vision (of which we
only hear a partial description in our reading), Isaiah believes he is doomed, stunned to silence and in fear
for his own life because he has seen the face of God: my eyes
have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Isaiah’s fear is a barrier. But once one
of the seraphim has touched
Isaiah’s mouth with an ember, Isaiah
is purged of all sin and ready to
respond affirmatively to God’s call: Here I am, send me! Isaiah could easily sing Psalm 138: in the
presence of the angels I will sing your praises! – he has opened his heart
to God’s call.
Jesus’ call of the
first disciples induces similar awe among the fishermen. In Luke’s Gospel, a miracle – boats so filled with fish that they are in
danger of sinking – prompts Simon Peter to fall at the knees of Jesus and say, Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man. Jesus recognizes their astonishment but tells them, Do
not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men. Like Isaiah, Peter fears that his sin is a
barrier to doing the work of God, but Jesus dismisses his fear, making it
possible for the disciples to do what God intends. St. Paul’s experience is not so
different. In his First Letter to the Corinthians, Paul describes himself as one
born abnormally, because he persecuted
the church of God before being touched by the grace of God. For Paul,
as for Isaiah and for Simon Peter, God makes it possible for Paul to carry out
the ministry to which he is called.
We don’t always
respond well to the call of God. Every
time we are required to be kind, to forgive, to love: each of these is a call, a call we can
respond to whenever God removes a barrier we have created. God’s call is not a once-in-a-lifetime,
radical event; it can involve an incremental transformation as God empowers us,
daily, hourly, issuing God’s call and the ability to answer it as God removes
whatever barrier stands in our way. But
first, we need to train ourselves to recognize God’s call, and to allow God to
open the way to our salvation.
This post is based
on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com
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