Love’s Calling

February 9th, 2025                         “Love’s Calling”                       Rev. Heather Jepsen

Sermon Series: Living Love

Isaiah 6:1-8 and Luke 5:1-11

          My friends, this whole month of February our worship services are centered around the theme of love.  Not the gooshy kind of romantic love that Valentine’s Day is all about.  But the hard work of agape love that Jesus calls us to.  How can we love our neighbor in word and deed as the world around us seeks to pull us apart?

          Our first reading for today is from Isaiah.  It’s good to note that this reading comes from a time of political upheaval.  “In the year that King Uzziah died.”  We often gloss over that introduction, but it roots our story in a particular time and place.  The death of a king is a changing of the political regime.  Folks would be jockeying for power as they test the boundaries and limits of the law.  Danger and strife are in the air as the nation is in a time of upheaval and change.

          It is in to that specific environment that Isaiah has his vision.  He sees God in all God’s glory and splendor.  God in this narrative is all about power and might.  When Isaiah witnesses the holiness of this God, he is distraught.  Next to God’s divine glory and sheer otherness, Isaiah notices how sinful he is.  He is humbled before the Lord.  And yet the Lord makes him clean.

          The interesting thing about this vision of God is that God is all power and might and yet God cannot do it alone.  God asks, “Whom shall I send and who will go for us?”  What does it mean to worship a God who doesn’t just do it Godself?  Isaiah can’t help but reply, “Here I am, send me!”

           Looking at this scripture passage through our lens of love, I see us all having a call from God.  The Lord sees the strife and worry in the world.  The Lord sees how easy it is for us to become complacent or give up.  And surely all that is powerful in our world today is casting aside the needs of the weak and poor and looking instead to grow their own wealth and power.  Standing and looking at the political turmoil that we live in today, the Lord asks of us as well.  Someone needs to go.  Who will go for us?  And our only reply is “Here I am, send me!”  We are all called as individuals to live lives of love and compassion.  Love is calling us to serve, will we be brave enough to do so?

          Our second reading today is from the gospel of Luke.  I want you to notice how intrusive God’s call is.  Just like Isaiah being whisked away into a vision, the call that Jesus offers his first disciples cannot be ignored.

          It is the end of a long night of fishing and the men are at the docks, working to clean and mend their empty nets.  Jesus is there preaching to the crowds, and I wonder if the men even noticed him before he stepped into their boat.  Talk about intrusion.  Can you imagine a stranger getting into your boat and telling you what to do.  “Put out a little way.”

          Simon must have felt like he couldn’t say “no”, so he allows it.  Now out in the water, Jesus yells across to the crowd, teaching them.  What? We do not know.  When the sermon is over, he asks Simon for another favor.  “Put out in the deep water and let down your nets.”

          At this I am sure Simon was livid.  A stranger, a non-fisherman, the end of a long night and all he wants to do is go home.  Simon tries to push back against Jesus’ intrusion.  “Master, it’s been a long night with no results.”  But he finally relents, and the boat moves into the deep.  Letting down the nets with a sigh and a groan, Simon is amazed to find them suddenly bursting at the seams.  All the men come out as fast as they can for this mighty catch will not only feed their families, it will also line their pockets with money for the rest of the month.

          When Simon senses the otherworldliness of these events, like Isaiah in the throne room, he is overcome with his own sinfulness.  He begs Jesus to leave him alone, which is not an uncommon response to the intrusive call of God in our lives.  But Jesus will not be swayed.  Instead, he intrudes even more.  “Leave your job, follow me, fish for people.”  It is a call Simon and his friends cannot ignore.

          Where do we see love here?  We can see it in the fishing.  Jesus calls us into the unknown to reach out and try new things, even and perhaps especially when we are broken and tired.  We can see it in the fish, if we choose to read that as a metaphor for all the love and blessings God gives us to share with others.  And we can see it in the call itself.  Jesus gives Simon a purpose.  No more living life day to day just to get by.  Like Isaiah he is given a mission.  Go out into the world, share the good news, and preach the gospel of love.

          Today I think that we have all heard love’s calling.  Otherwise, we wouldn’t be here this morning.  When we see and recognize God in our lives and in our world, we are eager to share it with others.  Again, we return to that theme “what is mine to do?”  And what we have to do today, is to share love.

          Both of these stories happen in times of hardship.  Political upheaval, social strife, great division between the haves and the have nots.  Both of these stories remind us that we are sinful when faced with the holiness of God.  And both of these stories tell us that God makes us whole again, not to sit on our laurels, but to go out into the world in service.  God comes to us, touches our lives, and gives us purpose.  “Here I am, send me!”

          Today we gather at the communion table.  Here at this meal, we say “no” to the principalities and powers of our world.  We say “no” to violence, force, and oppression.  Here at this table, we say “yes” to love, to self-sacrifice, to service.  Here at this table, we eat bread, and drink juice and our spirits are cleansed yet again.  We remember a God who came not to conquer but to love.  Here at this table, we are fed, we are made whole again, and we rise up with purpose.  “Here I am, send me!”

          My friends, I know how God has called me and what God has asked me to do.  But I don’t know what you hear in your head and heart this morning.  I am confident that we have all been called.  And so today I invite you to lean in close and listen.  In political strife, how does your heart cry out?  When faced with holy otherness, how do you see your own soul?  And when God gives you purpose, when God asks, “who will go for us?”, how do you respond?

          May we all have the courage to respond to Love’s calling today.  Amen.