The Rev. Noah Van Niel
The Chapel of the Cross
February 6th, 2022
Epiphany 5: Isaiah 6:1-8; Psalm 138; 1 Cor 15:1-11; Luke 5:1-11
Over Christmas break I went for an early morning jog in the woods with an old friend. This is someone I’ve known my whole life and whose friendship I count as a supreme blessing; a gift from God, though he probably wouldn’t express it in those terms. You see my friend is a deep, sensitive soul, but happily agnostic. Not atheistically opposed to the idea of God and religion, certainly supportive of me and my calling, but rather more of a free thinker himself, one who prefers not to be tethered to any particular belief or practice. Which is what made our conversation, as we huffed and puffed through the woods, all the more remarkable.
“This funny thing happened the other night,” he said. “I was watching The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and he was talking to Michael B. Jordan,” (that’s the talented young African American actor; no relation to Michael Jeffrey Jordan, the greatest basketball player of all time). My friend continued: “And they were doing the usual banter back and forth, and eventually Colbert asks Jordan about his new girlfriend. He goes on and on about how great she is, how happy they are, how much he loves her, and how she’s the one. And Colbert asks, ‘How do you know she’s the one?” To which Jordan responds, ‘Because of what I’d be willing to sacrifice for her.’” My friend paused for a moment to catch his breath before continuing, “And I know it’s silly, but I couldn’t get that out of my head. Now maybe he meant like sacrificing time hanging out with friends, going to parties, travelling, whatever movie stars do when they’re not making movies. But on a deeper level, I think he’s right. The measure of love is how much you are willing to sacrifice for the other person. I think about my wife, and my kids, my love for them is best measured by the things—big and small—that I would give up for them.” “And then,” he went on, “then I thought, I guess that’s like Jesus, right? Like, it’s not just our love for each other that’s measured in sacrifice, but that’s how Christians understand God feels about the world, right? About you and me. A love worth sacrificing everything for. So that level of love, is really like, God’s love, and that’s what makes it so special.”
As I heard this awakening articulated from a friend I have known for so long, but with whom I had never discussed such things, I felt a welling up of emotion and excitement that is hard to describe. Here was a confirmed outsider, jumping directly into the heart of the Christian faith and articulating it about as well as any lifelong churchgoer could. And all thanks to Michael B. Jordan.
But he didn’t stop there—though I would have been perfectly satisfied if he had. He went on to say, “And then I thought, am I worthy of such a love? Am I worthy of being sacrificed for? No! Absolutely not. I’m not worthy of the love of my wife, or my kids, especially not worthy of that kind of love from God. Not because I’m some terrible person, but because who could ever be worthy of that level of love. And yet, we get it all the same.”
I had to stop running at this point. It was becoming hard to breathe. Because to understand that “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son…” was already a big thing. The central thing. But to go that one step further and talk about our worthiness to receive such a love was really to crack open this whole enterprise. Because then he was talking about something just as essential but far less celebrated than love. He was talking about Grace.
Grace is one of those theological terms that can be thrown around so casually that it diminishes its import. But grace is the grease that oils the gears of the entire Christian faith. Grace is the gift of God’s love for us unearned and undeserved; an unmerited offering. At its most fundamental it can be traced to our existence—did we merit being born? Do we deserve to be—to have life? No. We did nothing to deserve our existence. It is a gift. This same principle then extends to other aspects of our lives—are we worthy of those good things which have come our way? Are we worthy of the love and care and kindness we have received in the world? Are we worthy of joy, forgiveness, beauty? All these gifts and more, poured out upon us in our earthly existence. Are we worthy of any of them?
My friend probably wouldn’t have made this connection, but the experience he had watching the Late Show mirrors somewhat the experiences we hear in all three of our scripture readings this morning. This feeling of unworthiness in the face of an overwhelming display of goodness is present first in Isaiah, the prophet of prophets. For when he is granted his vision into the heavenly heights he responds: “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King.” Then there’s Peter in our Gospel reading, still a fisherman not yet a disciple, whose nets Jesus fills to the point of bursting which causes him to fall to knees and exclaim, “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man!” And then of course, there’s Paul, who, in writing to the Corinthians, says about himself, “I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.”And yet, he says, Jesus appeared even to me. Isaiah, Peter, Paul, three of the most pivotal figures in the faith, all three of their ministries begin with being confronted by something so awesome, so amazing, so wonderful, that it highlights for them their unworthiness to receive it, and yet it is given to them all the same. This is grace. And it is Paul, being the Church’s first theologian, who gives it the name: “But by the grace of God, I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain.” You might say, that for all three of these men, the first and most important thing they ever learned in their life of faith, was that they existed in a state of grace. And that awareness served as the moment of their conversion; it was the thing that changed their life.
That is my story. I came to faith not as some people do, through robust religious instruction or through desperation or crisis. For me it was much more an awakening to all the good things in life, the successes, the love, the talents and abilities, the overwhelming sense of blessedness, the feeling of one’s heart and life being filled to bursting, like Peter’s nets. What had I done to receive such fullness? I was one sorely acquainted with my faults and failings, and they seemed to shine all the brighter in my own eyes as I looked around at the goodness and love which surrounded me. I was not worthy of any of it. And yet I had it all the same. I didn’t have the words to describe that realization as “grace,” but that’s precisely what it was. And it changed my life forever. Because once one understands that it is all a gift, unmerited and undeserved, what else could one hope to do but seek to honor it, live by it, show it to others; try, desperately to pay it back, even just a little.
That was what Isaiah, Peter, and Paul all did: their inner lives weren’t just changed by this realization that they existed in a state of grace. Their outer lives were too. They set about immediately sharing the gift of God’s goodness and love to all who would receive it and even those who would not. As soon as Peter and the others bring the boats to shore, “they left everything and followed Jesus.” As soon as Paul got back on the horse, he says he worked harder than any of the other disciples to proclaim this message so that more and more would come to believe. And as soon as Isaiah’s lips were touched with the angel’s coals, and the voice of the Lord calls out “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” he shouts, “Here am I; send me!” Grace, truly received, fully comprehended, compels a response. It is so powerful, so impactful, so revelatory, that we find ourselves moved to live by its principles: giving what is not deserved; sharing what is not asked for; loving what is not worthy.
When my friend and I had caught our breath, we stood quietly looking out on the winter woods. Morning was breaking. After a few moments he said, “And you know, I find myself wondering what should I do about it? What should I do with this gift? What could I ever do? And I realized I can’t ever repay it. How could you ever repay being alive, or being loved? I’m always going to be in that debt. But I guess the one thing I can do is try.” Did that make him a Christian now? I don’t know. But I do know he wouldn’t be able to look at his life the same way anymore, and so his life wouldn’t look the same anymore. And that’s what really matters. “I think that’s right,” I was finally able to squeak out. “I think that’s right.”