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The Good News Written
Isaiah 6.1-8 (Lamsa Translation)
1In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the [ETERNAL] sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, [with a] train [that] filled the temple. 2And above… stood the seraphim; each one had six wings… 3and one called to another, and said, “Holy, holy, holy is the [God] of hosts; the whole earth is full of [God’s] glory.” 4And the posts of the door shook at the voice of the one who called, and the house was filled with smoke. 5Then I said, “Woe is me. I am dismayed; for I have unclean lips, and I dwell among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the [Sovereign], the [Overseer] of hosts.” 6Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having a live coal in hand… 7and touched my mouth and said to me, “Lo, this has touched your lips; your iniquity is taken away, and your sins are forgiven.” 8And I heard the voice of the [ETERNAL] saying, “Whom shall I send…?” Then said I, “Here am I; send me.”
Luke 5.1-7. 10-11 (NIV)
1One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, with the people crowding around him and listening to the word of God, 2he saw at the water’s edge two boats… 3He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat.
4When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.”
5Simon answered, “[Teacher], we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.”
6When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. 7So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.
10…Then Jesus said… “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will catch [people].” 11So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him.
The Good News Proclaimed
Preached by the Reverend Doctor Durrell Watkins at the Sunshine Cathedral on Sunday, February 7, 2010.
I love that song, whether it’s sung by Bing Crosby or Doris Day or almost anyone…Would you like to swing on a star, carry moonbeams home in a jar, and be better off than you are, or would you rather be a fish?
Now in that song, the animals are meant to represent one not living up to one’s highest potential. Mules are stubborn, pigs are untidy, fish are slippery and shiftless, but each person can choose to be better than these characterizations, because, in truth, humans are innately better than these characterizations! One might make unwise choices and not live into one’s potential; one might appear mulish or piggy or fishy, but one always has the right and the option of being better by simply acknowledging one’s potential and making the most of it.
Interestingly, that is the message of scripture; it is certainly the message of Jesus. You are better than you think you are! (and, by the way, the person you don’t much care for is better than you think he or she is). You are better than your mistakes. You are better than your past. You are better than other people’s judgments of you. You are better than you have dared to believe. You may feel less than you really are, but your divine inheritance is to swing from a star, to carry moonbeams home in a jar.
The poetic symbolism of our scripture readings today gives us this same message. There are at least three contributors to the book of Isaiah, and the first of these “Isaiac” writers shares with us today a vision, a dream, a fantasy, an imaginative and creative story that tells us what our truth really is.
In the last year of King Uzziah’s reign, I saw the Eternal… Really? You saw divinity? You saw infinite Life? Ultimate Reality? Obviously, the writer is speaking symbolically… no one from a finite position could see Infinity! So he doesn’t know what cant’ be known; he doesn’t see what can’t be seen.
This Isaiah isn’t making the mistake we often make of trying to limit God to a book, or a denomination, or to maleness, or to any single idea… In fact, Isaiah is doing just the opposite. He isn’t limiting God at all… he is affirming human potential.
Of course from our limited perspective we can’t view the Limitless, eternal, and omnipresent Spirit! And yet he says, “I saw God.” Little ol’ me had an experience of God. I can’t know everything about God… but I can know what I experienced, and I can share that experience with the language and symbols available to me. Of course I didn’t really see the All-in-all, but I experienced the All-in-all IN ME! ME! Who am I to have such an experience? I’m one who did, that’s who.
The passage goes on to affirm this thought… telling us the WHOLE EARTH is full of divine glory… there’s not a spot where God is not… wherever WE are, God is and all is well.
But, religion or society has taught him that he is a tiny speck… a wretched sinner. But this so-called sinner has experienced God for himself, and has envisioned God as being everywhere… if God is in us and we are in God… if God is good and God is omnipresent… then isn’t God’s goodness our truth?
Still, it’s hard to grasp such a radically affirming notion, and so Isaiah falls back into default programming, “I’m unclean and everyone I know is unclean.” And an angel (a messenger) takes a coal from the symbolic purifying fire, and touches Isaiah’s mouth… the coal doesn’t burn him (it’s symbolic, imaginary coal after all), but it does in effect say, “Get over yourself! You’re fine. You’re in God. God’s in you. The light of God surrounds you; the love of God enfolds you. The power of God protects you; the presence of God watches over you. Wherever you are, God is, and all is well!!!” Not all is sinful or all is dirty or all is ugly or all is wretched or all is useless… NO… all is well. You’re fine. You’re OK. You’re good enough. Really. And finally, Isaiah gets it. “Send me! I’ll be the one to tell others this good news.”
Well, as powerful as that prophetic vision is for us today, the Gospel reading is also extremely exciting.
Like the Isaiah reading, the Gospel text is full of rich symbolism, and its message is most uplifting when we take the time to consider the powerful symbols.
The story begins at the Lake of Gennesaret… Gennesaret means royal garden or valley of riches. This whole story is set at a place that means nobility, that means splendor, that means abundant life! In fact, this story isn’t about something that happened once at some lake… this story is about what can happen right here and right now in the Sea of divine Life… the Sea that is ours to fish in whenever we choose.
Next we find Jesus getting into a boat. Is he being anti-social and running from the crowds, or is this another symbol? what do boats do? Boats buoy us up. They keep us afloat. They keep us safe from the elements… they keep us from going under, from drowning. If you ever feel overwhelmed, get in the boat and sail out into the Sea of divine Life.
Which boat does he choose? Simon’s boat. Simon, the Rock, Simon Peter. Charles Fillmore understood each of the 12 Apostles to represent a spiritual quality, and Peter, he insisted, represented faith. Jesus gets into the boat of faith, the boat of trust, the boat of knowing that all is well, and he pushes out into the sea of divine life. And in the boat of faith in the sea of divine life, he’s centered, he’s poised, he’s aware of the divine presence and the truth of who he is and who all people are… and so he sits down (a symbol of being comfortable with himself), and he begins to teach. What’s he teaching? Maybe how to be comfortable with yourself. How to trust your own goodness. How to let the boat of faith in the sea of divine life keep you safe and well.
Jesus then tells Simon to drop his nets in deeper water. They’ve not been catching much doing things the way they’ve always done them. They are following the traditional way of fishing, but the old ways are no longer serving them well… but they keep rehashing the old traditions rather than trying something new. Jesus says cast your nets in deeper waters.
What do nets do… they catch, snare, collect… our minds are like nets… they collect ideas, attitudes, viewpoints… to cast our mental net deeper is to find that we can collect more spiritual security, more spiritual abundance. It may seem new, scary, even blasphemous to think in new ways, to go a little deeper, but look at the results when one is willing to try!
That’s what Isaiah was saying. That’s what Luke is saying. Go deeper. Go deeper than feeling small. Go deeper than feeling like a wretched sinner. Go deeper than shame, guilt, fear, regret, hatred, prejudice, go deeper than self-loathing… Go deeper. Cast your nets in deeper waters, and when you do, you’ll have better results in your spiritual life!
Luke, remember, says in Acts that it’s in God that we live and move and have our being! He attributes those words to Paul who is quoting the Greek poet Epimenides. But even before he reminds us in Acts that the goodness of God is the atmosphere in which we live, he tells us that same thing in Luke chapter 5. Luke is saying that God is the Sea of divine life, and as we cast our nets deeper into that living and life-giving flow of Abundance, we will draw out more joy, more hope, more peace, more enthusiasm, more, more, more! Until the nets of our previous thinking, our limited and limiting thinking will begin to break… the old thoughts won’t hold all the good that God has in store for us when we start to think in new ways… when we cast our nets in deeper waters!
Finally Jesus says today, “Don’t be afraid. From now on you will catch people.” Now that you know how to free yourselves from the past, from the beliefs that said you were sinful, unworthy, limited… Now that you have learned that it is in the Omnipresence of divine Goodness that you live and move and have your being, now that you’ve learned that the divine Sea of Life has unlimited abundance if you will just let yourself go deeper into the mystery instead of clinging to the dogma and the tradition, now that you have learned that you are more than you thought you were and can do more than you’ve done so far, you don’t need to be afraid… and your fearless, optimistic, loving example will attract people to you who need to discover what you have discovered!
And so they left all their old, limiting, fearful beliefs behind, and followed the empowering, affirming way of Jesus.
So you see it’s already true…
You’re better than you think you are;
Soon you’ll be swinging on a star!
This is the good news. Amen.
The Good News Affirmed
Today I’m going deeper.
I’m loving more deeply.
I’m hoping more deeply.
I’m living more deeply.
I’m experiencing more Goodness.
And I am deeply grateful.
Amen.
The Good News Repeated
“God didn’t have time to make a nobody, only a somebody. I believe that each of us has God-given talents within us waiting to be brought to fruition.” Mary Kay Ash
Audio readings and sermon (http://sunshinecathedral.org/sermons/audio/20100207_1.mp3)
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