I’ve Made You Worthy

Homily for February 7, 2016 (5th Sunday in Ordinary Time)

Isaiah 6:1-2a, 3-8; Psalm 138; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11; Luke 5:1-11

 

Later today, over 100 million people here in the USA and tens of millions more worldwide will watch Super Bowl L (50) as the Carolina Panthers take on the Denver Broncos.  The game features two of the NFL’s best defenses.  It also features two excellent quarterbacks—Cam Newton for the Panthers and Peyton Manning for the Broncos.

At first glance, Newton and Manning seem very different.  Newton is his mid-20's,  part of a new generation of quarterbacks who scramble and run almost as effectively as they pass, and is known for his elaborate and entertaining touchdown celebratiosn.  Manning is 39, not nearly as flashy or mobile, and is more of a classic pocket passer.  Yet what they have in common is more significant:  both are winners and both help make the players around them better. 

God has that same capacity, but on an even greater and eternal scale.  We see in today’s scripture readings how God makes Isaiah, Paul and Peter ready for work that they never thought possible because of their human weakness.  Especially in this Year of Mercy, we are called to have faith that God can do the same with us. 

Beholding a vision of God, Isaiah felt unworthy. He exclaimed, "I am a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips!"  Yet God made him worthy, purifying not only his lips but his entire being with a hot ember.  So when God asked, "Whom shall I send?" to serve as a prophet for Israel during a time when it was threatened by enemies from without and its own infidelities from within, Isaiah was able to answer, "Here I am; send me!"  God enabled Isaiah to receive his call.

Similarly, St. Paul in reminding the church at Corinth of the gospel he preached to them, called himself "the least of the apostles" and unfit for the minstry because he had once persecuted the church.  "But," he added, "by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me has not been ineffective." God enabled Paul to fulfill his calling to be perhaps the greatest missionary the church has ever known.

After a particularly fruitless and wearying night of fishing, St. Peter responded to Jesus' exhortation to go out into deeper water and was overwhelmed by a catch so abundant that he needed help to bring it in.  Even more overwhelmed by this sign of grace, Peter implored Jesus, "Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man."  But instead of leaving him, Jesus told him, "Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching [people]."  Drawn by his experience of grace, Peter "left everything and followed him."  Jesus enabled Peter to share in his mission.

Like Isaiah, Paul and Peter, may we not dwell on our human weaknesses or unworthiness as sinners but instead embrace with joy the graces that we have received and respond in faith, hope and resolution to lovingly fulfill our own vocations. God has told us:  “I’ve made you worthy.  Be who I’ve created you to be; and do what I’ve called you to do.” +