by The Rev. Dr. Max Lynn
SCRIPTURE READINGS Isaiah 6:1-8, 1 Corinthians 15:1-11, Luke 5:1-11
Transcribed from the sermon preached on FEBRUARY 9, 2025
I remember when one summer a visitor to town came to church. He was taking an acting class at Cal in his retirement. He told us he had been a prosecuting attorney for ICE. I thought, here is the opposition. Not Fred, he said, hey, I’m so glad you came, we could use your help with our refugee’s case. He did help and he was so touched by the story, when he returned to his church, he worked to get them to help as well. Bounty hunter for grace.
Today we get three different stories of conversion experiences. Isaiah, Paul, and Peter or Peter, James and John.
Isaiah is a priest in the 8th Century BCE and preaches during the reigns of Jeroboam and Uzziah. The two kings had consolidated wealth in the hands of a few, increasing production but hurting the poor.
Bob Coote in his book Power, Politics and the Making of the Bible describes the social context:
“Specialization of production destroyed the diversification of agriculture upon which villages in the higher lands depended for livelihood. Forced by heavy taxation on grain into cultivation of perennial cash crops, grapes and olives, bananas in Guatemala in the fifties under American United fruit company, farmers could no longer practice field rotation, fallowing, planting legumes to restore nutrients in the soil, or raising livestock. Meanwhile villagers were forced to encumber their land as collateral for loans at exorbitant rates. To feed themselves and their families, villagers then had to bring inferior marginal land into grain production, on which they got less food for more work and higher cost. Struggling with inexorable debt and taxes, small landholders lost what little land they had, and an increasing number became wage laborers and debt slaves and immigrated.”
This is my most frequent Bob Coote quote. Not only because it describes the context for the prophets of 8th century scripture, but it tells us something about common trends in agrarian agriculture.
So, this is the context for Isaiah’s come to God moment. His nation whose origin story tells of a God of liberation is now forgotten what it was supposed to be about. Isaiah is a temple priest serving the elite. He is in the temple and suddenly has a profound awe filled experience of being in the presence of God. Before the Holy, Holy, Holy God he sees his own complicity in this society that is devastating the poor. Woe is me! He says, I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among the people of unclean lips. Finally recognizing this sinful situation and his part in it, Isaiah feels ashamed and guilty: Woe is me. He must be doomed. He must be damned.
Now in Isaiah’s vision one of the seraphs, a creature with six wings flies up with a hot coal and burns the uncleanliness from his lips. This is the moment of what we might call salvation. Isaiah is cleansed of his sin; he experiences the grace of God. A new beginning.
So now what? Well God needs a spokesperson, “Whom shall I send? God needs a volunteer. And Isaiah says, “Here I am Lord, send me!”
Now in I Cor 15, Paul is reflecting back on his own conversion experience. I think he is trying to show certain Corinthians that even though he started out as a scum bag persecuting the church, he should nevertheless be considered as one on the list of who the risen Christ appeared to, and a harder worker than any of them, and so an authority to be listened to now. It is notable that unlike the Gospels, his list doesn’t include the women witnesses.
But for my purpose today, I won’t go too much into the text. I’m just noting that God saves and calls sinners who have at first appeared and personally felt unworthy. We might note however, that if God’s grace is sufficient for a priest among the ruling elite as the poor suffer and starve, and someone who has been a bounty hunter of followers of Jesus, then those who have been made to feel less than and left out by Paul’s testimony and perhaps at times some of us other male preachers with unclean lips, then you should rest assured that God’s grace is sufficient for you too. So, when we hear that God needs a spokesperson, and someone to preach justice to the arrogant and grace to the downtrodden, and you know the feeling, the experience, the power of God’s grace to both humble and cleanse, to convict and forgive, the Spirit and inspiration will lead you to stand up and say, Here I am Lord, send me!
So back a few years ago when refugees and immigrants were sitting across the border in Mexico with no food or shelter, and God put out a call to show that the Christ who said, “blessed are the poor” and whose miracle fed thousands was still alive and well, Anne, Amanda, Elizabeth, Diana, Kacki and Feliciana said, here I am Lord, send me.
Now we do not know the back story to why exactly Peter falls down and confesses “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinner.” We just know that he Andrew, James and John are just regular working-class fishermen who are struggling to make a living and to put food on the table. While we might expect a degree of deference due to uneducated, lower-class status, the power of the response by Peter would indicate there is something, or several things about him or his actions which have led him to feel guilty.
Now it is interesting to me that forgiveness is only implied. “Don’t be afraid Simon, for now you will be catching people.” Jesus doesn’t demand he accept some doctrine first. Peter’s humility is enough. Join the community and start doing the work, then the knowledge and doctrine will come alive. By grace and miracle, we are invited, filled. We are amazed, we feel blessed and saved, and we want to join in.
A bill is before the State of Mississippi to pay bounty hunters to hunt down undocumented immigrants. It would pay $1,000 for each immigrant turned in. Now we might disagree on how much government spending should be cut, or from where, but we should all agree on separation of powers and check and balances. We might disagree on how many immigrants should be allowed, but we all ought to agree that turning civilian neighbor against neighbor is a dangerous thing. Such a bill would turn poor person against poor person, neighbor against neighbor. It invokes traumatic memory of both Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany, along with bounty hunters for escaped slaves in Mississippi and Trevon Martin.
My first thought in watching all this stuff come forward is, Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips.
But then I start to think that perhaps there is another kind of bounty hunter needed. Fishers of people, bounty hunters for grace.
A few weeks ago, in Deacons we talked about helping out Gamil, Refca and the kids while they got adjusted to being home with their new beautiful daughter Marvy, who has had some complications. So, Julia went fishing for people: and Lynne, Elizabeth, Claudia, Manju and Tami, Mark and others dropped off food. Julia is not checking for credentials, not waiting for confession of creed, not doing a background check on past mistakes or sins, race or sexual identify. “Be not afraid Peter, now you will be a fisher of people.”
And we know this business of being Bounty Hunter’s for grace and fishers of people can be passed down to the next generation, indeed from Peter, Mary, Martha and James and John down to us.
In 1940 the Nazis invaded Holland. At first, they just put Jews out of work. But by 1942 they told the Jews they would be shipped East for work. But since nobody who went East wrote letters back home, they suspected the worst. Now it was war time and people were starving. So, the Nazis told people they would get a bounty of a pound of sugar for every Jew they turned in.
Now Julia’s father had been working with a Jewish man, and when they told Jews they could no longer work, the two men worked in secret making fur coats. Then they decided to say that his friend was his brother who had come from out of town, to have them take their star off and come live with them. They forged documents, but unable to fake a thumb print, they couldn’t get a ration card for food. So, Julia’s family shared their rations, and they made up for it by selling fur coats on the black market. The Jewish couple’s child didn’t look like them, so they went fishing for people to adopt him. The caught some Christians who adopted him. The little boy couldn’t go outside for three years. Julia’s family kept their secret for more than three years when the United States, a nation whose origin story spoke for equality, freedom and democracy, and other allies helped liberate them. After the war, they tried the Nazi spies and made them shave their heads so people would know who they were. There were spies living across the street. When ambassador of Israel in Holland gave Julia’s father and mother the medal for righteous gentiles, he asked why he helped the Jews? He said, “If I am going to die, I am going to die for the right reason.” Sounds like Jesus.
Now we are not there yet, but we don’t want to be. Maybe you haven’t been perfect, feel unworthy. And certainly, we are all sinful, in need of God’s grace. And I pray you know and feel the amazing grace of God cleansing you right now, as powerfully as seraphs flying down to touch your lips with a coal. God offers that grace, and then the subject changes from your sin to God’s call. Isaiah becomes a prophet of justice. Paul, a bounty hunter for Christians becomes a bounty hunter for grace. And Peter, well, we don’t know what his issues were, but now he is a fisher of people. Come on board, let’s go out into deep water and throw out some nets.