The Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany

​Are you going to watch the Super Bowl today? A young man was very excited because he just won a ticket to the Super Bowl. His excitement lessened as he realized his seat was in the back of the stadium. As he searched the rows ahead of him for a better seat, he found an empty one right next to the field.


Approaching the man sitting next to the empty seat, he asked if it was taken. The man replied, "No.” Amazed, the young man asked, "How could someone pass up a seat like this?"


The older gentleman responded, "That's my wife's seat. We've been to every Super Bowl together since the day we were married, but she passed away."
 
"Oh, how sad," the man said. "I'm sorry to hear that, but couldn't you find a friend or relative to come with you?"
    
“No," the man said, "They're all at the funeral."
 
Some people can get a little obsessive about the Super Bowl!
 
This is an exciting time at Emmanuel. A call has been made to and accepted by Fr. Zack Guiliano. It’s been quite a process. First, the Vestry established a Search Committee and then the Committee had to put together a parish profile and register the position with the Office for Transition Ministry of the Episcopal Church. They began to gather names of people who were interested. The persons had to be priests in the Anglican Communion, which meant that they had to have gone through the extensive process of study and gaining approval from many people at the parish and diocesan levels, a process that takes several years; and some years of experience in ordained ministry was also necessary.

All of the candidates completed a detailed application, including what they believed about certain things. They sent the application to the diocese, and then the Bishop decided what candidates he would allow the Committee to look at. Then the committee went through all of the applications, and decided what candidates were close enough to our parish profile to warrant looking at.

There were Zoom interviews of the finalists with the Search Committee and Vestry, visits to the candidates in their own parishes, and then visits by the candidates and their spouses to Emmanuel. All of the references had to be called. Finally, when the Search Committee was finished with its work, it sent the finalists to the Vestry, and the Vestry had to decide what two candidates were at the top of their list and who their top choice was, take those names to the bishop, and then he gave his final approval. As you know, they actually went through this process twice.

At the end of the second process, the Senior Warden contacted Fr. Zack, told him that they would like to call him to be the next Rector, and he accepted. Then all the details had to be worked out, including background checks and so on.
 
It’s especially appropriate to talk about this today because the theme in all of the readings is God’s call. In the first reading, God calls Isaiah. “In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up…” Isaiah’s response to that revelation was a total feeling of unworthiness. “Woe is me, for I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.” To that response, a seraphim took a hot coal from the altar, touched Isaiah’s lips, and God told Isaiah that his guilt was taken away and his sins forgiven. Then the Lord said, “Whom shall I send?” And Isaiah responded, “Here I am, send me.”
 
In the Gospel, Jesus’ reputation as a great teacher and healer had spread among the people and a crowd had gathered to hear him. They were by a lake, and so to get a position where he could be heard he got into one of Peter’s boats and taught from the boat. After speaking, he told Peter to let down his nets for a catch. Peter expressed doubt about the wisdom of doing that because they had fished all night to no avail. But he went ahead and let down the nets and they had such a catch of fish that the boats could barely contain them. Peter then knew he was in the presence of God in some way through this man Jesus. And what was Peter’s response? Unworthiness – just like Isaiah. “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” And then, also like Isaiah, the revelation was followed by a call: “Do not be afraid; henceforth you will be catching people” Luke tells us that when they got “their boats to land, they left everything and followed him.”
 
Both the call of Isaiah and the call of Peter were pre-resurrection calls. The last one was post-resurrection: the call of Paul, which we heard about in I Corinthians. Paul tells how Jesus died for our sins, how he was buried, and how on the third day he was raised from the dead. He also recounted the fact that the resurrected Jesus appeared to Peter, whom he refers to as Cephas, then to the twelve, and finally to some 500 witnesses, then to James and the other apostles. Finally, he appeared to Paul. What was Paul’s response? Unworthiness to receive that revelation. “For I am the least of all the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God,” says Paul. As a result, Paul took up the cause of Christ and became an apostle. And what an apostle! Through his efforts, the Christian faith was spread throughout the Roman Empire. Paul became known for all time as the Apostle to the Gentiles.
 
Isaiah, Peter, Paul: All of them were unworthy recipients of divine favor, yet all felt a vocation, and it was God who gave them first forgiveness and then the ability to do what God called them to do. When Fr. Zack gets here, perhaps he will tell you how he has experienced God’s call, and without knowing the specifics, I imagine it will fit that pattern in one way or another.  
 
Does this call process happen only to a few select people—that is, to the ordained? No, it happens to all of the baptized, whether we recognize it or not. If you’ve been baptized, then you’ve been given the gift of God’s Spirit. When you come up to this altar to receive the Body and Blood of Christ, you’ll take into your bodies anew the presence of God. I’m fairly certain that if God becomes present in a person’s life, then he also gives that person a task to assist him in the work of his kingdom. What’s your vocation?