Reflection on the Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

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

Today’s readings — the Isaiah reading and the section from Luke’s Gospel — present us with two people, Isaiah and Peter, at the very beginning of what will involve them deeply and completely for the rest of their lives. They are face-to-face, so to speak, with the Holy, with the presence of God, with the Holy One.

Isaiah writes up his own story for future generations. Luke had probably heard the story of Peter’s first meeting with Jesus, along with other stories of how the Twelve met the Master.

Isaiah says he “saw the Holy One” on a high throne. The scene is extraordinary! Two huge creatures — angels? dragons? serpents? — with six wings dominate the scene.  There’s smoke — a cloud in the Hebrew Scriptures often indicates God’s presence.  The Holy is wearing some kind of robe with a long train that fills the area where Isaiah is. No wonder Isaiah seems frightened. “Who am I to look upon the Holy One?,” he says. Then one of the creatures with wings touches Isaiah’s lips with a live coal to take away all his sins. Immediately, Isaiah is open to hear God’s word. He hears a question.  God is pondering, wondering, whom can I send? Isaiah has experienced God’s cleansing mercy in the heat and fire of the ember the angel had touched to his lips.  Only moments before he was saying, “Woe is me, I am doomed!” Now he responds, “Here I am, send me!”

Simon Peter’s encounter with the presence of the Holy is not quite so dramatic as Isaiah’s. He and his companions are back on shore after a long night of work with no fish to show for it. He probably knows something of Jesus. As Luke tells it, Jesus had cured Simon’s mother-in-law some time earlier. Fishermen probably didn’t have crowds waiting for them on the beach when they came back in of a morning so today was different from the usual.  

Meanwhile, the crowds are gathering and Jesus is between them and the water.  Perhaps to avoid getting wet, Jesus gets into one of the two boats he has spotted on the shore and asks the man in it to take him out a ways. We know the story: Let down your nets. Huge catch. Others help. Lots of fish. A moment of realization for Simon Peter, as for Isaiah. No throne here, no clouds of smoke, no seraphs or angels — only lots and lots of fish and this man Jesus. But lots and lots of fish are life to Simon. Bread and butter on the table, sustenance for the family. Besides, Simon knows fishing and Jesus doesn’t. So how did this happen? No wonder Simon Peter seems frightened. No wonder he and his companions were overwhelmed. Who is this before me? Falling on his knees, he says, “Leave me, Lord.” He changes his way of addressing Jesus from Master that he had used before, to what we translate as Lord: Kyrie in the Greek — that word that carries with it something of the divine presence. No smoke, no angels, no throne, but here they are amid the fish. 

Simon falls to his knees in front of Jesus. “I am sinful,” he says. Jesus ignores him.  Jesus has no ember or fire with which to touch Simon, but God’s mercy flows into Simon with Jesus’ words, “Do not be afraid; from now on it is people you will catch.”  Simon and his companions, as Luke recounts, “left everything and followed” Jesus.

So, what about us? Few of us find God’s presence on a throne, or with angels or clouds of smoke, and hardly with fish — but maybe for a few — Gabriel Mason? Yet we each have our moments of God’s catching us unawares or of God’s presence revealing itself in an unlikely event. In that moment, God may ask something, or it may become clear what we must do next. It is for us to let ourselves be washed with that mercy, to let God’s acceptance flow into us, to say, “Here I am.”