Here I Am
Reflections for the 5th Sunday after Epiphany
RCL Epiphany 5C
9 February 2025
Church of the Epiphany
Surrey BC
From the time that I was in Grade 9, I knew what I wanted to be and to do as an adult. If my mother were here, she would tell you that I knew what I wanted to be and to do from an even younger age. While most of my peers have explored various careers, I’ve always had my eye and my heart set on what I’m doing today – being a pastor, priest and teacher.
As a kid growing up, I can’t claim to have had any dramatic vision. It’s just been an accepted part of who I am and what I am trying to do. But there was one occasion when I can say that I experienced a moment of clarity that I believe was what might be called a vision. It was in the autumn of 1977. I had just begun a teaching job at a Roman Catholic boys’ school in Denver. I had driven down to Colorado Springs, about an hour’s drive from Denver, to spend the weekend with my parents. During the sermon I heard a voice saying, ‘Don’t get too comfortable in the teaching job. It’s time to start the process for ordination.’ And that was it. No flashing lights. No dramatic vision of angels and archangels. Just a voice saying, ‘Time to move on. You’ve known where you’re destined to go for a long time. Stop hanging around.’ On that following Monday I began the process that would eventually lead me here, to this Parish, through many other stops along the road.
There have been other occasions in my life when I believe I have experienced God breaking into my life in an extraordinary way. All of these experiences have some common elements: (i) They’ve come when I’ve been minding my own business and doing my everyday job. (ii) They’ve not changed my life as much as they have made my direction clearer. (iii) They’ve always made me aware that God loves me and is working beside me, within me and through me despite my many faults and inadequacies.
In all three of today’s readings, we see a similar pattern of God’s intervention in the lives of human beings.
· “Isaiah has the vision of God, is struck by his own unworthiness, but nevertheless is sent to preach.”
· “Paul sees the risen Lord, realizes he is unfit to be called an apostle because he persecuted the church, but by God’s grace he works harder than any of the others.”
· “Simon Peter gets a glimpse of the power and knowledge of Christ, falls before him in the profound grip of his own sinfulness, but even son, is called by Christ to become a fisher of [men].” [1]
Each one of these people experience God entering into the ordinariness of their lives, re-directing them onto a path where they are co-workers with God and assuring them that God’s grace will empower them to do what God desires them to do.
What God does for individuals, God also does for communities such as ours. In many ways we’ve been doing what we’ve been doing for a long time. We’ve worked at being a place of help, hope and home for this neighbourhood of Guildford. We realize that these are not easy times to be Christians, and we’ve had some genuine disappointments along the path we’ve been following.
But it is precisely in these moments, moments of ‘ordinariness’, that God reaches out to re-direct us, to renew us, to re-empower us to do the work that we’ve always known we’ve been given to do and to become the community that God intends us to be. We may be quick to point out to God all our inadequacies, all our shortcomings and all our insecurities. But God is always providing us with what we need to undertake our role in God’s unfolding plan of re-creating, redeeming and perfecting this world of ours.
In two weeks’ time we shall gather for our annual Vestry. It’s sometimes easy to think of Vestry as a ‘business’ meeting – hearing reports, approving a budget, electing new leaders. Let me say that I think that Vestry is a bit more than that. Vestry is a time when we gather for the business of the kingdom of God, a time when we hope that like Isaiah, Paul and Simon Peter, God will open our eyes and our hearts, make clear the way before us and give us the grace – despite our shortcomings – to work with God to make know the good news of God in Christ for us, for Guildford and for the whole world.
My friends, in a world in which carpenters are raised from the dead, anything is possible. [2] In a world in which Galilean fishermen can bring about a revolution that changes world history, anything is possible. More than that, in a world in which God is always at work strengthening, nurturing and challenging the disciples of Jesus, anything is possible. It will not always be easy, nor will it be accomplished overnight, but God’s purpose will be achieved in us, through us and for us. But it begins when we respond to God’s invitation, ‘Here I am. Send me.’
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