Message: All our labour, God’s presence
Have you ever answered the phone, and someone started talking and you have not been able to figure out who is calling or even why they called you?
I know I have had a few calls happen that way in reverse, when I have been stopped midsentence for someone to ask me who I am. I often say when I phone, it’s the minister or I give my full name and designation (depends on the type of phone call what designation I give – job or relationship). When we make phone calls, contact people, we are the ones who know who we are, who we are contacting and why we are contacting the other person. On the receiving end, all that information is unknown to them until such a time as it is revealed to them. Even then it is fuzzy or foggy as to the why behind the call or the information sought or shared.
Visions and callings often (not always) do not have the vivid imagery of Isaiah’s vision in chapter six or explicit detail and directness of Luke’s telling of Jesus calling the first disciples from their fishing boats.
For many of us we do what we do, day-by-day, often without a sense or vision of a bright vivid vision of why we do what we do, except for the fact ‘it’ needs done and we have the ability or even just the willingness to ‘do it’ – whatever the it is. Something needs to be done, it is our job or we are paid to do it, or the responsibility falls upon us, and so we get to it. Our daily labours, our daily tasks and even sometimes the out of the ordinary labour fall into the mundane and necessary tasks of life. We often do what needs to be done with little thought to why or for what purpose.
The fishermen of Jesus’s day were casting their nets over a long night. Their labours had been fruitless, and the time of prime fishing was well past, and then Jesus showed up and speaks to them. A teacher, a carpenter, an unknown to them personally asks to use their boat to teach the crowd and then calls them to go back out into the deep waters to cast their nets once more – a teacher and carpenter telling fishermen to go fishing.
Something in the teaching, something about the teacher encouraged Peter against his experience and all his hard labour to give it a go even in his weariness to cast out once more because Jesus said so, and a miraculous catch ensues. Peter doesn’t feel worthy of what has occurred. Peter knows himself ill-prepared for what might come next. Peter and the others fishing do not fully understand what and where Jesus is calling them (and equipping them through God’s presence). What they knew in that moment was a bit fuzzy, there were a lot of unknowns and questions, however something special in the calling gave them faith and hope in what could be coming for them. The vision of the catch of fish and the call to fish for people showed them what their labours could produce with God’s presence and their faith in the process and journey.
Something in the presence speaks to them of the holiness before them. Jesus inspires and challenges them to experience what God is up to right there and then and what God could do in their lives going forward. Peter and the others who were fishing that day would have had the cultural understanding of what it meant to be one called by God, one who had a calling from God, because they would have heard and known of the prophets and holy people from centuries before like Isaiah. The visions and prophesies passed down through the holy texts of the prophets and history of God’s presence and challenge to the people to walk in God’s way would have been real in their lives, even if they were not the whole reality of how they lived. They knew their lives and ways were not wholly holy and that they could not hold a torch up to the holiness of the prophets like Isaiah (whom Jesus had quoted in Luke chapter 4). And even though Isaiah himself could not see himself as holy enough to be called by God in what we hear in Isaiah chapter 6, he allowed God’s presence, in vision and in the ritual cleansing with the coal to purify him and guide his words and ways to inspire and call back a wayward people – those who needed to hear God’s calling and recognise God’s presence among them.
Today’s world is filled with calls and things crying out for our attention. Often, we become overwhelmed with the demands and pulls of the world’s ways, we lose the ability or the understanding or even the desire to hear God’s calling among us, to notice God’s presence for our days. I don’t know how God will call out to you in the stirrings of faithfulness as you go about your life. I do not know if you will have an awe-inspiring vision like Isaiah or many others who have seen wonders and been filled with awe of God’s holiness and presence. I do know Jesus through the gift of the Holy Spirit and the stirring in our lives calls us to follow him, to cast out nets (or be faithful in our daily tasks), to trust God’s holiness when we know our own shortcomings and struggles (seek forgiveness and God’s strength).
And if you should ever feel like Peter, weary from your own labours and well out of your depth, remember Jesus called and enabled an imperfect fisherman who was willing to learn, willing to change, and willing to be seen as foolish on which to build the gathering of the faithful that we are a part of today.
May our labours, whatever they be, remind us of God’s presence even in the washing of the nets, the standing in the holy places, the walking through everyday life. May we allow God to connect with us so we may hear and know in our hearts God’s calling for us even if we would rather believe ourselves unworthy or ill-equipped.
Racial Justice Sunday prayer:
https://ctbi.org.uk/prayers/
Most Merciful God,
We thank you that you are a God of justice who is active in the world,
We praise you that your word has the power to change lives,
We believe that you redeem and restore the victims of injustice And we recognise that as Christians, we are to embrace the biblical call to do justice.
Lord, your word says that we are all made in your image and loved by you, yet we live in a world in which sadly, injustice is manifested in ways that are harmful and damaging to so many, especially the most marginalised.
As your people, help us to be mindful that racism is contrary to biblical teaching because it denies basic justice and human dignity. What is more, it is sinful because it assumes all are not equal before you and are not part of your family. Help us also to remember that all who fail to challenge racism in church or society are guilty of condoning or colluding with sinful behaviour.
So, by the power of your Holy Spirit, give us, as your people, the courage to stand up for what is just and right, and against sinful attitudes and behaviours that fail to treat all people with the respect and dignity they deserve, as men and women created in your likeness. Just as you are the Alpha and Omega, a God of the past, present and future, help us to remember the lessons of the past, and apply them to the present, so that our future will be a world in which justice, equity, peace and love preside.
This we ask in Jesus’ name, Amen!
Prayers from Roots online resource:
A gathering prayer
Holy God, we gather to worship you in all your glory.
Fill this place with your Holy Spirit and help us
to see more of who you really are.
Come, meet us and prepare us to do your will.
Amen.
A prayer of approach
We stand before you, God, to worship you.
We stand, not as fishermen on the shore,
but as a gathered group of people
who have felt you tugging at our heart,
who have heard you and sensed you calling us
to love you and our neighbour as ourselves.
Amen.
A prayer of confession and forgiveness
Holy God, we know that on our own we fail and fall,
falter and stumble, but we know that with you we can be better.
You call us to be the best we can be, and we know we have failed.
We confess those failings and seek your forgiveness (silence).
Our holy God has heard our confession,
felt our pain, knows our desires, has forgiven us,
renewed us, freed us, refreshed us.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Prayers of intercession
Compassionate God we bring to you in our prayers those whose calling sends them to places of danger.
We remember those in our emergency services and those around the world who are first at traffic accidents, at plane crashes and crime scenes.
We pray for those responding to the shootings in Orebro in Sweden, for the injured and bereaved.
Lord be with them
We pray for all who search for those missing at sea or on mountains or under rubble, for those who fight fires, for all who witness and deal with catastrophic injuries and loss of life.
Lord be with them
We pray for those whose calling sends them to places of desperation:
For aid workers and medics working where there is hunger and starvation. Especially we remember the people of Sudan, Syria, Yemen, Gaza and all those living in refugee camps around the world.
And for journalists and reporters on the front line.
Lord be with them
We pray for those in the armed forces of their nation, for veterans struggling to adapt to civilian life, and for all with PTSD.
Lord be with them
We pray for those whose calling is to remain in their local communities to serve together, worship together and to be people of faith, hope and integrity.
We pray for those exploring a vocation in your Church, for those whose responsibility it is to discern vocations, and for those called to shape the future of your Church.
Lord be with them
We pray for young people who face decisions about careers and study choices.
Lord be with them
We pray for those who feel overwhelmed by the enormity of their calling.
Those whose love of their work is slowly slipping away. Those whose energy has run out.
Those who feel they have no gifts that can be used.
Lord be with them
We pray for those whose work has sent them to places where they are unhappy, exploited or a long way from family.
Lord be with them
We pray for one another and those we know who are low on confidence and for those who feel they have lost their role in life and their sense of purpose, through age or illness or a change of circumstances.
Lord be with them and us today and everyday
In Jesus' name. Amen
A sending out prayer
Almighty God, you have given us a fresh glimpse
of your glory and majesty.
We are not worthy to walk with you,
but you have made us clean.
Send us out, in the power of your Holy Spirit,
to speak your words and to show your love. Amen.
A prayer for all ages together
Lord, you fill the world with your glory.
Lord, you fill the world with life and love.
Thank you for the world, Lord,
for the high mountains,
for the deep seas.
Lord, you fill the world with your glory.
Lord, you fill the world with life and love.
Thank you for the flying things:
for birds and butterflies and bats.
Thank you for the swimming things:
for fish and whales.
Thank you for the crawling things:
for centipedes and worms and snails.
Lord, you fill the world with your glory.
Lord, you fill the world with life and love.
Thank you for our homes and families:
for friends, for all the people we love,
for all the people who love us.
Lord, you fill the world with your glory.
Lord, you fill the world with life and love:
Lord, you are so great
that just the hem of your robe fills the Temple.
Thank you, Lord, that in your greatness you notice each one of us;
in your greatness you love each one of us.
Lord, you fill the world with your glory.
Lord, you fill the world with life and love.
Thank you, Lord, for filling the earth with your glory.
Thank you, Lord for filling the earth with your life and love. Amen