Lectionary for Feb. 9, 2025
Fifth Sunday after Epiphany
Isaiah 6:1-8; Psalm 138;
1 Corinthians 15:1-11; Luke 5:1-11
Immanuel Kant once said, “Out of timber so crooked as that from which humans are made, nothing entirely straight can be built.” For me, this has been a meaningful quote throughout my life, and one of the reasons that I put my hope in God rather than in human-led movements. For this reason, I insist that “Lutheran” must always be an adjective modifying the noun “Christian.” Martin Luther had great insights, to be sure. But he also spoke and wrote in ways that have caused injury and death over the centuries. We dare not follow human leaders as faultless or perfect. After all, we are simultaneously saints and sinners! At the same time, if God refused to include imperfect people in the kingdom of heaven, there would be no other kind of people left.
This week’s lectionary readings offer three reflections of humans whom God called despite their imperfections.
In the true beginning of Isaiah’s scroll (I argue that the preceding five chapters have been prologue), the prophet was launched into the heavenly throne room and beheld aspects of the divine. Isaiah was under that common human misapprehension that no one may see God and live—though Scripture bears witness to many who saw God at least partially and lived. Isaiah reflected that he was a man of unclean lips and lived among a similarly afflicted people (Isaiah 6:5). Yet, Isaiah is not incinerated as if he were Nadav and Abihu bringing strange fire to God. Instead, a coal from the heavenly altar is brought to touch holy fire to his lips. God solves the problem by touching the unholy with the holy.
Jesus is a carpenter. If we will surrender ourselves to be reshaped for use in the kingdom of heaven, Jesus will form and fashion us into temples for God’s Spirit.
Years later, Jesus had a problem that he wanted Simon Peter to solve. Jesus was surrounded by the crowds that pressed in on all sides to hear him. Seeing some unattended boats, he called for the captain to put to sea so he could address the crowds on the shore while having a little personal distance. Peter, who had been cleaning his nets and not listing to Jesus, obliged and put his boat a little way offshore.
At the conclusion of his sermon, Jesus wanted to do something for the fisherman who had helped him so much. He orchestrated a divine overabundance of fish that threatened to drown Peter unless he received help from his mates in a second boat. Peter knew the danger he was in from this miracle-worker (Luke 5:7-8). He asked Jesus to go away, because he knew himself to be a sinner. But Jesus brushed aside Peter’s concern, telling him that he would now catch humans instead of fish. Jesus solves the problem by changing an unholy life to be holy.
Still later, Paul reflected on his calling. A resurrected Jesus appeared to his disciples, whom he had known for years. Later, he appeared to his brother James, the head of the Jerusalem church, and others. And last—and least!—Jesus appeared to Paul (1 Corinthians 15:8). He was wasn’t to be called an apostle, because he breathed threats and murder against those who were faithful to Jesus. But the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of humans, and Paul labored in Jesus through the grace of God. A murderer would become one of the principal apostles of the Prince of Peace, who put the power of death to death. Jesus solves the problem by making the unholy to be holy.
What does this mean? A good friend recently asked how the Jesus who winnows and burns in Luke 3 can also redeem and save in the rest of the Gospel. It is a good question. I think it has to do with the attitude of the humans. When confronted with the holy, we have two options: the first is to do as Isaiah, Peter and Paul by admitting our sinfulness and need for transformation. The second option is to do nothing, that is, to go on, unchanged by our encounter with the divine.
This second path is the default for most humans. Moses could have turned aside to see the burning bush, or he could have continued on with the sheep and done nothing. As Kant observed, humanity is crooked timber by nature. But Jesus is a carpenter. If we will surrender ourselves to be reshaped for use in the kingdom of heaven, Jesus will form and fashion us into temples for God’s Spirit.
